Indian Idle. Review on Indian Idol II

Forgive me but this time it’s not going to be the debate on whether a TV program can judge the Indian idol. We can’t be so naïve to go ahead and think that the name “Indian Idol” really implies that the winner is the true idol for the country. Please, even five year olds know that “chor police” isn’t about thieves and cops.

I’m not saying that you’re naïve. I’ve just finished reading a loud article in Pune, circulating in most of the papers, about how the program maligns the concept of the ‘national hero’. This is the 21st century, dude. The days of pure idealism are gone. You can’t be naïve and get away with being intellectual any more. You’ll look stupider than most salesmen do when they say their floor mopping products signify a ‘paradigm shift’ in their industry. And trust me; idealist zealots are fewer than those salesmen, in numbers!

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Can we take a few minutes off and look up the history of the Indian concept of ‘entertainment’?

Back in the 1920s, the ‘in thing’ was theatre and music, both in their classical forms. There were influences, undoubtedly, but the classicist audience was overwhelmingly large. The radio had begun invading by then but the invasion was somewhat dampened by the national movement for freedom. So being a patron of everything Indian was not just a matter of snob appeal, it was the essence of ‘self determination’. So we had to wait for India to become free.

Then movies hit off. The predominant part of movies remained the music. The movies’ industry has forever relied on its music to please the market. We remember so many more old films for their songs than we remember movies for the characters, for the screenplay or for the cast performance. We were better ‘listeners’ and for us, entertainment was so much more ‘musical’. It’s our style statement now (cough, cough)—the music in our films. A film with no music is not as Indian a film even today.

But off late, we’ve opened our eyes to movies, literally. We don’t really need songs in them, and we do, kind of, condemn item numbers. They are the norm for mass appeal, not snob appeal and certainly not critic appeal. But even if you look at the masses, even they have opened their eyes. The characters, the screenplay and the cast are given much greater attention to than some years before. Consequently, the idea of ‘entertainment’ is less of ‘predominantly musical’. It’s now got a tangible dash of theatrics in it too. And the flavor is markedly more than before. And I daresay that this trend extends to other fields of stage entertainment as well. Agree?

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“Indian Idol” is a program created to earn money, to boost TRP ratings and to earn a gigantic ad income. Oh god, were you thinking it was all about bringing out talent and providing a platform for budding artists? (Remember—don’t be naïve!). The basic idea behind all of it is ‘mass appeal’, right to the very core. That’s why we have the really very ferocious marketing, which is noticeable not just in terms of the number of advertisements you see around you, but also in how the program is conducted. Take a look at the jurists—artists better known for their peculiar chemistry with the masses rather than their art itself—and then the ‘celebrity guests’ who are, once again, mass charmers and not pundits of stage performance.

The point I’m trying to make is this. You know that consumer behavior with respect to any industry can be assessed best by looking up what the producers of that industry have begun offering predominantly. That’s my point. “Indian Idol” offers glamour; gossip and all those glittery things most Mums and Dads say are not gold. That is what is selling today. The Indian mass audience today is enamored by all that—and by all that I mean anchors who dress as skimpily as they can without making it a ‘show’, contestants being run through stress grindstones you and I would rather shove out of the window, and lots of money.

And yeah, if there’s a song or two, it just makes the hour you spend watching it appear well spent. (Remember the magic of the placebo!)

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When I wrote about Indian Idol-I, I tried to make the same point. But I guess I was being naïve then, trying to put it all in the context of the question—“What kind of a guy should the Indian idol be and who should judge him?” This time round, I contend that the real question to be asked is—“Where’s the buck, baby?”

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And, just to give it a ‘review’ flavor, I’ll part with some real top-secret, hard-to-get, insiders’ information like the names of the jurists—Anu Malik, Sonu Nigam, Farah Khan—the names of the anchors—Aman Verma, Mini Mathur—and the second Indian Idol—Undecided Whoever (as of December 2005).

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And to satisfy the doyens of personal touch, I’ll let you know that I watch this program and waste six good bucks every time round on polling just because a friend of mine is competing (he got selected for round 2), though I’m not naming him here.

And hey, listen. Congrats, you made it to the end of a Juggernaut review. I’m sorry that there aren’t any aspirins for free after this…