Rock Off

Gaah! Help! Oxygen! Water! Something! I just watched Rock On on MTV!

As a non-fan of MTV’s current programming, I have conditioned my reflexes to switch channels quickly while channel-surfing to avoid hurling due to unintended exposure to Roadies or Splitsvilla or whatever other crap they have on nowadays. However, I do admit to having some morbid curiosity in the possibility of a TV talent hunt being some good, despite all empirical evidence to the contrary. Besides, its rock. Could it be all that bad?

I do not remember who, but it was a very wise person who said, “there’s a sucker born every minute.”

So, I watch a full thirty minutes of some folks doing a training/practice montage, doing a decent (and I stress that word) rock rendition of a Bollywood number on stage, and then getting verbally assaulted by the judges. And, it may be because I’m stupid to have expected one, but I fail to see the point of it all.

My favourite part was the judges, each of whom genuinely seems to wish they were elsewhere. Ram Sampath, who I used to adore as part of Colourblind, seems to have turned into a snobbier-than-thou prick who can’t appreciate anything. Kailash Kher seems positively fruity when he tries to diplomatically tell people they suck. As such, he’s the only bearable one. The real surprise, for me, was erstwhile cool dude Nikhil Chinappa who, for some reason, seems to be growing more and more bitter with age, losing no chance to savage any performance for cosmetic reasons.

So, if I don’t like it, why don’t I just switch channels, you might ask. Well, I did, once I heard this intriguing quote from Nikhil (to perhaps the crappiest band that I saw) while expressing disappointment at their performance: ‘You guys are among the fifty best musicians in India, give or take’. Really? Really?

Anyway, to recover, I have some rock that’s both good and untouched by MTV: I finally got my hand’s on Avial’s album. Yaay.