DesiDabba - Boss, Thoda Sa Roomani Ho Jaye

For a largely inoffensive young man, Sanjaya Malakar is sure kicking up a dust storm that looks set to outperform the Antonella Barba virus that infected the internet just a couple of weeks ago.

Over on Television without Pity, for example, forum members have taken to calling him Send-jaya-home. And that’s because they’re kind. Some of the other nicks floating around are more on the Sanjayjay (I guess this really is the Grey’s Anatomy generation) track. And it’s all a bit bizarre because this virulent hatred of his presence on Idol is coupled with almost catatonic indifference towards him as a person.

As American Idol heads into its Top 10 week (Gwen Stefani performs with Akon and Mentor no less – I don’t know who sold his soul to the Devil to get Prince on that stage last year but it’s opened the floodgates proper) everybody just wants to know one thing – who’s voting for Sanjaya? There might be the odd person who writes up in his defense but a big block of the audience is patently puzzled by his survival week after week. If everybody wasn’t so busy agreeing on how much he sucks, I get the feeling they’d have forgotten his existence.

When Idol devoted half his airtime to a hysterically sobbing little fan in the audience Tuesday night, many felt their worst fears confirmed – this then was the demographic feverishly voting to keep Sanjaya in place. Maybe, but the little girl turned out to be a cynical ploy – filched by the almighty Idol producers from Fox’s Jeff Foxworthy-hosted latest assault on all our inner stupid children, for those awesome tear ducts that just won’t quit.

Others sense the smug hand of the good people from Vote for the Worst who proudly declared Sanjaya their poster boy the day Sundance Head packed his bags and went off to shout somewhere else. I’m sure they’re dedicated worker bees in their quest to bring Idol low but a little voice questions their ultimate power – do they really have the numbers to vote Sanjaya into safety every week?

Of course, they could be getting some help from like-minded people, a list presently headed by Howard Stern. I’m not a radio gal and from what little I’ve heard of him, I think he works the shock-jock a little too hard but hey! There might be people who listen to him. If Rush Limbaugh can mobilize political votes, then why can’t Stern rock the Idol vote? Who knows what dark deeds go on in the cult of radio? It could happen.

But maybe it’s the pity vote. The producers, those Machiavellian heavy-handed manipulators who could hardly contain their glee the moment Sanjaya walked into the auditions (remember the Brother! Sister! Drama! nonsense they sprung on us?) have certainly done a good job of making us all feel bad for the kid.

Not only does he look completely defenseless up there on stage with his giant smile and goofy hair (all those hair-stylists and make-up artists and things and you let him walk out in public with Diana Ross hair? Seriously? Even Diana Ross doesn’t look good with a Diana Ross do! And don’t even get me started on that shout out to Michael -HolyMotherofGodYouDidn’t!- Jackson!) but it tugs at the heartstrings to see him land up in the bottom slot week after week being set up as the guy who robbed a more deserving contestant. A dim light must have gone off somewhere though because they gave him a break on that this week.

And how uncomfortable is it to watch Ryan Seacrest trying to needle him into making some sort of an attempt at a retort to the judges? Which brings us to the lynchpin – Simon Cowell.

It’s hard to remember now that Simon was actually very nice to Sanjaya in the beginning – hard, because in the weeks since then you can almost feel him wince every time his gaze falls on the kid. And then he made, what I think was a tactical mistake – he famously said that he’d leave the show if Sanjaya became the next Idol.

Simon being Simon, he was probably just handing out a soundbyte but dude! Does he have no idea how much that would have appealed to some people? The ones who’re offended just by the fact that he wakes up in the morning? I bet those guys are frantically pushing the buttons for their cause: A Vote for Sanjaya Today Will Keep Simon Away.

But the latest theory on the subject takes the cake as far as I’m concerned: workers at Indian BPOs are calling in for Sanjaya and keeping him in the game.

There you have it people! This was our plan all along! First we inveigled our way into your homes by paying Hank Azaria to talk like he had a speech impediment and then we took away your jobs by dangling better profit margins in the face of your companies and now – now, we’re going to take American Idol! One more year, America, and you’ll all be eating monkey brains! BWAHAHAHA!

Oh, shut up. Look, race and Idol have shared a complicated relationship for a long time now whether it was Frenchie getting kicked off while Barba got to stay or Ruben Stoddard beating out Clay Aiken with the alleged backing of Oprah. But it is beyond ridiculous to say that there is a BPO pact to vote for him. It isn’t just paranoid, it’s insulting.

First of all, those BPO workers are far too busy ripping off your bank accounts to waste their time voting for American Idol.

Kidding!

But got you there for a second, didn’t I? Mull on that while I point out the utter idiocy of letting a TV show take such control of your life that you’d be willing to believe an entire industry, if not an entire country, was out to support your least favorite contestant. I’ve written before about Sanjaya’s ethnicity being a factor in some people’s eyes but as an Indian, I assure you we’re too busy hating each other (as Russell Peters pointed out) to get together on a scale that would keep Sanjaya’s Idol dreams alive.

And even if some kind of unilateral memo went out in Bangalore and told all the drones to hit the voting line – how many of them do you think there are? We’re a country with a billion people all right but there’s more to India than Bangalore and not all of us are computer geeks or customer service personnel now waiting patiently for your next phone call.

All of this, of course, has had an impact on the kid himself. How could it not? Fortress Idol isn’t exactly cut off from the rest of the world and it can’t be nice to wake up every day and find more people hating on you. We’ve seen Sanjaya go from a shy but talented young singer to a sad-eyed, increasingly desperate performer who wouldn’t survive Antakshari on Zee TV at this rate.

Other 17 year olds have performed brilliantly on the same stage (three of them last season alone and Jordin Sparks is another one this year) but not every kid is up to the kind of pressure this type of television generates. Sanjaya is a cautionary tale on a completely different level than the talentless hacks who populate Idol’s initial rounds – you need something more than talent to compete on a show like Idol: you need the psychological grit to survive it. Had he auditioned, say a year into his college experience, who knows? Maybe he wouldn’t have fallen apart after the judges called him on his boring first performance and might have had a real chance.

It’s obvious that Sanjaya, like every other Idol contestant, has managed to build a fan base. It could well be a consortium of interests: tweenies, VFTW-ers, obedient Stern fans, Simon-haters, Indians and Italians (hey, this could be the image change they’ve been waiting for).

If all this is too much for you to deal with, I suggest you check out the X Factor. Much more fun, much less drama.