Little Champs

I am sure, several of you, including my friends are not going to like this post of mine. But, few forwarded text messages over messengers and Facebook posts have got me thinking and this is the only vent out! So, what is shaking in that pea sized brain of mine is what is the future of our little champs? A few of you have guessed correctly from my title itself, I am thinking about the celebratory stars of this era!! The sudden flood of reality television shows of "prime-time" and the cute, little participants of these reality shows are on the the central stage of my mind lately. I have this friend, whose child is suddenly on national television with best ever Bollywood dance moves. Out of the blues, I see my FB wall full of posts and inbox full of messages appealing the online votes for his child for making him star. I am surprised, he even messaged first requesting and then demanding,  "I know you are very busy, but please vote" those messages continued for over a week! I was surprised and kept thinking how would it matter? And why should I vote? Just because this is my friend's child? And what is the "advantage" for this child? All these questions took me long back in time, down the memory lane, where I was a teenager and by default all kids of my family friends were much younger than us, it was cute to watch them, hear them recite poems and act like their grade school teachers. However, after a point of time, when it became routine process, I stopped enjoying it, and they also eventually grew out of it. Now, as I turn TV on, I see at least ~20 kids performing per channel in several reality shows. I do appreciate talent in all of these kids, somewhere I feel we all as a society, are fueling the talent in an extremely unhealthy competition into idiot box, and getting nothing out of it (or may be little out of it; I hear every now or then that so n so singer/dancer was on that talent show; but such events are really rare), I do agree that it is a great platform to showcase their talent too, but can we please just showcase it and not make a competition of it? Like who's the best out of those six kids? I've seen my family cry when some of the good kids get eliminated and they cry. Certainly they are under tremendous pressure for what levels of competitions they face!! I've seen parents mourning on screen when their kids do not make it at entry or the last level, which certainly makes kids feel the worse!!  I am a believer of the idea that "if there is no competition, there's no progress", but what kind of competition is this? Does getting to sing as a professional playback singer or dance for a movie work as an ultimate goal? With all these on my mind, I have been wondering with question; "Are we making a good citizens for society? Am I the only one thinking that these kids with superfluous talents probably deserve less stress?"
Like other blogs that I write, this one is going to end open as well, open for your comments!! Just with a quote, when you compete with others, it makes you bitter, when you compete with yourself, it makes you better, So, let's make our little champs better; not bitter!!