Sanjaya Malakar

Will he ever be voted out?

Image Courtesy: smh.com.au

This season’s American idol could well be remembered for all the wrong reasons. The scandal surrounding Antonella Barba’s ‘revealing’ pictures had just about subsided when another Idol Sanjaya Malakar (a contestant of Indian origin) has taken the bulk of the attention for all the wrong reasons. He is by far the worst singer left in the competition and has shown an amazing talent to escape the cut week after week.

Even I, an Indian, feel that he has stayed on the show at least 3 weeks longer than he should have. Every week I watch the show thinking that this would definitely be the last time I see him only to be disappointed repeatedly. I was flabbergasted last week to see that he was not even in the bottom 3. It left me wondering who the hell is voting for him. Maybe his weird hairdo saved him. Simon was spot on when he said that people must have turned the volume off.

Sanjaya has been getting the votes from a website called votefortheworst.com. This website has adopted him as their latest weapon to destroy American Idol. They encourage people to vote for Sanjaya so that he, one of the worst singers left in the competition, is the winner of this talent hunt. Also Howard Stern’s backing, though defied commonsense, hasn’t hurt Sanjaya either.

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There were rumors that he is being voted for by young girls and gays. They seem to like his unmanly voice and feminine characteristics. But even that does not explain what he is still doing on a show for finding the best vocal talent. The people who are voting for him needs to get their heads examined.

The most absurd of allegations though is that the Indian call centers are keeping aside their work to place as much calls as possible for Sanjaya Malakar. Come on guys Indians are not as stupid as you think. Only a small percentage in India even watches the show. I watch it because I have been following it for the past 4 seasons. Only a few people in India even know who Sanjaya Malakar is, forget voting for him. We get to watch the show a day after it was aired in the US. We don’t know which number to call till it’s aired by which time the result would have already announced. I know I have never even tried to vote for the show. These allegations are only part of the propaganda to tarnish Indian outsourcing industry. The people working in call centers deserve a lot more respect for the work they do than that.

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Lets also take a stock of what has happened to the previous winners shall we? Baring Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, the other winners were all upstaged by people who lost to them. It just goes on to show that outside forces and manipulations may help you win a contest but it can never cover up your inadequacies in the talent department. So all those people voting for Sanjaya may well remember that you are just prolonging the time when he would inevitably fall on his face.

The format of the show itself is susceptible to let better talents slip out of their grasps. If I don’t want to vote for Sanjaya I might vote for someone else, say Lakisha. But at the same time another person, who doesn’t want to see Sanjaya win might vote for someone else say Melinda. See where I am going with this? The people who are against Sanjaya get their votes split. While those who are for Sanjaya always votes for him and it will always be of the same number. Maybe they should have people to vote for the person they want to kick out rather than the other way round.

Image Courtesy: rediff.com

Whatever maybe the case if Sanjaya wins it could be the kiss of death for American Idol. That would be a shame because the show was one solid opportunity for ordinary people to get their talent noticed and maybe have a shot at a better life. My message to those people who are going on hunger strike to get him out as well as to those people who are voting for him is the same; “Get a life and Get your priorities sorted out”. American Idol has stopped being a singing competition for some time now.