My rants on the final day of Indian Idol 2

I am happy that reality-based shows are gaining recognition as a platform to give that shred of hope to hitherto-unknown faces to prove their mettle. The final day of one such reality show, Indian Idol, is upon us. The stage is set and time is running out to vote for the right person. The two guys in the running, N.C. karunya and Sandeep Acharya, are both extremely talented from different viewpoints.
Karunya, with his mellifluous voice, is a very versatile and talented singer with a carnatic music background. Sandeep is more eye candy with a very sweet sounding voice but an average at best singing talent.

The viewership (I mean people who can vote) for the show is mostly from the northern and western parts of the country. I know for a fact that Indian idol is known merely to a small fraction of people in Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. My mom who watches hindi soaps in chennai did not know about Indian idol. Thats how sad the viewership of the program is in the south. The program is also mostly viewed by women. I asked 50 of my friends (72% tamil speaking, 27% hindi speaking, 1% telugu speaking) of which only 11 had heard of the programme and 8 of them were women.

This explains several outcomes of this show that has puzzled me:

1) The lack of any of the female contestants in the final four (THEY WERE TALENTED).

2) Sandeep voted ahead of Meenal, Amey, Anuj, Antara and Monali. I thought they were all phenomenal singers.

3) Karunya being in the bottom three/two on 7 of the 10 galas. Karunya's performance in every gaala has been mind blowing. The only person in his league or some might say ahead of him was Amey. It was very sad to lose him.

4) Amey being third in the Piano round when I thought his 'Tu Hi re' performance was flawless (Suprising).

The past several weeks have seen verbal bashing by many viewers stating Karunya has been whining about lack of regional votes as many in the south do not watch hindi channels. Before I tackle the question about why people don't watch hindi channels down south I would direct the readers' attention to the following article... http://indiaimage.nic.in/languages.htm.

Is hindi, the language in which the programme is held, required to be known for someone to qualify himself or herself as a Indian??????

The problem of wether everyone in India should know hindi is a big one which is more categorically dealt with by my friend Ashok.

Anyway what Karunya claims is a genuine problem faced by any south indian (hemachandra in SRGMP 2006) in these reality shows held in India in the so called national language (Hindi).

Though for my part I have been sending out messages to family and friends to vote for this talented youngster (YES he is only 19), I think Sandeep will walk away with the title. For me Karunya is a talent to look out for in the future and whatever be the result of this program will not fade away.

ps: S.P.B. praised Karunya for his rendition of ragam sivarnagini when he was 12 years old in chiru ragamallika in a telugu channel.

Indian Idol 2 - Final Frontier

Well this show is getting worse as the days go by as it comes to a close for the second time. I think the favouratism to get Karunya to be the idol is apparent. It is sad that in all this game of votes and politics, the 19 year old's real talent seems to be masked. I have been reading some of the message boards on the sony website and on india-forums and it shocks me that people say karunya cannot sing or he whines.. I pride myself on having a above average knowledge in carnatic music, and I think Karunya sings really well. I thought Amey and Meenal also sang really well and had classical trained voices.

One more thing - It pains me to read poeple write unfair blogs stating Karunya cannot sing and made hundreds of mistakes when he sang his last song. I have heard manna dey's song and the way Karunya sang it and I beleive durbar is a difficult ragam to sing and he sang really well. There were three places in the kalpana swaram where he faltered and I hope he practices to rectify his mistakes. I wish him a long career in music. Amey's rendition of "Laga Chunari mein daag" was awesome. I thought he sang the song with a lot of soul and made fewer mistakes. I was also moved by meenal Jain's rendition of "lambi judai". I think she sang really well.

I am not too bothered who becomes the indian idol as this is just a game played by a channel and a few companies to fill their coffers, but I do wish Karunya, Amey and Meenal a long journey in their singing careers.

Indian Idol 2 - My Take on this travesty of the Pop Idol

I dont know if it could be called a travesty of the "pop idol" (not intended), but Indian Idol season 2 is one filled with gimmicks and all set to play on the sentiments of the emotional indian audience just for TRPs. If you wade through the gimmicks in search of some real talent you will find a few very good aspiring singers. To name the ones that really caught my attention - Amey Date, N. C. Karunya, Meenal Jain and Monali Thakur. I thought these four were really good and should have been in the last four. Well in the last week of this season only Karunya remains with another ever smirking person called Sandeep Acharya. Karunya's singing and voice has been a saving grace for the last three weeks at Indian idol. Well I cannot make a sweeping statement like that as Sandeep has gradually improved his rendition of songs and voice quality. I hate it when he smirks for reasons beyond my comprehension. The judges panel is a joke with only one name - Sonu Nigam - worth any mention as a singer. I cannot imagine anu malik as a singer or composer. He steals songs and claims them as his own is all I will say. I have begun to like Farah Khan for her straight shooting comments and honest overtures. There are billions of blogs and websites discussing several aspects such as regionalism, favouratism, eash person. Each page with someone pitching for his or her own idol.

I am a ardent music lover and play the mirdangam, a carnatic music instrument. I beleive Karunya has a carnatic trained voice. Amey had several shades of hindustani in his voice. I think Amey was a better performer than Karunya. The clarity with which Karunya sings high pitched songs is mind blowing but I would like to see him render a soft song. Amey has a very sweet sounding voice with a pleasing personality. I wish him well.

I hope these talent shows bring out the real talent beyond regionalistic differences. I feel sad that the show has to be only in Hindi. Being a tamil I know there are specific tamil talent shows like raga mallika and TVS saregama but I wish the whole indian country can warm up to a non regionalistic search for real talent. I think that way we can reach people who are immensely talented and the real cream of the billion or so people in our country will come to the fore.