Squalid Cognizance

Airtel Super Singer in Vijay TV - The biggest voice hunt of Tamilnadu (Thamizhagathin miga brimanda kural thEdal aka TMBKT- தமிழகத்தின் மிக பிரம்மாண்ட குரல் தேடல் aka தமிபிகுதே), at least that’s what the MC or DJ Chinmayi screams every time the camera focuses her, is one trash of a program to be aired by any Tamil channel. I can’t believe VijayTV can afford to deviate from the basic positioning of the program.

The kind of mockery happening on the screen is shameful to the competitive spirit of the participants.

One participant, I don’t want to name her and give her an undue publicity, from Round 1 has been passing thru to the next round by crying before the camera. Once that female cries the evaluators immediately start cajoling her and give her all the necessary confidence that they are with her all through. Initially I thought that the evaluators were trying to instill confidence in her to perform better in the other events but then it wasn’t, they selected her to the next round. The same strategy by that participant continued in the following rounds making her a successful contender. In any competition the participant’s performance on that given day matters irrespective of what they are capable of or achieved in the practice sessions. But in this program there seems to be no space for quality. Why should the evaluators empathise with the participants? Pepping them up is different from empathizing. I condemn this attitude of the panel or the organizers. If the panel is forced to act so then they should walk out. Every reality program of Vijay only has drama rather than focusing on bringing in the best talent to the limelight. No doubt the channel is being run as a business venture to make money. Let there be some social responsibility in it.

You all would have thought why I mentioned about positioning in the first paragraph. It is to highlight the dilution by the channel or producers of this program. Why should the often ridiculed angels in a Bharathiraja duet song come in a voice hunt program arena? Every time Chinmayi is shown in the screen she screams TMBKT (தமிபிகுதே). Probably Chinmayi is searching to get the voice attached to her throat, some new technique in the medical field, who knows. The most ridiculous statement was made by one of the evaluators Anuradha Sriram. She was commenting about one of the participant’s performance. Anu said that the participant has a very good voice but lacks stage performance skills. Come off it lady. The competition is to evaluate their singing skills, please remember the promise made in the initial promos (still seen in some MTC bus rear panels) – the selected candidate will get a chance to sing under Yuvan Shankar Raja’s music supervision for a movie. So why should one have stage presence? How many of us have seen the playback singers singing on stage till about 1995?

Why should the participants have other skills? Even if they are imperative for their career let them acquire after they get selected as a singer. By giving these idiotic suggestions the participants are being confused. For Pete’s sake don’t give these useless suggestions. Another comment by an evaluator to a guy – your energy level was good. What nonsense is this? If a singer is not fit enough to sing for 3 minutes, better not attempt. Starting from Naina Pillai to TM Krishna in the Carnatic arena and scores of light music singers have sung for well over 4 hours continuously. How can someone afford to compliment for singing for 3 minutes with high energy? I think the producers train the evaluators to say a set of words after the performances. Adjectives like good energy level, good attitude, style blah blah…. are developed as the Reality shows parlance or lingo or whatever crap you call it!!

The main point to note here is that most of the evaluators are under severe identity crisis – neither here nor there kind. They got carried away by the eulogies poured on them couple of years ago and never concentrated on improving their strengths. And now have missed the bus to success and glory. So are trying to get some publicity and visibility by being evaluators.

Please have a look at the Malayalam channels particularly Amritha and Asianet. The music based reality shows strictly adhere to the core objectives and definitions promised at the launch of the show. And they don’t take any partisan views and judgements on the performances. Tamil channels please grow. Television entertainment is stripping, screaming, crying, caressing, petting, etc in front of the camera – OMG even I’ve picked up the adjective culture from these channels.

In our country there are enough fine art forms and entertainment scopes to showcase to the public and make them healthy mentally and physically. Indians are in no compulsion to embrace the Western art forms for entertainment. We should take the Western art forms for comparative study and adapt the best practices which will suit our land. Not just ctrl-C+ctrl-V the concepts and programs from the West. Let me cite an example of adaptation. The movie magaLir mattum produced by Kamalahasan is based on the English movie 9 to 5 starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. Kamal intelligently adapted the concept to suit the Tamil audience. Infact he brought it in a lot of nativity in the screenplay. Our channels producers should also involve in some original thinking.

These issues drive me to endorse the policing done by Dr. Ramadass of PMK. Am not an advocate for upholding our culture et al. But I can’t be a silent spectator of a denigration of principles in the media. The media houses can’t flout their own promise and take the viewers for a solid ride. The irony is that they are supposed to be monitoring the politicians and report to the service deficiency to the public. But the media houses themselves operate with vested interests. If I may say so, the frontline channels have all become sleazy. And I just don’t blame the channels for this deterioration of content quality and sleaziness. If the audience condemn it and abstain from watching, the channels will certainly have to change their schema.