Nerve Endings Firing Away

Note: This was written after the preliminary rounds. The latest update on the Malakar siblings progress including pictures was posted later. Sanjaya and Shyamali pictures added too in previous link. Scroll down for video links. Dial Idol’s prediction on Sanjaya’s fate. Don’t click if you don’t want spoilers. Sanjaya finally makes it to the top 12 but only barely. And now, he is making little girls cry.

Since everyone desi is gung ho about Big Brother in UK and frothing at the mouth at the alleged racism, I’ll be brave enough to go to the other extreme and admit my guilty pleasure of enjoying American Idol. I am not a rabid fan although I know of another prominent blogger who is [care to guess?] I missed the last season as I didn’t have access to a TV then. But the sixth season kicked off on Tuesday and I couldn’t help tuning in.

The first episode was followed by another couple of hours on Wednesday and mostly consisted of preliminary qualifying auditions in Minneapolis and Seattle. The auditions predictably were dominated by horrendous renditions of otherwise beautiful songs. I simply don’t understand the levels of delusion that motivates these participants to try out for American Idol and humiliate themselves on national TV. Or are they hoping to emulate William Hung.

(image source: American Idol via Uberdesi)

Anyway, bad singers apart there were two desi teenagers – Shyamali and Sanjaya Malakar from Lacey, WA who actually managed to impress the judges including Simon. In earlier seasons, there were couple of desis who made absolute fools of themselves (the infamous ‘West Punjab’). But this brother-sister duo partly thanks to their training in Indian classical music belted out Summertime [Shyamali] and Stevie Wonder’s Sign, Sealed, Delivered [Sanjaya] in admirable fashion.

Of course, they were nervous as hell but as the judges observed, Shyamali had better screen presence and Sanjaya had the better singing ability. Of course, Idol was quick to pitch this as a sibling rivalry. Going by Shyamali’s expression after her brother was asked by Seacrest whom did the judges think had the better voice, she might actually be falling for it. Sanjaya humbly refused to answer the question. They have a mixed parentage [Indian dad and Amru (?) mom]. Probably this could be the immigrant idol year.

Now both Shyamali and Sanjaya have it in them to at least make it to the final 12 if they brush up on their charisma and get over their relative shyness. I just hope the sibling rivalry angle doesn’t cause their mutual downfall. Update: Unfortunately, Shyamali got cut in the ‘Hollywood’ round. Here is their progress and some more pictures.

Sepia Mutiny is glad to see so many desis on American television although Abhi professes to have chanced upon American Idol while surfing yet had the post up by early morning. Hmmmm… Uber Desi did the initial research of digging up their images and yup, also their MySpace profiles. Their friends list went from 48 today morning to 350+. Nope! I’ll not be keeping score.

Update: For those who couldn’t or didn’t see them, here is the video of their audition. Daily Motion has the video too in case Google Video decides to pull it.

Update: Whoa! Rediff in their characteristic fashion are jumping the gun by predicting they might win American Idol; not to mention, a misleading headline. The Malakars are not Indian; they are Indian-Americans. Let us not adopt the ‘good’ NRIs and banish the so-so ones. Also, I am not sure they are twins as Rediff claims. Shyamali is in college whereas Sanjaya is in high school. And of course they “speak with a distinct American accent”, they are Americans, remember. Just because they are brown doesn’t make them Indians for life.