"REALITY" Strikes!!!

The question is not about whether its all a fabricated show as many claim…..And considering the predictions and the result of the recently concluded “Star Singer” this may or may not be true…Oops…think I started this all wrong…After a lot of pondering on what to write about it struck me…its time I put forth my views on the melodramatic mega serials which are out in their new form – the so-called reality shows…As I said, its not abt whether we’re just getting ripped over here with regard to the competition…Lets leav that part for later…Lets take a run through history…It all began with “Sthree”, with its famous “Sthree oru janmam” (Woman one life) title song…And then it was followed by …..hmm….oh ya sthree again….If I remember right there were around three versions of “Sthree” and its variations…Well and good for the channel I guess coz it took up around 4 years to get those women issues cleared!!

I had the bad luck to see some episodes of these monotonously “varying” MEGA-serials in different channels…The modes of torture and intricate planning employed by the characters can be found only in 3 places as of my present count – Indian serials,World War 2 camps and the Al-Qaeda hideouts…So there they were, the women of the country ,stuck to the TV(called idiot box for a reason), watching as “real-life” characters - depicted as the next-door girl or guy - plot to poison their siblings,jump off cliffs and exchange babies!!!!Ofcourse, according to the producers and the advertisers these are everyday happenings in an Indian family’s life… Larger than life(Larger being an understatement) can be equivalent to real life only in the country of Rajnikanth and Mohanlal…..

P.S - I got nothing against those guys...its just co-incidence and the "hard to take in" action scenes which keep reminding me of Rajnikanth

Soon the writers started running out of evil plots and thus we come to the latest incarnation of mega-serials------the reality shows…….We’ve got dance,songs and wat not….It wouldn’t hav mattered and would hav been considered as an amazing talent hunt if it weren’t for the time and the melodrama it takes….Every household now has their own favorite singer,dancer,actor and I’m not talkin about the movies here…Its like an all new EPL – Entertainment Premier League….And when they ended 2007, I sighed with relief but now its bak…Longer and more dramatic the all new 2008 series!!!!!Half the people in the state know about “sangathi”,”plans” and nearly everyones a music critic now….Ofcourse its an entertainer..There are singers and songs(pathetic at time even to my amateur musical ears),dancers and dances(ditto) and over acting “actors”..There’s always a cute girl with a mic,atleast one really irritating judge and more who think they’re really funny..Best of all -we’ve got people crying and faintin on stage..The tension could give a guy heart attack!!What more could a viewer ask for…

Never knew television could be the medium to make half the population sadists…Entertainment at the sake of participant elimination and insulting is definitely fun…And to top it all they’ve got the really irritating and plagiarized background scores for highlighting the depression….Well hav a blast people…Looks like THIS is REALITY!!!!

Shanker