I have been following the indian idol competition for the last few weeks. i consider myself as a music maniac and when the competition has one of the most original voices from the pristine mountains of darjeeling, i could not do anything but say: YES to the show. agreed--Indian Idol may not be the best of the contests in terms of the quality of singers in it. as per my knowledge, there are other shows where singers are classically trained, who sings like PROs. hats off to them. however, one thing i really liked about indian idol is: anyone who has hobbied the art as a bathroom singer can take part in the competition and make it big provided he improves during the competition and wins the heart of hundreds of thousands of his/her listeners. within seven months or so, you can become a hero of the nation--a dream that all the aspiring talent of a country live on/with. apart from showcasing the singing talent, one thing that this season of II was able to do, at least to me and i believe to many others, which some of you folks here might have been missing: 1) it has helped to bring the nepalese communities across the globe together and resurrect the sense of harmony, brotherhood and kinship which these days, one can expect only in utopia. (literally). 2) if we look at nepal alone, people are fighting for their own community rights. everybody wants their own representations, they want their own language to be used as an official/national languange. they would not speak in nepali - the language that is understood by most, the language that is our common recognition. madhesis, newars, limbus et al. are fighting for their own cause which is fair enough to some extent. it's very imperative that a heterogenous society as ours, do justice to all its contents. but while we're at it, we have forgotten the fact there is something which is common between us, which binds everyone of us together and brings a sense of togetherness among us, which is very important as for "unity among variations" is concerned. we all are nepali first off and 'nepal' as a nation should come first. 3) i was quite overjoyed and to a great extent heartened to see that this sense of togetherness is more prevalent among nepalese residing outside nepali borders. i never thought tamangs/gurungs living in darjeeling would speak nepali as their first language. i don't think it's the same for tamangs inside nepal. as Suna pointed out, when you are in home, you tend to take things for granted, you don't realise the importance of who you are. 'being nepali' has plumetted the importance for us nepali living in nepal. ask those second-class nepali citizens in darjeeling, kalimpong and other territories of north india or other parts of the world--they seem to have more pride and respect for being nepali than for nepalese living in nepal ! 4) i think the craze for this show has sky-rocketted for them who have realised this sense of 'nepaliness' among nepali living outside nepal. for those who are still oblivious to this reality, they are still questioning whether prashant tamng is a nepali. they're still asking: how can he be a nepali? isn't he in an indian idol contest, so that means he's an indian? i've been wanting to speak in this topic for a while. sorry to those who find this post too long and boring.