American Idol's Sanjaya Barely Noticed in India

Think India is proud of unlikely American Idol contestant Sanjaya's continued success?

They're barely aware of him.

Despite popular conspiracy theories concocted as to why Sanjaya is still around on American Idol; ranging from sites like Vote For The Worst, the encouragement of King of All Media Howard Stern, to more peculiar ideas like call centers in India using vast phone networks to bump up Sanjaya's ranking, the idea that Sanjaya's father's homeland is rooting for him is just plain false.

Sanjaya isn't any major factor in Indian news or even the country's entertainment gossip. There's been only a few newspaper articles, some blog entries and one TV news blurb on the Farrah Fawcett mopped bi-racial singer; Sanjaya Malakar is Half Indian on his father's side and Half Italian on his mother's side.

Since the show is broadcast on an English-language channel and a day late, TV coverage of the 17 year old with the potluck pipes is practically nil in a country with a population of over 1.1 billion people.

``He's also an object of ridicule,'' said Amit Varma, who runs the popular India Uncut blog. This is an obvious fact, which makes the Indian press highly unlikely from touting someone of Indian heritage who's being mocked in America.

Sanjaya has so divided fans, casual viewers and even the judges of American Idol, that his surviving yet another week of competition has prompted even more outrage, confusion and just plain silliness. Acerbic British judge Simon Cowell has even gone on record to say that if Sanjaya wins the top spot on the music show, he'll quit.

Amit Varma offers a reason why Sanjaya could eventually become a topic of the Indian media, ``Even if the guy's really an American, it will be projected by the media here as an Indian doing well in the world,'' he said. ``They'll make a big deal about it.''

Regarding the far-fetched theory of support from Indian call center workers, there's just no validity to if for simple technical reasons. The great majority of the phone reps have calls made by computer systems. Even if Sanjaya was their hero, and he's clearly not, they'd never be able to vote for the wide grinning singer - at least not on company time.

Sanjaya has tapped into a rare vein of popular culture. He's loved and hated, rooted for and rooted against. Only time will tell if Simon Cowell makes good on his promise to quit, or if Sanjaya gets a final curtain call on American Idol or actually wins as some are now predicting.