“Give us something, and we’ll make it worse.” These (roughly) were the words from a few years ago of a talented singer whose voice is the only thing I like about him. Despite my reservations, his simple pronouncement was so succinctly accurate and undeniably profound that I thought it ought to be on a plaque somewhere.
He was referring to a popular show on which he was serving as judge. (But he could just easily have said “Give us , and we’ll make it worse.”) It was the Indian edition of a long-running international show, ‘repurposed’ for that unique beast we fondly refer to as ‘Indian taste’.
One of his grouses, what with our land being our ancient land, was that the judges were made to perform, too, from time to time. Because, you see, our audience would like it. It would be cute.
And that was everything. Meaning, the folks who had been hired for their deciding if a participant had what it took, meant to be impartial figures, would also perform alongside the amateur participants now and then, thereby rendering the term ‘judge’ meaningless, but so what? Unfortunately, the chaps who took this ‘creative’ decision are right. Our audiences like this.
In fact, what they would have liked even more was if the judges were made to mud wrestle dressed in tutus in a pit in the middle of the set. While singing. In fact, what would work even better would be to do away entirely with the participants, for they are unknowns, and we in our wise land look down on a.