The Indian "Talent" Show

I went to an "Indian Talent Show" on Saturday night. I felt life had been too easy and I needed to punish myself for being happy. Atleast, that must have been the only rationale that prompted me to go there, and also the vague hope that I might meet some nice Indian students at the university, preferably female, preferably quiet and nice and not overly yappy. We sat down, amidst a throng of babbling Indians. The show started 40 minutes late with a girl with a squeaky pseudo accent telling us in grating syllables that they were sorry they started late. Everyone clapped, whether it was in anticipation or despair, I couldn't tell. My friend who had come with me to see if there were any good looking girls, stirred in his seat uneasily. They handed out cards that had the show's schedule on them. I forgot what they are called, but at any rate, my friend was happy reading the names, according to him they all sounded like they'd be 'hot'. They then proceeded to sing the national anthems of India and the US. I have never seen a song being gang-raped before, but they managed to pull that one off smoothly. There were two groups of oily looking females singing the anthems, and they were both desperately fighting tooth-and-claw for last place. Everyone else had their hands on their crotch as it was too informal an occassion to stand at attention. The Indian anthem didn't sound as bad basically because everyone was singing louder and louder to drown out the squeaky voices of Oily Exhibits A. The american anthem however would have gotten us all deported if any of the sullen americans sitting listlessly in the corner had the energy to walk over to the phone booth and summon the justice department. It was an effort not to laugh out loud, and on many occassions i got glares from the local senior citizens who had surrounded us and were trying to threaten us into behaving like good boys. The show proceeded, true indian style..with item no. 17 on the list being performed first, followed by the introduction, a dance, more dances, and an intermission. The dances started and my friend leaned forward expectantly. "monisha will now perform mehboob mere" ...He uttered a stricken cry of anguish. Monisha was 7 years old, and definitely not his type, and the same followed for most of the other contenders for rock-bottom. There was one number by some actual college females of age, and it was very remiscent of peasant women stomping on great blobs of cowdung to soften it into patties ( a very common thing in rural villages in india). It should have been called "The Death March of Bataan-Anu Malik" but they give it a rather juicy sounding filmy title. There were some American girls seated in front of us. They couldn't take the excitement and had to leave their chairs to go forward and stand and clap. The funny thing was they left their purses there, and would glance back at us suspiciously from time to time to make sure we wouldn't do a quick number and disappear with said purses. "blady thieving indians"
At this point, a colleague from work and his girlfriend, both americans, decided to join us. "Hey Madman, What're you performing?" ...yes..because i'm indian, and this is an indian talent show, I must perform like a wound-up drummer monkey for your enjoyment so you can purse your lips at some weekly Poker meeting with your friends and make statements like "Hmm..You know, Indian culture is quite interesting, there was this one time...". fucking morons. You might think i'm being unnecessarily harsh. I'm not. This guy writes awful code. I have often fantasized about catching him by the tuft of his beard and beating him mercilessly because I've had to debug said code on many occassions.
The show went on, proceeding smoothly from item to item. The only way you'd know if a particular performance was over was by the listless way in which the 'contestants' would tangentially walk off stage, while the music was playing. now bows, nothing. it was like watching a group of mexicans get caught at the border. the same resignation, the same shoulder-shrugging acceptance of a harsh fate.
The DJ, a white guy, normally asleep, would suddenly realize the stage was empty, stop the music, and clap, and the rest of the herd would follow suit half-heartedly. He also decided to rap for us by the way, and that was the best performance of the evening. That should tell you how good it was.
The show sucked, so I thought the dinner intermission would atleast make up for it, but right before dinner they decided to make a few announcements. The audience, their appetite whetted by all this torture was clapping enthusiastically to everything the squeaky female was blabbing out, in the hopes that they'd be loosed on the food quite soon, then came the announcement. Apparently, the university had refused to fund this event(not surprising. If i were in charge of funding, I'd think twice about paying out good money to watch 8 year olds sing yeh tara woh tara with an american accent, rolling the r's), so there wasn't too much food, and what food there was, had to be rationed. There was a stampede when that announcement was finished. It was reminscent of photographs in The Hindu about the plight of Andhra farmers, and food rations. They literally served us half a spoonful of vegetables, two puris, and some rice, and if you asked for more, you'd get a mournful stare from two girls whom they had stationed expressly for that purpose. As a clever tactic to stop second servings, there were no spoons or forks to be found, only knives, so no one would come back for the rice, and the puris were anyways like Indian Railways material so unless you were dying of hunger, you wouldn't go back for that. At this point, i was saved by my work. I got a call from a guy at work saying something had to be uploaded to some servers, and I headed for the exit, and into the cool, comforting night.