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It suddenly seems to me that in a country of one billion Indians, nearly half of them are either potential Indian Idols! I use the word 'suddenly' because I switch on the TV and suddenly find somebody crooning away on almost every channel.
I walk into a wedding and suddenly an Indian Idol aspirant is thrust into my face. And recently, on a bus tour, somebody suddenly discovered an Indian Idol finalist among the passengers and thereafter dragged the poor girl to the front of the bus and made her sing everything from bhajans to Bollywood chartbusters.
These reality show participants are almost like aliens taking over the planet in a Hollywood B-grade sci-fi flick, where they live among us like normal people until they are exposed by an earnest relative, eager to bask in reflected glory, at a social gathering or an alert couch potato addicted to every song-and-dance show on TV.
I guess it's a lifestyle choice these days. You could participate in one of the countless TV shows that threaten to unleash the next Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi, Mukesh, Manna Dey or all rolled into Babul Supriyo. And even if you don't go beyond the generously televised audition round, chances are that you could live the rest of your life on that brief tryst with fame.
To be brutally honest, I can't sing to save my life. Though I did exactly that during the sangeet function of my own wedding—I sang a duet with my wife.
But that was the last time I sang. Since then I've been mostly dancing—to her tunes. Fortunately, this was before the advent of reality TV and nobody tempted me to audition for Indian Idol.
It's not just aspiring singers who are getting a chance to exercise their vocal chords on TV these days. It's also their parents, who'd briefly flirted with music before quickly giving it up for a secure nine-to-five job where the only notes they know are made of rupees.
For, I've seen on Asianet's 'Idea Star Singer', a show my parents watch religiously, the host often thrusts the microphone into the hands of the participants' parents who instantly belt out a vintage number as if they've been dying to sing the only song they know by heart.
But I've decided that neither I nor my descendants will sing. Because, if everyone sings, who will listen? So we will be the Indian Idle!