Hype and disappointment

Have you ever acted in a play? In all probability the answer will be in the affirmative. Whether it was at the annual function at school, or for the festival in college, or the annual neighbourhood Durga Puja "" acting holds fascination for us all.

An eminent theatre critic told me that his first brush with theatre was at the age of seven when he became a member of Hanuman's army in the local Ramleela "" new costumes were made for him, all his relatives watched and praised him, all for nothing more than jumping around on stage as a monkey!

And if you didn't get the opportunity in your childhood to act in a play, then you must definitely nurture a secret desire to be on stage "" to act, to dance, to sing or whatever.

In my workplace it is not unusual for me to encounter, both in person and on the telephone, desperate requests asking to be given an opportunity to come on stage.

Sometimes it is a 45-year-old police officer confiding that he is in the force by mistake and his real calling is actually acting, that he is willing to do anything to get that opportunity, and that I have to take him in my next play!

Another time it is my neighbourhood shopkeeper, who has come to know from TV that I teach "drauma", and he grabs the first opportunity to approach me for a possible role in my play. This is said along with rattling out a family CV of a cousin who has acted in a play and a brother who has "struggled" for five years in Mumbai (without much luck, of course).

Yet, again, it is a busy businesswoman who hardly has the time to look after her kids, trying to impress me with her acting prowess "" hoping, I suppose, to be cast in the main role in my next play! If only I was doing so many plays that could accommodate all of them and offer them a platform!

This urge to perform, emanates from a natural desire to be recognised, to be appreciated. It always begins like that, and if the right "breaks" come one's way, and the artiste goes through the rigours of the particular discipline he is interested in, then one day this might transform into a serious creative quest. This is how great artistes are created!

But today there is another dimension to this ambition. In this age of dominance of the electronic media, a plethora of reality shows and programmes have mushroomed on each channel. These programmes do not nurture this desire creatively, but exploit it for commercial gains.

How else would one explain programmes where eight- or nine-year-olds are encouraged to dance on Hindi film songs so aggressively, very often imitating the sexually titillating gestures and postures that would embarrass even grown ups!

Or those where adult performers are supposedly "nurtured" by a battery of experts not just to sing but also to run down their co-competitors with a view to winning the contest themselves. Ironically, one such was called Fame Gurukul. What a travesty of the guru-shishya parampara!

You could argue that these programmes help in encouraging potential talent, hence play a constructive role.

My sense is that since the purpose of these programmes is not really to promote talent as much as to increase TRPs, they are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. They do not insist on standards, they do not seek healthy competition, they provide hype and then leave these vulnerable young ones to deal with disappointments. More people are likely to be destroyed than discovered.

The moral of my story: that the stage is better than the screen. QED.