Total Crap

Richa Aneja the 16 yr old from Amritsar is th first casualty of the Galas.
Ever since the time I saw her at the theater round, her falling out with Prashant Tamang in the duet round, I have been hoping that she should go. It was based on me not liking her personality, felt she made a fuss and that she was childish. But today when she was eliminated I actually felt bad. Not because she was eliminated. That was a long overdue. I felt for her because she has come to this stage of the competition, singing in the same 16 yr old voice. She was even complemented on several occasions for this very fact and it became her USP. Now, at this stage of the Galas, the judges start stressing on this fact. Javed Akhtar alone pointed out that at this stage it made no sense to criticize her for something not in her hands. He alone was saying that she was not ready for playback singing in the earlier round. Anu Malik tells her now.
Unfortunately for her the audience listened to him. Basically, what has been done is she has been told, "You sing really well, better than many of these other people. But, we are sending you home because you are a kid."
If they felt she was so underdeveloped, they should have spotted this in the audition itself, not made a big deal of it now.

What's with these judges?

Before you read this be aware of the fact that I am not a trained singer. What I have written is from whatever I felt(regarding the performance) and whatever I heard from the judges. Also some things are such that even a deaf person could spot them.

Well, just saw the first episode of the Gala round of Indian Idol 3. I must say I did not find anything extraordinary in todays performances. Though there were plenty of surprises.
The usually bankable Emon was a bit off the target and Pooja, the seemingly unshakeable girl, ended up making the huge mistake of the day and proved that she is human. But, while the really good singers like Deepali, Charu disappointed, the underdogs came through(to prove my previous post right). Javed Akhtar even said to Meiyang Chang, "Mujhe bahut khushi hogi agar aap jeete". Smita sang well. But, she has to stop singing like she is in a sound proof studio and start reaching the audiences at home. This is done by looking at the camera and not shutting one's eyes to the world. Parneel managed the performance well, but lost out with his song choice, and his singing.
But coming to the main issue, what are these judges doing? It's as if they do not want a single opinion to reach the audience, or for that matter the contestants. What with Javed Akhtar and Anu Malik aand Alisha giving a different opinion and then arguing. What is the contestant supposed to say? When Hussain asks Deepali, she says,"I am very sorry Anu Sir lekin mujhe samajh nahi raha hai, lekin mai koshish karoongi galati sudharneki". How can she do that if she does not understand what the mistake is? And which judge do the audience believe?
One more thing, getting Abhishek's parents on stage was a cheap gimmick. I just did not like it. These thnigs are not done in front of the nation.
Last of all, I did not like the video much. Seems too artificial.

Who is going out? Your guess is as good as mine.

The Underdog

Any sort of competition and the word 'underdog' or 'dark horse' will be doing the rounds. Both words are similar in the sense that they refer to someone not really expected to win. But someone we would like to see winning. History is testament to the fact that man has a tendency to support the underdog. Let's consider a scenario of an Australia-Bangladesh cricket match. It is almost a foregone conclusion that Australia will be the winner. But somewhere in the depths of our hearts, we want the impossible to happen. We want to see the weaker team beat the stronger one. It's some desire to see logic being defied.
It has been witnessed many times some other examples being the support the racehorse Seabiscuit received. This horse was a freak, not built for racing. He had a imperfection in every part of his body. His running style was different, he was too small, too lazy and spent the better part of the day sleeping. Pitted against the superior pure-breed WarAdmiral from the East Coast, it was almost a no-contest. But riding with a new jockey, this horse managed to out run War Admiral on the home stretch by 3 furlongs(I think it was). This took place in America fresh out of the depression. Seabiscuit represented the working class. Those who were working hard to earn a living. The triumph of the underdog gave people hope, in their hearts that something like this is possible.
Another classic example are our movies, where the lone good guy turns from a nice guy to a hardened person and beats the bad guys.
We all live our lives trying to overcome hard times. We see ourselves in an underdog and his victory is proof that we have some chance of succeeding at achieving our goals.
On a lighter note I am happy the leading underdog of Indian Idol 3, Suhit Gosain is out. Being less talented and not being talented --there is a huge difference.

Change of Location

What can I say? My MSN live spaces blog is now inactive because I have forgotten the password. Not only that, I don't even remember the answer to the secret question. Moreover, I had not even given an alternate email-id this being the first mail id I had. Now the hard work put into the blog is negated because of one stupid mistake. I was so involved trying to follow principles of system security and choose a good password that I forgot to remember it. So, here I am, making a brand new one. Phir se shuru.