India Asks: "Sanjaya Who?"
"American Idol" Finalist A Virtual Unknown In Father's Homeland
6NEW DELHI, April 5, 2007 | by Judy Faber
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(AP) So much for the Indian Call Center Theory: Under-talented singer Sanjaya Malakar's unlikely wave of "American Idol" support apparently isn't coming from his father's homeland.
Indians are usually attuned to the successes of their compatriots abroad. But apart from a few brief newspaper articles, at least one short TV news segment and a few blog mentions, the reedy 17-year-old with the unsteady voice is a virtual unknown here.
One reason is that the show is broadcast a day late in India, and on an English-language channel that attracts relatively few viewers in this country of 1.1 billion.Photo Essay: Meet The Idol Finalists
"He's also an object of ridicule," said Amit Varma, who runs the popular India Uncut blog.
Malakar's success with viewers, who vote by phone or text message for their favorite performers, has come despite withering criticism from the three "Idol" judges. The irascible Simon Cowell has even threatened to quit if the native of Federal Way, Wash., wins the contest.
Malakar survived elimination on Wednesday night to make it to the final eight. If he can hold on for a few more weeks, he might see his fame spread here, Varma said.
"Even if the guy's really an American, it will be projected by the media here as an Indian doing well in the world," he said. "They'll make a big deal about it."
As for the theory that Indian call center operators are phoning in votes for Malakar: Most workers have calls automatically dialed for them by computers. They couldn't even call next door if they wanted to.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Sanjaya is a born in the good old USA American citizen and beyond that he's half-Italian.
Do you read Sanjaya Italian ridicule? Does the media talk about the Italian voting conspiracies?
No... because they don't want to hate on Italians- they're white like us-- let's hate on Indians!
Thanks for busting the Indian Voting Conspiracy myth.
There is so much racial hatred and bigotry being aimed at this young man...
I heard about Howard Stern & Vote for the Worst so I checked it out only to find that the evil Sanjaya is this typical high school kid from Seattle who sings in the church choir, dances the hula and makes crazy videos with gummi bears...
Then you read it's all a big Indian Pakistanti G a y terrorist plot and now his fans FAMJAYAS are a cult and he is the anti-christ.... I've read posts where the writers obviously don't know the difference between India and Pakistan...
What's more amazing is the terrible Sanjaya can really rock. has a lot of soul and has his own fan base that includes many beyond the teeny bopppers. He's not even close to the "worst." Howard Stern shame on you for putting all of the haters on Sanjaya.
Sanjaya ROCK ON
Some of the others are not as awful.
He needed to go a long time ago, actually, the three Muskateers should not have moved him forward at all.
I think that A.I. is a good platform for singers who would not get heard otherwise, except fro chiors or smoky bars and I do not like to see it made a farce because of the little twit.
All I have observed is two things:
1. Sanjaya is winning by his looks alone. That's not India's problem, unless they're meddling and I couldn't care less - the show has as much credibility as a dead chipmunk does.
2. Anyone who thinks Indians are good for IT call centers isn't just being racist or prejudiced; they're myopic. Indians (and others) with their H1Bs can be found doing all sorts of things in contractor-level jobs. And all I keep hearing are complaints. You can't give out jobs to people with no experience, but the way things are going that's going to change big-time in the next several years... (so it doesn't matter if they screw up right now; it's just America they're hurting.)