SIGHT & SOUND
Srinagar has a reason to smile
Amita Malik

IF there is anything more tedious and boring than singing competitions on TV, I have yet to hear of them. And the most long-drawn and tedious of them all has been Sony’s Fame Gurukul. Even more time-consuming than the singing was the contrived suspense at every turn, with judges who looked more wise than they were taking all the time in the world to reduce mostly mediocre singers to tears while the cameras focused on their anxious faces, nail-biting and even more anxious teachers and mammas as they squirmed in the audience.

When we reached the climax at last, and lost count of how many episodes the climax itself took, Mandira Bedi, who had been displaying only noodle straps or shoulder-less blouses so far, decided to add to the masala by first, showing her not-too-interesting midriff throughout the proceedings, and then prolonging the suspense as long as she wished. She took her time over every syllable and every false promise of revealing the results, so that we could not avoid gazing at her belly, which seemed to attract the camerapersons more than the contestants, who, after all, had only their anxious faces to show.

There had to be something redeeming somewhere in this long yawn, and there was. A hitherto unknown young man from Srinagar, who, at least, had a quirky hairstyle, and oodles of confidence made it to the last three and eventually emerged as winner, alongwith a typical Bengali girl who did more nakhra than singing. And Srinagar, reeling from earthquakes, assassinations and political intrigues certainly rose to the occasion. Not only did two little boys run away from their village to make it to Qazi Tauqueer’s home in Srinagar to join in the celebrations and taste the sweets being generously handed around, but we also saw Qazi’s mother, who had braved it to the contest, smiling unbelievably over her progeny’s success. Truly was the power of TV, the great leveller, proved all over again, and Srinagar has something genuinely joyous to celebrate. It now had an all-India celebrity.

However, talking of tediousness, whenever a show is announced to be a comedy, we immediately become suspicious. Genuinely funny shows need neither advance warnings, nor do they need terrible mistimed and monotnous canned laughter which go with them. The Great Indian Comedy Show with Shekhar Suman is not only becoming monotonous and predictable, what also goes side by side is worse. This is the much-hyped competition of funny men (women seem to be at a discount) which is judged by funny man Cricket star-cum MP Navjot Singh Sidhu and, of course, Shekhar Suman. Now judges, we were led to believe, should keep straight severe, non-committal faces when judging even funny shows. But Navjot Singh Sidhu is so carried away by the comics, who seldom rise above the level of school boy jokes and puja pandal humour that he starts laughing even before they have started their comic turn. Since he laughs prematurely and consistently for every contestant and seems to divide his laughter without ever taking sides, one wonders on what basis he does his judging. Shekhar Suman goes one better. He quite often caps a contestant’s comic turn with one of his own. Not to join the contest, mercifully, but in the spirit of "anything you can do, I can do better." Since most of his own shows are derived from well-known foreign ones, one would have thought he had nothing to prove.

What I would list among the wasteful trivia of TV took place last week. Karva Chauth, which for middle class housewives is becoming a sort of poor woman’s Page 3, occupied the screens of most channels for over two days. It seems that Karva Chauth is no longer a personal annual prayer for one’s husband, but something to show and talk about on TV. The talking points included the new fashions in mehndi, which now extends right up to the shoulders in fancy patterns, and showing off one’s saree and make-up to the TV cameras. Lucky the husbands survive this onslaught.

As for the astrologer who forecast his exact time of death and conned at least three channels in to waiting anxiously for his much-hyped demise, serve the channels right that he finally announced that his time had not yet come and went off coolly into the sunset. But not before leaving the channels, although they did not admit it, red in the face. It reminded the viewers that how frequently they are taken for a ride. As for the Govinda fiasco, in spite of irritating reminders on my mobile, it left me cold. Reviving something after 15 years is bad enough but all those views from viewers reminded us that some people will say and do anything to see their names on TV. And that such profuse opinions are always under suspicion of being rigged.