30 June, 2007

Indian Idol as soap opera

Last night’s Indian Idol was bizarre, and had so much more drama apart from the singing. There was Abhishek Kumar announcing on stage that he was an adopted child, followed by both his sets of parents coming on stage, and much bathos after that. There were various other contestants crying or almost crying when they got torn apart by the judges. And there was a surprising amount of animosity between the judges, with Anu Malik and Javed Akhtar sniping and berating Udit Narayan and Alisha Chinai.

After a performance where Udit held contrasting views to Javed and Anu, Javed turned on him and snapped. “"How can you call yourself a singer? I’m worried for you?” And then he went on and on about how “Anu Malik has a sharper ear than any of us” and “If there was the slightest fault in her singing, Anu would have caught it.” The ‘her’ in question was Smita Adhikari, Javed’s favourite.

Anu and Alisha also got ruder and ruder towards each other, and when Alisha criticised Jolly Das, who Anu had praised, Anu snapped at her, “Alisha, abhi tum kheencho mat.” Alisha was otherwise over-gushy through the show, and there was the worry that she might start slobbering at any moment. Udit looked like he might fall asleep at any time, but was graceful when attacked and humiliated by Javed and Anu.

The kids also had their little dramas going on. When Ankita Mishra had made it through the wild-card round last week, the camera cut to Richa Aneja, who looked most upset. This week, when the judges started to tear into Charu Semwal, a smile of delight spread across Richa’s face. (Or maybe she was as amused as I was by the line of the day, spoken by Anu to Charu: “Listen to me very honestly.")

Who will be voted out tonight? I think it will be one of Jolly, Smita or Richa. Jolly was good, but her problem is that she entered late into this contest, coming directly into the gala round after getting chicken pox at the same stage last year. The audience hasn’t yet made an emotional investment into her, as they have with the others. She wouldn’t have any loyal supporters of her own, and that might hurt her.

That factor will count in favour of Amit Paul. He went through the rigours of the wild-card round, got the most votes to come back into the contest, and there was more scope for people to invest emotionally in him, with less fellow contestants to dilute that. He sings well, is likable, and fits the first parameter of my earlier post, “How to Predict the Next Indian Idol.” Amit Sana had come in as a wild card in Season One to finish runner-up, and Amit Paul could also go far.

Paul has to choose the right songs, though. Last night he sang “In Dino” from Life in a Metro, which is a song I love, but was a wrong choice for him. If you choose a popular song that is also recent, viewers tend to remember the original a bit too well, and compare your singing with that. Unless you’re exceptional, you suffer in comparison. “In Dino” didn’t quite suit Paul’s voice, which is soft and pleasant but lacks the sharpness and bite that song requires. In contrast, Prashant Tamang’s rendition of the beautiful “Yeh Honsla” from Dor was flawless.

Quick notes on the others: Deepali chose some boring song I can’t remember that wouldn’t motivate viewers to vote for her. That’s a danger for everyone here, and I won’t be surprised if she comes in the last three today, though I don’t expect her to be voted out. Parleen Singh Gill has good stage presence and some charm, but his singing was bad last night. If he can even sing competently, he can win this thing. But he can’t sing entire songs out of tune and expect to survive.

Puja Chatterjee was all over the place last night, she was perhaps trying too hard. She’s gone downhill after her exceptional Piano Round performance of “Tujhse Naraz Nahin Zindagi “ from Masoom, and I think slower songs like that one would show off her skills better than faster ones. Emon Chaterjee was excellent, and Smita showed that she is over-rated. Abhishek gave the performance of the day, with “Main Hoon Don”—He had performed “Yeh Chatur Naag” with Emon last week, and was fantastic there. He’s probably the best singer among the boys, but he’s from South India, where the show has low ratings—I doubt he’ll get enough regional support in a show where much of the voting depends on regional affiliations.

Charu’s got good stage presence, a strong voice and is good looking. I see her progressing the furthest among the girls, even though she wasn’t so good last night. Meiyang Chang, meanwhile, has a magical voice, with great tonal quality, and is immensely likable. He isn’t the best singer of the boys, but since when did that start to matter?

Ankita is a powerhouse performer and sings well, but she’s quite tomboyish, and I don’t know how many men or women will vote for a woman without feminine graces. Still, I hope to see her for a few weeks more. Not so Richa, whose voice is more suited to Child Idol. She’s going to check out soon.

Phew. Enough now, back to regular blogging before my readers wonder what’s got into me.

You can read all my Indian Idol posts here.

Update: Shrabonti Bagchi writes in with her thoughts on the show, which I’m quoting in full, with her permission:

You might be getting tons such mails but I’m as big a fan of Indian Idol (even when I don’t like it) as you, so thought would share a few thoughts on the show:

1. What you said in your latest post—about Indian Idol resembling a soap opera—I’ve been observing that in Iots of Indian shows. They all seem to want to turn into reality shows. You should watch Antakshari - The Great Challenge on Star Plus. One of the main ingredients of the show is the tension between participants, between participants and anchors, between the anchors, between the family of the participants, just about everybody. One episode had Juhi Parmar having a huge public spat with Annu Kapoor, walking off the show etc etc. Even the musicians and research teams are dragged in frequently (they used to be completely faceless in the earlier versions). Each ‘break ke baad’ snippet shows an upcoming argument, tempers flying high, lots of tears and high drama. In the pre-peality show days they would probably have edited out most of this stuff—and now it’s a mainstay.

2. I was astounded yesterday when then judges didn’t criticise Richa more, they kept talking about the immaturity of her voice (personally I think her voice will remain immature, she’s basically got a kiddish way of singing. I remember Sunidhi Chauhan from about the same age or younger and she didn’t sound childish) but she also sang completely out of tune and off-key. She killed that song.

3. I think Alisha with her mother hen attitude towards this year’s singers is really irritating. It was so obvious she was more critical of Jolly Das (who I felt was one of maturer voices) than necessary because she hadn’t ‘brought her up’ so to speak. That’s really unfair judging.

4. I don’t agree with your attitude towards Javed Akhtar too much. He is prosy at times, but mostly I feel he speaks sense (and is sometimes even funny in a prosy way:)). I think he gets frustrated with Alisha and Udit and his newfound love for Anu Malek stems from finding himself judging alongside at least one moderately intelligent person, or at least one who knows his job.

5. I can’t help thinking that some of the singing this year is really mediocre. I don’t like Amul VOI too much—mainly because they have a crap bunch of judges and because you don’t develop empathy for the participants—but they’ve made people stop mid-way and get off the stage for better singing than gets praised sometimes on Indian Idol.

6. I feel some of the singers are over-rated by the judges. Deepali, Ankita, Puja spring to mind. The only song she sang well was ‘Tujhse Naraaz Nahin’ and I can tell you from having been a ‘college social’ singer that it’s quite an easy one to pull off.

Tres insightful, especially points 3 and 5. And Javed Akhtar is making much more sense on the show, though I still find hints of bias, especially when it comes to young Smita. Still, it makes for riveting television.