Stupidity TV

Via Asian age

Lucknow local stands a few votes from stardom

One of the most pernicious imports in recent times Reality TV to be more specific Reality based music competitions.

Before they become democratized these Music shows were entertaining to watch.

Sa Re Ga Ma on Zee was a show appreciated for its presentation as well as talent.

For people like me who didn't have access to cable Meri Awaz Suno on DD was one of the better shows.
The programs showcased the musical talent of participants rather than X factor.

However since present format of voting by public got introduced, it is going downhill.

To quote from above news report

" .... There are no elections round the corner but posters saying "Vote for Vinit" are up all over the Uttar Pradesh capital. The scroll on cable networks now has no room for advertisements — it is "Vote for Vinit" all the way.
Meetings are being organised in local degree colleges to muster support for him. Government employees, shopkeepers and teachers can be seen furiously working on their cellphones to the best-known destination — 7575. Even the Valentine messages this year have come with a tag line: "Vote for Vinit".
Lucknow suddenly seems to have woken up to its newest talent — 17-year-old Vinit Singh — who is just a whisker away from the winning post in Zee TV’s reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa.
Vinit, a Class 12 student from Lucknow’s Rajajipuram locality, is one of the two finalists in the Zee TV show. Hailing from a modest background, this young boy is pitted against Debojit from Assam, who is allegedly being supported by Ulfa.
"We have heard that Ulfa has asked people in the Northeast to support Debojit and suddenly there were 30 lakh votes in his favour. We do not know the truth but we do know that despite being a versatile singer, Vinit needs votes to emerge a winner. Earlier, we thought that he would reach the winning post on the strength of his talent alone, but it is the votes that also apparently matter. Hence we are going all out to seek votes for him," says Aarushi Khanna, an intermediate student who lives in Vinit’s neighbourhood ......."

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa has been in news earlier because of tiff between various judges and alleged threats to Producers from ULFA. There was an article in rediff which covered this issue.
The article in questioned the motive behind displaying the number of votes received by Debojit from North East and implied there was prejudice involved. I think it was more a case of whipping popular interest by making things interesting than a prejudice.

This is ofcourse a result of the abomination called Indian Idol (I wish Sony will stop copying phirangees program). Although I do claim to be fastidious, yet the participant in Indian Idol make me throw up.

Here I will not even say anything about Fame Gurukul.

I have seen this program (Sa Re Ga Ma Pa ) only once and happened to listen to Debojit and I enjoyed his performance. I have never watched the performance of the other guy though.

However while raising such regional fervour is good for popularity of program, it just defeats the purpose of holding Musical progams, which is to appreciate musical talent.

I come from Lucknow (proudly if I may so), and am behind no one in plugging for Lucknow.
However, I do not understand why my love for Lucknow should extend to unrelated areas like Musical shows.Similarly for North East.

Let the best singer win immaterial of he/she is a Punjabi or Madrasi or Gujrati or whatever.