Moment of Dread/Bewakufi ka Saamna

Indians are an opinionated bunch. They love to offer advice. Even to those who cannot take it, or worse, dont need it. Their voyeuristic tendencies are also linked to this instinct. They tend to snoop and meddle in affairs where they can offer help, advice or opinion though they only

subconciously do so. Paparazzi culture (though i use the word culture in the loosest sense) exists but not at its peak like in the US and so they dont really like to look into others lives all the time especially when they can offer no opinion or affect the outcome by vote. So any reality show that has no public voting system, does not attract them to that extent. They may not realise it yet, but its true.

But producers, dumb as they are in airing all the harebrained shows that they do, have somehow grasped this fact. Which is why every reality show that they ape from the west (yes its true, there is no show on air which doesnt owe its origin to some US primetime show) doesnt fare as well as it did back there. Specially, as i said, if it doesnt have public voting, because then they cant affect the outcome (honestly they can rarely affect the outcome, in any situation, televised or otherwise, but every Indian likes to think that her/his opinion helped.) And so we see celebrity after celerity hitting the stands. As audience, they bring in famous people from every walk of life. He must have made the news enough to make it interesting. Because newsmakers we do care about.

I dread the day when we see convicted felonist or fellows like Ajmal Kasab living in a house or

jungle for a cpl of months on end with our desi celebs. I say forget jail, no better punishment

than some quality time spent in the company of failed tv stars. i guess its because people in the

limelight like staying there that there isnt a dearth of participants. Or someday there might be

reality show where you do something to stay in the limelight...now theres a horrible thought.

Following this line of thought, producers could take this concept to horrendous depths. Where

newsmakers exchanged lives and instead of making a mess of their own proffessions, made a mess of others'. Not much change their since celebrities already multitask. Once you are famous it is like a license to do anything from politics to acting or vice versa, designing, producing, singing, you name it, they decimate it.