Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Killer reality show for children!

Around two weeks back one of the TV news channel was carrying a report on a suicide. What was shocking that this suicide was committed by a very young girl who Class VIII student of India International School at Jaipur (or may be Jodhpur, I could not recollect). She had hanged herself from the ceiling fan of her room. Everyone was debating as to how such a young girl could, who was may be around 13, think of taking her life. The family claims that she was under lot of stress and depression because of her school and study. Did she really crack under stress?

Came on the heel of this news was a reality show for children named ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Little Champs’ by Zee TV. It is a singing competition ostensibly to find the child singing sensation. Commercial success of such other shows involving grown ups is the actual reason behind this rather than finding a genius. We have all seen how grown ups cracked in these shows. So will the kids be able to cope with the stress? The sense of losing can be devastating for the kid and may ruin their confidence for life. This is commercial exploitation of the children and parents are also no less responsible. It was no surprise to when one channel showed this morning when 2 sisters tried to commit suicide at Mumbai following their failure to make it to the show.

I remember watching a talent search show in ESPN sometime back where one top clubs of Brazil was picking potential Ronaldos and Ronaldinhos. The idea is to catch them young. Before the results were declared they conducted some de-stressing session for the aspirants. The clubs had identified the problem that the sense of failure can devastate these young minds and they can take to drugs even at that early stage. It was a very humane approach to deal with the young minds. Well, this was reality. Unfortunately what we have in India is a reality show where most important component is commercialization. This is a country where people jump from cinema hall balconies after watching the Indian version of superman. Will some pragmatic mind come up together to stop such exploitation of children.

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