Of Pune... the rains and good singers

Got back after spending the weekend at S's place on the outskirts of Pune. Its been a while since we'd gone there in the rains. You keep reading about how sweet the earth smells after it rains. This is one of two places (the other being Kerala) where I have experienced this. As I stepped out of the car, that fresh delightful mixture of gorgeous scents - the rain, the earth and the grass just assailed my senses. Heady. if I could bottle the damn thing, I'd be so rolling in the green!

Rant section - Finally!! The guys in charge of the Bombay-Pune expressway have done something right. They've got the pricing rounded off on the expressway toll. On the various trips I've taken to Pune via the expressway, the one thing that always got my goat were some of the signs put up at the toll nakas. I mean, why do you charge an absurd figure like Rs.118 or Rs.127 and then put up signs like "Coin Problem - Please tender exact change". Make it 120 or 130... any even number and then keep the relevant amount of change with you. A few bucks is hardly going to matter to people. Just save them the headache of having to rummage around in their bags, purses or dashboards. (Fyi the toll's 140/- but the annoying sign is there!)

My second rant has to do with the sheer dearth of good (maybe the word I'm looking for is honest) programming we have on Indian television. There we were chilling out and the plan was to imbibe a few glasses of white spirit and take in some entertainment on the idjit box. Specifically SaReGaMaPa on Zee TV. We were also switching between commercials to STAR Plus where the finale of Jo Jeeta Wohi Superstar was going on. SaReGaMa is an eye-opener to the singing talent we have in this country. Wow! What fantastic singers. There was this Surd kid no more than 18 (looked like he was 15 tho) who had such a superb and mature singing voice. Again Wow! And the episode we were watching was the one where someone would be eliminated from the leftovers who didn't make it to the 2nd round in their first attempt the previous week. After hearing some of these voices it was hard to believe they didn't make it through the first time around.

On the other hand, Jo Jeeta... was a huge disappointment. Not in terms of the singing quality (they had Abhijeet Sawant & Rahul Vaidya in the final three), not in the matter of Mandira "look-into-my-cleavage" Bedi shouting herself hoarse while calling out the title sponsor of the show every 17.3 seconds. My main gripe - it wasn't live!!! I thought this was supposed to be a singing contest. How the hell can you lip-sync in a competition?!?!? I'm 99.99% certain that the singers did the original takes in a studio and this was what's played during the television airing of the event. They may or may not have sung live during the show but after which it was definitely overlayed with the studio takes. Now I fancy myself to have a voice and so I like to sing every so often (The beast often manifests itself during drunken karaoke). What I like just as much is to hear good singers sing live. Which is provided in spades by SaReGaMa (could do with a little less of the melodrama by the judges but thats forgivable. TRPs and all that - trust me I'm in the business) but I feel duped when I see shows like JJWS. At the end of it all, Rahul Vaidya won it. But did he actually?? I'm not denying his talent. I mean this is the guy of whom Sonu Nigam said during Indian Idol Part Un, "It's a good thing you didn't start playback earlier else I would be hard up for work". But there has to be a shadow of a doubt (at least for me) on whether his performance was the better one of the two. how can anyone prove that it was he who actually deserved it?

The pressure of singing live, the audience around you, the necessity to hit every single note the way it should be and to add "feel" to it all CANNOT be done while prancing around with the other contestants/judges/hosts/guests etc. As they hit those magical goose bumpy notes in their songs, a couple of the SaReGaMa singers looked like they were about sh*t their pants. That's the kind of intensity you need to possess while delivering one of those standing ovation type of performances. It sucks that a regular singing show has been turned into a soap of sorts.