Indian Idol in America?

Sanjaya Malakar, the American Idol contestant has in the last few weeks, stemmed up a lot of controversy. His insipid singing, absolute lack of talent, his "faux hawk" hair, his booming smile ... you can love him, you can hate him ..but you cant ignore him!





Sanjaya, despite "slaughtering" a song every week ,has hung on to the contest because of "public support" while others have been voted out. His tremendous success ( which perhaps is magnified by his mediocrity) which defies any logic could perhaps be explained by a campaign to "vote for the worst". Simon Cowell, one of the judges at the Idol has already threatened to quit if Sanjaya wins.

He has already inspired rage all over with a critic embarking on a 16-day hunger strike to get him off the show. The website vote for the worst has already had Sanjaya tie up with two other contestants for Longest running VFTW American Idol holder and he could be the all-time leader if he gets through next week!




With people all around getting cynical his "popularity" is rising enough to keep him in the contest. MTV has even compiled a list of 10 reasons why Sanjaya is still on the show. Indian call centres, always a butt of jokes for the American media, have also come to fore in the debate with Jay Leno suggesting that Sanjaya had survived yet another expulsion from the show because his father was from India, "where they have all the call centres".



Howard Stern, the American shock jock has also been campaigning for Sanjaya - by asking his fans to vote in jest for this season's underdog. Howard, who was also responsible for "Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf" winning the People magazine's annual beauty poll in 1998 beating Leonardo Di Caprio, George Clooney and others, says
he hopes to turn the Talent show into a farce and destroy its popularity.

"We’re corrupting the entire thing," Mr. Stern said on his pay show Thursday, the day after Sanjaya secured a place in the top nine. "All of us are routing American Idol. It’s so great. The No. 1 show in television and it’s getting ruined."

Interestingly Sanjaya has not found much of support in his parent's homeland India where the mainstream media (except perhaps TOI and a few bloggers) has ignored him completely. However the coming days might see a change with the competition tightening up to the last eight. It will be interesting to see how much support does he get if he manages to win the show. That would be quite a coup!