ISS concludes, IPL begins

I really didn't bother to write about the conclusion of ISS because I knew Najim would be crowned the winner. However I wished Amrutha could have been in the top 4 instead of Arun Gopan.

Like SSG, the winner was already pre-decided and all that last minute voting are purely rigged. ISS put on a better finale than SSG which was nothing short of chaos. Only twice there were transmission problems but otherwise things seemed to go smoothly. Ranjini was good and bad at the same time. Throughout ISS and the finale she seems to be handling too many things. When Najim finally won it she persuaded him to do a repeat performance of the song that was not fully telecast during his performance. Najim struggled to get back his cool to sing the song. I can't imagine we all have to put up with her for another year. And why that song with Ranjini being chased by those 4 guys? Did you also notice how many times she used the phrase "and of course".

For many of the performances the singers were only lip-syncing. Even my son could detect that. How can Asianet be so foolish to make us believe they were not. Remember the first song where all the singers came in to sing the prayer song. They could have at least fixed a non-working mic on the dress of each performer there to make it look real. Many other things suck but then they are all a part of the shows we poorly imitate from the west.

Will I watch these shows again in 2008? Certainly I will not be wasting time as I did on these shows like I did but it is always nice to watch new, true and good talent. However there is this sense of middle class longing which I wouldn't want to be a part of. Programmes such as these are only capitalizing on such a thinking. The way Ranjini was screaming repeatedly "40 lakh apartment" is proof of such thinking. It also makes the participants feel that the goal of their singing career is eventually the prize and not what lies beyond the competition which should be their true goal.

Where are these winners going to go? Like veteran singer Hariharan said these new singers will hardly last a couple of years chiefly because there is too much competition from a very big talent pool. So singers who lasted decades are soon going to become a thing of the past. Roopa confessed to me that after she won Gandharvam Singer Senior in 2002 she hardly got one offer. This time though she told me she has already sung one song (a duet with Yeshudas) and awaiting more promised offers.

Meanwhle the much awaited IPL (Indian Premier League) begins. More on that later.