[Mr.Plow]

i don't know if it was done on purpose by the producers, but IMHO last night's show has definitely put back tourism India for a few years. It will also put off any female travellers planning for a trip to India.

just my opinion

[KnowItAll]

umm .. was this the same old crap where they showed dumbarse yankee tourists being harrassed?

Was on AXN a year or so ago...

[Max]

This is exactly the kind of patronising judgemental comment we don't need!!

I saw the show and have been following it for the past few seasons. The show's organisers and producers make it a point to put up challenges for the participants in the competition. THAT'S exactly what it is: A COMPETITION! Let's treat it as one. Anybody making their travel plans based on what happened in a pseudo-reality TV show should know better!

And besides, why would travelers ever visit the neighborhood "laundromat" or the fish-market, or even take the local trains???!! Surely tourists prefer traveling around in relative comfort, and for that purpose there are plenty of affordable taxis. There are lots of other, more deserving sights to see in Bombay (Mumbai).

OK, so it isn't perfect, I'll admit, but what other cities are? Every city has its own disadvantages, even Hong Kong! Please think twice about posting such opinons!

[KnowItAll]

*shrug* The scenes reflect the harsh reality of India in an uncensored manner.

Think about it.. would Thailand / Malaysia / Phillipines or Indonesia for that matter have allowed some of the scenes to be filtered? They'd have sanitised the place a week before the crew landed.

On a side note, is it worse to patronise or is it worse to create situations where you can be patronised.

[Max]

Thats true , KIA, it does show a harsh reality of India, but then there are a lot of other cities whose 'reality' we don't see. Just the surface, but then that's what most tourists want and really get to see. Only the discerning traveler or the regular visitor experiences scenes like these, though at least they've accustomed themselves to that same reality, and are better prepared to accept it.

[Mr.Plow]

I was referring to the negative manner in which the country was portrayed. There are a lot of beautiful places in India, but the producers were only interested in the negative aspects and REINFORCING the stereo-types.

What’s next, the contestants being attacked with beer cans from a bunch of indigenous aborigines and middle aged Caucasian males in Alice Springs?

[DimSum]

BTW, I've the gay couple win by a whisker...

[AKD]

max that was a great comment ..and being from india i can safely tell you , that bombay might not be perfect, but the people are genuine and vibrant and always take hardship in thier stride..it always amazes me how a city of such a mammoth proportion stays afloat and functioning..my 3 years working there was a big WOW and amazing friends..if there is a city in india u want to live in while u are within your 30s ..its bombay..sure theres poverty..but people manage..they are tenecious as hell man..anyways i am a bit nostalgic..miss bombay

[kombuchakid]

I've seen them on the underground and on the beach, in airport lounges and corporate reception areas. People holding yellow-covered copies of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix are everywhere. Now not even J. K. Rowling's greatest admirers would seriously argue that this is the best, or the most original, or the most instructive, or the most entertaining book that will be published this year. Everyone is reading it because everyone is reading it. The Harry Potter novels are not just books, they are subjects of public conversation among complete strangers. Public conversation has always existed. Its exploitation for private profit is relatively new.

We are social animals and we need topics of conversation. These topics are most encompassing when they are rooted in common experience. That is why the weather is the universal currency of small talk. Momentous events are similar. After the weather the most common conversation starter is "Have you heard the news?".

It is thousands of years since politicians first used their influence on public conversation for social control. Roman emperors offered bread and circuses. Mass entertainment was as important as economic benefits. If people were talking about the exploits of heroic gladiators, they would have less time to air their political grievances. The East German communist regime promoted sporting excellence for similar reasons.

It is better to determine the vocabulary of common debate than to neutralise it. You can draw attention to the real or imaginary deeds of real or imaginary enemies - the dangers of communist infiltration, the threat from asylum seekers, the regulatory burdens imposed by the European Union. George Orwell wrote an appendix to Nineteen Eighty-Four to explain how politicians would divert public conversation to their own ends.

The discovery that you could exploit shared experiences for private profit is more recent. Sporting events were once held for the amusement of participants and the entertainment of spectators. But today they are big business. And the business objective is not to identify the fastest runner or reward the most accomplished football team. It is to attract public attention for the benefit of advertisers and sponsors.

The millennium bug was a different commercial approach. Campaigns turned the supposed dangers of Y2K failures into a subject of general conversation. Politicians were recruited to the cause. Billions of dollars were spent. The internet was similarly hyped.

The commercialisation of literature is older. Charles Dickens stimulated popular discussion of his works by serialising them. He could even direct the content of High Table conversation, as I learned when I discovered a betting book in which dons took wagers on the evolution of the story of Our Mutual Friend. Today we have soap operas. The inventions of scriptwriters are now reported in the same newspapers as the activities of real people.

The commercial discovery of true genius is that public conversation need only concern shared events, not necessarily momentous ones. Most people quickly run out of things to say about the euro. They gossip, not about great affairs of state, but about holidays, shopping and sex. Reports on royalty once described their regal duties, but now their private lives. And interest in celebrities focuses not on the activities for which they are famous but on their relationships and their possessions.

The culmination of this logic is reality television. The performers have no special talents, occupy no positions of importance and behave no differently from anyone else. The only distinguishing feature of their lives is that they are lived publicly. Reality TV's promoters have created a class of people famous only for being famous.

That is the context for Harry Potter. Rowling's first novels succeeded because they provided well written and well plotted children's novels, based around memorable characters. But, as pre-publication sales demonstrate, popularity is now unrelated to content. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is being read because it is being read

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