Everybody likes kids. Yes, like them too much and you’ll get a visit from the authorities. Everyone loves their innocence, cuteness and original ideas. And off late, their extreme possibility.
Due to my several months of complete detachment with commercial Indian television, I see some drastic changes in the programming. Almost all the TV shows are just ordinary people singing, and promising them their few minutes of fame. It’s incredibly easy to start a show for the same, requires incredibly small amount of investment, and generates a lot of viewership.
Every channel on saturday night, had almost the same thing on. Kids ranging from the age of seven or eight to eighteen were dressed-to-impress and a panel of “judges” would critcize their performance and give them feedback. an overall seventeen minutes of singing for an hour’s show (I was bored enough to count. this is why I don’t like spending the saturday night indoors).
A few shows, most particularly the “Voice of India” show, even made dramaticized the damn thing. Turning an original innocent singing contest into a singing, dancing, showmanship extravaganza which have the public so glued. With the advent of the tried and tested “elimination” and public voting concept, they’re driving India’s capitalist machine forward, though all the wheels are spinning in a different direction.
Overall, I feel Indians are a little hypocritical. A lot of them criticize the west, and derive great pride in their past and values, but are ready to scarf down a Big Mac in a heart-stopping beat. They take an incredible interest in romance and love, but will look down on any romance in real life. They claim to want creativity and intelligence in what they watch, but are ready to watch dancing bikini-clad vegas rejects, little children whore themselves off for media corporations with absolutely no compensation.
India’s getting the future that she wanted, but it’s a far cry from the future that she expected. While captialist America is sucking the world dry so hard they can suck a bowling ball through a firehose, India is getting there.
But oh! How I love this country.
I thought this was about zombie processes :p …seriously!