First a confession – I do not watch reality TV as a rule. I have never been able to sit through an entire episode of anything except one episode of Emotional Atyachar many years ago which I willed myself to watch – only so I could understand what depths it was possible for humanity to plumb. Those out there brave enough to sit through the histrionics and the scripted ‘spontaneity’ of these shows, these memes may be familiar:
Tales of hardship, desperation and misfortune apparently go down really well with the judges and/or viewers. Apparently the sadder the story, the better one's chances of advancing beyond the audition!
Apparently that is all the contestant has to do: say they are from some remote village and they get selected. The very fact that they made it to the audition is evidence of their talent – isn’t it?
Any type of hardship will do, it would seem - real or imagined. By all accounts, Neha Kakkar can turn on the waterworks at will!
She is jazbaati – emotional – get it? Why? Because उसका कोई "घर" नहीं वो "सड़क" पर रहता है वो "Be-ggar" (beghar, homeless) hai answered another tweet.
If a contestant manages to make the judges and audience sad, that’s great! If one or more of the judges cry, even better! Maybe the contestants are also encouraged to do some random ‘rona dhona’ – after all TRP ka sawal hai and people love a good tearjerker!
If Kakkar easily reduced to tears, another one of the judges, Anu Malik is known for reducing the contestants to tears; many viewers are of the view that he is unnecessarily harsh and critical.
Apparently all it takes is poverty + tears. Who knows; even someone who isn’t actually auditioning may get lucky one day.
A lot of viewers feel that real talent gets shortchanged because the drama gets so much weightage.
There is so much crying and scripted melodrama and so many tears shed, this could actually be a real thing!
If one can tolerate and sit through all the drama one is rewarded by some beautiful voices like this!
Surinder Singh maybe didn’t have to wear his fauji uniform on the stage or talk about his little daughter – he has that voice! Call me a sucker, but that one made my eyes a wee bit moist as well (didn’t do it for you? You clearly have no heart). I suppose it’s the nature of the beast – reality TV isn’t really reality TV unless it is also Rona-Dhona TV.
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