A while ago I had a post (http://o3.indiatimes.com/meragussa2/archive/2006/11/20/2658556.aspx) on how Indians and other immigrants got together and voted out Senator George Allen after he made some racist remarks against Indians. It was clearly a moment of pride and a proof that democracy works and that any community can get together and fight back. But the same proud Indian immigrants seem to be charging down a very different path now.

A TV show called American Idol (I believe there is an Indian version too) is vastly popular in the US. In the latest series (currently running) a singer of Indian origin, Sanjaya Malakar, has been doing exceptionally well. Hmmm, is he? Actually no. He is extremely talented, only 17 years old. Kudos to him. But compared to the competetion his performance sucks. Let me say it again. His performance sucks.

Depsite his poor performance in comparison to his competitors he keeps making it to the next round. Why? How? Well the competition is based on votes from the general public. The Indian/Indian origin population in the US is going all out to support Sanjaya. In fact there was even a blogger on O3 who promoted the idea of voting for Sanjaya even though he/she admitted Sanjaya had inferior talent. The rules of the game allow any person to cast as many votes he or she wishes to. The voter has to pay for voting. Everywhere I go the Indian community is all ga-ga about Sanjaya and their support for him. And yes, they even admit that he is not as talented as his competitors. Yet they vote for him, multiple times, paying for each vote.

I personally find it despicable and yet so predictable that we Indians have once again risen to show our true colours. I am waiting for the moment when the US media brings to light the biased Indian voting on this show and then the retalliation of the Indian population in the US calling the US media racist. See the irony? I guess not :-)

Ah! yes, not just racist, we are hypocrites too. Now that I am done venting, I should go vote for Sanjaya. NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dude:

You don't have to pay to vote. You can even write a small program to keep voting (in a loop) for two hours. MAybe that's what Indian engineers are doing :)

Yeah he sucks big time. He looked shocked when the host told that the other guy, Sundance, was voted off.

NA

LOL! So neither pride nor racism, just some good ole hacking, eh? But wouldn't such a program crash the server or do something to be detected? (assuming the organizers of the Idol even care)

oops , forgot to quote the source. It was some shitty times of india junk page with millions of ads.

Gorege Allen faced and got the true consequences of being a racist. It's good.
Sanjay is good but not good enough for final twelve. Anyway I don't think it's racist, it's just little bit of support. I would have done same if my native is on there too, who know? It's good to play a game, don't you think so?