INDIAN IDOL RECIPE

MUMBAI, — For a glimpse into the hungry hearts of young India, step inside a giant hulk of a studio here in the country's film and television capital for the weekly taping of "Indian Idol 2."


An audience member and her idol: Mr. Acharya, the winner.
This is where Indians come to be discovered: Antara Mitra from the remote eastern border in Bengal; Amey Date from a small third-floor walk-up in central Mumbai; Sandeep Acharya, from Bikaner, a small town in Rajasthan; and N. C. Karunya, on leave from an engineering college in the southern high-tech hub, Hyderabad.
Winnowed from some 30,000 contestants who lined up on the first day of auditions, these four contestants were among the show's eight finalists this spring. They were all in their late teens and 20's. None of them were low on grit or ambition. All had been studying music since they were children. Each dreamed of becoming a professional singer in the dog-eat-dog Indian movie industry. "Indian Idol" was their one chance of swimming straight to the top.
"I have to show people I have talent," is how Mr. Date, 26, the pragmatic child of a single mother, put it. "This is the best platform in India."
A platform for the would-be stars, yes, but also a peephole into the zeitgeist of young India.
"Indian Idol," a variation of the British "Pop Idol" and "American Idol," is one among a spate of talent hunts that have mushroomed across the television landscape in the past couple of years. "The Great Indian Laughter Challenge," a stand-up comedy contest, is in its second season. "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa," a song contest named after the notes of the Indian musical scale, wrapped up its first season in February. "Nach Baliye," a dance contest whose name means "Let's Talk Dance," is expected to begin its second season later this year.
If nothing else, the proliferation of these contests testifies to a powerful set of beliefs among a generation of middle-class Indian youth: that they can make it on merit, that democracy will trounce favoritism and that no matter whether a contestant has unsung small-town roots or lacks family connections, talent will be recognized — and that the masses of unsung small-town Indians can make that possible.
Most contestants are from far-flung places in India, miles away from the upscale parts of big cities like Mumbai, formerly Bombay. Winners are chosen by popular vote. The contests are all in Hindi, which is increasingly the lingua franca of the country, thanks to the expansion of Hindi film and television well beyond India's traditional northern Hindi belt.
"It's our way of participating, in a vicarious manner, in this great Mumbai dream," said Shailaja Bajpai, a television critic at The Indian Express, an English-language daily. "It says, 'O.K., we can rise.' "
The winner of "Indian Idol" takes home a Sony recording contract, a brand-new car and most important of all, a priceless shot at stardom. Last year's winner, Abhijit Sawant, 24, from Mumbai, not only has recorded an album but also has spent much of the last year performing concerts in India and abroad. His autobiography, "Aap ka Abhijit" — in English, "Your Abhijit" — chronicles his rise from obscurity to stardom.
Two uniquely Indian features have grafted themselves onto these talent shows. Not a single woman has been crowned a winner, with the exception of the female half of a dance duo on a show called "Fame Gurukul" last year. To Ms. Bajpai's mind, the exclusion reveals a persistent reluctance of the Indian audience to endorse an entertainer who is a woman. "Nice girls don't go up there and become winners," is how she put it.
Second, the talent shows have offered a platform for marginal, small-town India to rally around its own — and to display its power by dint of tens of thousands of votes made by cellphone text messages.
Take for instance the winner of this year's "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa" contest, Debojit Saha. He fired up a surge of pride among the people of Assam, so much so that they dared to flout a decree issued by a feared separatist outfit, the United Liberation Front of Assam. The separatists had denounced him for singing in Hindi, rather than in his native Assamese, and ordered people not to vote for him.
Repeatedly this year, the judges on "Indian Idol 2" appealed to viewers to cast their votes on the basis of merit, not parochial pride, so exasperated were they by what they suspected to be a flood of votes from people in the cow belt of north India to prop up their favorite candidates.
Indeed, when Mr. Date was voted out in one of the final rounds in March, the television studio audience revolted, encircling the judges in the parking lot and demanding a rematch. "We Indians are very emotional people," the host, Mini Mathur, conceded on the next episode. In the end, there was no rematch; in keeping with the rules of the game, the popular vote remained the final verdict.
An outvoted Mr. Date returned home to the apartment he shares with his mother. A stack of posters lay on the windowsill, urging votes for "Mumbai Boy Amey Date." Friends had pooled more than $1,200 to print the posters, a handsome sum by the standards of Mr. Date's family. Everyone, Mr. Date said, had a lot riding on his success. He said he had tried to keep a low profile. He has heard that his fans sometimes prowl the neighborhood looking for his apartment.
"Many people were expecting — my family, my friends, my fans — they were expecting me to achieve that crown," Mr. Date said quietly. "That gives me some pressure."
Mr. Date is unsure what he will do next. He will not leave the music business, he said. He will also make sure to let it be known that he made it to the "top four in 'Indian Idol.' "
Until his effort to win "Indian Idol 2," Mr. Date supported himself and his mother by giving singing lessons.
On April 22, Mr. Acharya, "the boy from Bikaner," was crowned the winner of "Indian Idol 2."