Do we really have a choice?

I was getting home after the day’s work… Its a 5 min walk to my home from the place where the bus drops me…. During the walk, there are umpteen number of houses and from every house I was welcomed by the “Ta Da da Ta da da daa” tune reminding me its 9… Time for Surya to appear in Tamil version of “Kaun Banega Crorepathi”.

When I was in schooling Kaun Banega Crorepathi was a sure watch… That was the first of its kind and so gathered immense popularity for the show as well as its anchor. It was a national programme and people from all over India watched it. After so many years, the quiz show now is officially implemented in many regional languages with its regional stars. In tamil, “Main Amitabh Bachhan bol raha hoon” was replaced by “Vanakkam, naan Surya pesaren”… Computerji became “genius” and “Lock” became “fix”. But rest all, music, set, even costume was designed similarly.

So Surya was all set to take charge. His fans (mostly girls) remarked “Ohhhhh Surya” , His critics remarked “He is bad with talking with people… Lets see how he pulls it through” So somehow or the other people started watching it….

What I really don’t understand is that, when the contestant wins the first “fast fingers” round, the participant goes into a psychic spree… Jumping , dancing and shouting all of a sudden, scaring the kids watching the show as well as Surya himself. Then, there will be a video clip played about the contestant. It will mostly have the same effect of Raju’s house in 3 idiots. The psychic spree will turn into a crying spree  Surya will play a politician’s role, listening to problems patiently and finally soothe them with words. Uncles and aunties who are watching the show will wipe their eyes, seeing the contestant’s problems and TRP rockets up 

Every girl who comes to the show, invariably says she’s a die hard fan (its a small word to describe ) of Surya and goes ahead to prove the fact with incidents and facts while her mother beams proudly seeing her daughter. During the course of the play Surya starts addressing contestant’s mother as amma and emotionally getting closer, thus getting thenamma Surya title in every household. 

This programme has created a huge impact. So much so that, my mom asked me what do you want for lunch?(a) Pulav (b) Roti (c) Sambar rice (d) You will eat in canteen. In a hurry instead of choosing (b) I chose (d) and ended up starring at the menu board of HSB that gave me four other options (a) Fixed meals (b) Special meals (c) Quick lunch (d) North Indian thaali…. Somehow with lifeline (instead of phone-a-friend I asked my friend who was near) my decision was made and I sat eating the lunch. I thought it ended there,  while we went to pantry, I immediately chose tea in order to avoid options but still wasn’t spared. My friend went on to ask What do you want? (a)Ginger tea (b) Cardamom tea (c)Masala tea and (d) Assam tea… Ufffff 

Atleast this is much better, one of my nephew was asked a question in school… He immediately asked for lifelines to his teacher. This created news (thanks to Graham Bell for finding telephone) and the kid was branded as “how cute”… “how smart”… Had I done it in school my mom would have given me a “tight slap” for disobeying the teacher and would have been branded as a “bad child”.

So has television influenced us even in our day-to-day life. Our routine tends to revolve around the the programmes and timings. Reality shows though we know its fake and made up, we still end up watching the contestants abusing eachother proving the “reality” factor. Serials continue, continue and continue… But we still watch it and hoping against hope that it will end atleaast by this month. News channels are no exceptions… They have become more like reality shows these days!

Well, am not telling, not to watch TV… Just that lets not have it as the only entertainment and let it be a part of entertainment. Whatever changes happen, the craze for film stars never change. We forget that they are also like us and acting is a profession they have chosen. But no, we still see and idiolize each star as he appears on screen and treat him even equal to God.

Ok… Now the bottomline is… the choice is yours whether to be the same or change… Make decisions wisely…. No lifelines allowed