July 26, 2005

Song averted

Front page in today's Times of India is a news item titled "US consulate makes a song & dance", by Bella Jaisinghani. It relates stories of how, when applicants for US visas state they are singers, the visa officials at the Consulate have sometimes asked them to actually sing -- to make sure they are legit.

One para in the report reads thus:
    The story goes that none other than Asha Bhosle was going to be asked to prove she could sing, had an Indian staffer at the Consulate not immediately intervened and averted the faux pas!

Question: what precisely is the faux pas here that was so fortuituously averted?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What if the US consulate officials decided that she was not a singer using their own judgement? Such bizzare things are possible. That would have been a real faux pas.

What if Engelbert Humperdinck or others had been asked the same question by Indian embassy officials in the US?

Anonymous said...

Uh...the faux-pas being they still let Asha-ji go through.

Krishna

Suvendra Nath Dutta said...

It was ridiculous to ask Asha-ji to sing without a full 40 piece orchestra and 3 back-up singers.

Which makes me realize, at least these older Indian singers can sing. What if someone asked a young kid making in show business to prove they are a singer? Would they request their recording engineer or producer? I know I would request the official and I go to the shower before I could sing.

R. said...

As a banker would I be asked to fork out money?

Anonymous said...

As an Oracle DBA I was asked to explain what is Database is!

tris said...

Dilip - I had no clue one had to take some much abuse in the realm of blogging.

Disagreeing with someone's point of view I completely understand but this kind of abuse in the comments section is simply beyond me!

Could 'anonymous' not have stated in plain English what his objection was?

I for my part thought the whole episode was hilarious (it could be untrue but it is good for a laugh) People have done this before - asked MS if she can sing - not at the consulate but a party and she obliged .........