Reality Bites

I am just listening to Roobaroo song from Rang De Basanti (Yes, as you can see, the frenzy hasn't died yet!).. Amazing song. The music for this movie was given by the Maestro A.R.Rahman, I will dedicate another blog to praising this young genius, but for now, its about some one else..

The song was sung by a certain Naresh Iyer, whom not many people had heard off till this song. He sang this song so well, along with Paathshaala and Tu bin bataaye... So who is Naresh Iyer?

When I read that these songs were sung by him, my thoughts went directly to this reality show on [V] India TV channel, Super Singer. Judged by Adnan Sami and later followed by some biggies of the industry like Himesh Reshmiyya, A R Rahman, Sandeep Chowta(Not too sure he came) etc, this was a talent hunt trying to find the perfect voice for singing. Naresh Iyer had made it to the final 40. In the elimination for the final 25, A R Rahman was the judge along with Adnan Sami. Naresh Iyer sang a tamil classical song hoping to make the impression on Rahman. Rahman calmly told him, that I have a good and a bad news for you. The bad news is that you are out of the competition, and the good news is that, I like your voice and I want to give you a chance! Naresh was so stunned, he came out laughing and the hosts were surprised.

Forward 2 years later, Naresh has sung in couple of Tamil and Telugu movies and made his bollywood debut with RDB and boy, what a debut!

He is just one of the few singers from reality shows that have made a mark for themselves in the Movie world. The best example is Shreya Goshal and Kunal Ganjawala, who are among the best singers in Bollywood today, and they both made their singing debut on the silver screen in a show Sa Re Ga Ma (SRGM), hosted by Sonu Nigam about 10 years ago. Today, Shreya and Kunal are known to most as successful singers but to ardent SRGM fans they are still ex contestants!

Take a look at television today, so many singing reality shows - Indian Idol1, Fame Gurukul and Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005 concluded and Indian Idol2 is at the pincale of its conclusion and then the search starts again for singers... So much of talent has come out of this show that it is absolutely staggerring! But what scares me is that there is just too much of talent, are we ready to accept so much of it?

With Sonu Nigam, Shaan, KK, Kunal and other great singers already fighting for the throne, and composers like Himesh Reshmiyya (Aashiq Banaya Aapne) fame suddenly coming from no where, imagine having some more exceptional talent added to this. Is the industry ready for new talent? How good is this new talent?

The catch with reality shows is public voting. In a country where a lot of people wouldn't bother to go vote for a better government, dont mind spendin lakhs of Rs for sending votes to save their favourite singers. The one with the least votes is eliminated. Its in all the shows, supposed to increase TRP. But its absolutely depressing and heart breakin to see good talent get washed away in this frenzy of Public Voting..

I think in this circle, the winner is the TV channel and telephone companies. Take for example in the recently concluded SRGMP Challenge 2005 finals, The winner Debojeet Saha recieved an unbelievable 3 crore votes from east of india alone! That amounts to atleast a 15 crore rupees!!! Where is so much of money coming from!!!! Its hard to fathom

And then the whole issue of regionalism, each part roots for singers from their area. Whole Mumbai comes together to support its Amey Date, contestant in Indian Idol 2. The whole of north gathered 1.5 votes for Vinit Singh, runner up of SRGMP Challenge 2005. It was this regionalism between states that the british exploited and today TV Channels doing the same mistake again...

Finally, its about making the right decision and often that doesn't happen. Talented singers get voted out for so many reasons, they dont look good, they dont perform enough, they dont have an 'interesting' story about them so people dont get motivation to vote for them, they are hyped too much etc etc. And sometimes, they just get unlucky. These reality shows had produced some great singers who didn't win, Indian Idol 1 had Rahul Vaidya, Prajakta Shukhre, Rahul Saxena.. Fame Gurukul had Rex D'souza, Arpita Mukherjee, Arijit Singh, Shamit Tyaagi and Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge had Hemachandra, Nihira Joshi, Himani Kapoor to name a few.. These singers never went to win but hopefully they will become very successful in their future.

An interesting thing is and probably the saddest part is, most of the good singers are all in grade 12 or university. Dropping their studies, they come to pursue their dreams, how right is it to play with their future? Are they justifyed in pursuing a dream that might just remain a dream for most? What example are they setting for other children?

This is where Reality Bites...