Kudos to Rediff to have come out with this article, which puts things in perspective.
Guys, vote for Debo. Himesh and Vinit should be taught a lesson. We have the power to do so. Just slap them hard.
All the best Debo. We are all with you.
My heart goes out to Debojit
Mahesh Peri | February 02, 2006 17:00 IST
A couple of weeks back, I watched one of the episodes of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa on Zee TV. It made me sit up. Crass commercialisation, ignorance, lack of finesse, jingoism, cheap campaigns, isolation. You name it. It had it all.
A set of contestants was ganging up against a singer from the Northeast. A bunch of music directors was ganging up against a fellow director with greater credentials. The channel was peddling all this drama for television ratings.
The loser was India and Indianness.
Agreed, that Sa Re Ga Ma Pa is the best music programme on television. Agreed, that it has given the country the maximum number of playback singers. But then reality television hit the marquee. After Sony's Indian Idol, even the leader decided to follow. And how.
Consider this.
Sa Re Ga Ma is a programme where you can vote for your favourite singer. Caveat. You can vote as many times as you want. As long as money is not important to you; or it is balanced off by your relative/friend/son/daughter becoming the winner. It is rigging, allowed by the rules. I am sure most of our politicians would love that.
In each episode, the show announces the vote share of the contestants. Only that, in the case of Debojit, a contestant from Assam, they also disclosed the votes he got from the Northeast. It is a different matter that for other contestants, they disclosed the votes they received from places other than their hometowns, which didn't even add up to 30 per cent.
In Debojit's case, they announced the votes he got from the Northeast, say 75 per cent. No revelation was made about the votes Vinit got from Uttar Pradesh or Hemchandra got from Andhra Pradesh.
You also have three more characters. Himesh Reshamiya, Aadesh Srivatsava, and Ismail Darbar, an integral part of the drama that the director conceived of.
War of the music composers, literally
Himesh Reshamiya always keeps pleading the case of Vinit from his gharana so that he can get the girl he loves to say yes. Vinit is all of 17. His voice croaks, thanks to his age. Even stupid renditions of great songs by Vinit will see Himesh applauding, all for the cameras, you and me.
We all have to vote, because Vinit is in love. It's a different issue that others have decided not to fall in love at that age or talk about it in public.
In the episode aired on January 19, Zee as usual wanting to create some news, announced the vote share of Debojit from the Northeast. It was upwards of 70 per cent. The other three contestants decided to walk out as the voting had a strong regional basis. The Northeast comprises seven states and Aadesh Srivatsava compared Assam with the entire Northeast showing his ignorance.
There was a young lady who screamed, 'It cannot be Assam's voice, it has to be India's voice'. Young lady, why don't you blame the guys who voted for some dubious individuals to come to Parliament? And why didn't you vote many more times to take on the might of the seven states that are as integral a part of India as Maharashtra or Delhi are?
Can the three contestants say they got a lesser vote percentage if they add up the vote shares of the seven states that voted for them? And Himesh Reshamiya keeps shouting at the top of his voice, making illogical arguments, in his usual style.
All this, while Debojit is aghast, at his isolation by his very own fellow contestants. He cries, on his wife's shoulder. Ismail Darbar tries in vain, to put things in perspective. He is heard shouting, 'Kya Assam India me nahi hai kya?' And the director of the show jumps on the floor, with a mike in his hand and tries to argue. All this is supposed to be natural, impulsive.
The contest has turned into a battle between an upright Ismail Darbar, who understands music better than all the others on the show put together, and the rest. It has turned into a battle between one person from Assam and the rest.
Jarring notes in the Sa Re Ga Ma show
Two years ago, I saw the American Idol where the three best singers, being black were in the bottom three. It sparked off a huge debate in America. And the Black American felt he did not belong to the larger American Community. There, the judges cried. Here, our judges encouraged it.
The consequences are tragic. We would further alienate people from the Northeast -- that means all seven states. We will also further alienate Muslims. And all this drama on prime time television. All for television ratings. All to get noticed.
It is upsetting. My heart goes out to Debojit. To the Northeast. To the good singers. To Ismail Darbar. But I would not vote, as much as I don't give alms to beggars. The consequences are grave. Welcome to reality television.
Mahesh Peri is the president and publisher, Outlook magazine
