Indian Idol - talent hunt or a debris of hopes?

Somewhere in the corners of our vulnerable hearts, each one of us is a star. This belief is instilled in our minds like a tacit law, governed by our talent that people around us swear by. The adolescent girl in your neighbourhood is told by her friends that she is made to walk the ramp. A middle-aged man in a nearby village struggles year on year to have his stories published because the kids subscribe to his narrations with immense awe. Among the shanties that line up a distant suburb, dwellers reckon there is a certain rockstar among them. Riding on a million such assurances is a dream – a dream that all of us have seen now or before – of being admired as an idol. When we set off in insane pursuit of such a dream, there is but one emotion that catalyses all our moves – our self-pride.
A few weeks back, countless such dreamers congregated at what they thought would be the platform where they could show the world their flair. They lay outside the gates of the Indian Idol audition buildings for a whole hot night, yearning for that single moment that could convert their dreams into reality.
For most of these contestants, the smug judges sitting inside the hall may have been their idols they looked up to. I only wish the esteemed jury would spare a thought for the emotions, the pain, the struggle that nestled in the susceptible sensibilities of these people before lampooning them in front of an entire country. Of course, not everyone is necessarily as talented as one expects to be. But that does not warrant such assassination of emotions. Because at the end of the day, the self-pride is a constant. It doesn’t vary with the level of talent that a person claims.
If anything, a reality show should focus on encouraging new talent. That certainly cannot happen when its agenda changes to ridiculing someone’s emotions to an extent that he loses faith in his own talent.
Nobody is born a star. Nor were these three judges. Forget not that what goes around comes back, and it comes back hard.
(The irony that Anu Malik judges a singing contest is an altogether different matter. )

A Simmer Of Dreams

Saw her last evening in the front seat of a car,
A young face riddled with a grimace and a scar
A kerchief clenched in her fist, she struggled to speak
As a teardrop contoured along her pale cheek.

Seated at the rear, decked in Prada new,
The mistress screamed foul like an incorrigible shrew
“What an incompetent mutt you make as a nanny,
Gosh, use your brains! Or oh, do you have any?
You were asked to keep an eye on little Grace,
And not to run amok all over the place!
What were you to get anyway in that expensive mall
That you left my child behind for your meaningless trawl?
You do get ‘em all, good food and my old suits,
Why, then, must you act too big for your boots?
The laxity aside, you must have some nerve
To ignore the paradox between what you get and deserve.”

The nanny said nothing, but much did her eyes
Of the simmer of dreams that beyond them lies,
A simmer that sees no equations of affluence
It rises in every heart, like an unsaid ordinance.

“To your mind they seem like trifles,” she seemed to say,
“But such modest nothings are enough to make my day.
Your wallet rings louder, but I wish you would know
That human pride sees no class, high or low.”

The Devil Called Consumerism

I remember the first time I visited my favourite ice-cream joint in Baroda, circa 1989. It was a quaint hut-shaped shop, small yet inviting. I had topped my class and my parents had afforded me the liberty of buying two ice-creams that day. I chose a Mango-Vanilla cone, followed by a Chocolate-Vanilla one. I distinctly recall they were priced at Rs. 18 then. There was not much room inside the shop – just two narrow tables, one of which I stood against for support as I took my time to lap up the ice-creams. For the next seven years or so, I visited the same shop no less than once a week, which must have been a total of at least 365 times. But my choice of flavours never changed. There was something about the memory of the first visit that lingered on, and I stayed loyal to the same two flavours. Years later we left Baroda, much to my intense grief and resolution that I would never eat ice-cream anywhere else. (I did not really stick to that.)
Last weekend, I took my wife to Baroda. On our way to the same ice-cream shop, I told her about that unique smell and ambience of the shop, and how it had come to be my first love. But when we reached the joint, I saw something that wrecked my nostalgic reverie. The hoarding was in tatters. The tiles on the floor were evidently not being cleaned. And the smell was gone – probably overpowered by the aroma of a McDonald’s outlet somewhere nearby. On enquiring with the staff, I was told of the diminishing demand of the shop with the advent of various branded outlets in the last decade and a half.
“Impact of consumerism,” my MBA-wife threw in a smart one. I cringed. I looked at the menu card in dismay. The simple, earthly names of Mango-Vanilla and Chocolate-Vanilla had been renamed to ‘IPL Twenty-Twenty Mango Ripple’ and such. God knows what that meant, but it sure didn’t feel the same any more.
I’m quite the victim of consumerism myself, so I can’t scoff at it. But there’s something about this devil that has taken away a prized memory of a place I associated myself with. For the sake of a few such chronicles, I pray that a part of our past is retained. And while the world may subscribe to the classiest outlets today, I still prefer my narrow table to lean against as I take leisurely bites at my cone. At any rate, it is more fulfilling than a ‘Finish your ice-cream in three big bites and win a free trip to Timbuktoo’ contest.