“American should remain vigilant of their surroundings at all times and exercise caution in areas of large public gatherings.” began the US State Department Travel Warning that had been in place since Maoist rebels and the Nepalese military began exchanging fire in skirmishes across the country.  It continued,  “American citizens are encouraged to avoid large public crowds whenever possible. ”

Throwing caution and common sense to the wind, I stood in a crowd of a thousand Nepalese in Durbar Square in Kathmandu’s city center, near the epicenter of Maoist bombings just a year earlier, screaming my lungs out.

Pro-democracy march? Human rights sit in?  No.  Actually, I was supporting the next Kelly Clarkson.

Unwittingly, I had drove into Nepal on the eve of the series finale of Indian Idol, a carbon copy of the more widely watched American Idol, though with a crowd not any less impassioned.  Missing the early rounds, I had been dropped into the final episode that pitted the Indian Idol favorite with a lesser known, yet equally talented underdog, who happened to be of Nepalese decent.

The ongoing civil war aside, the Nepalese were pretty excited, no actually, they’d gone bananas.  Durbar Square overflowed with thousands of locals watching the live Indian Idol coverage on a large projection screen erected in front of an ancient Nepalese temple.  The crowd passed high-fives, smoked cigarettes  and hooted and hollered at their star’s every falsetto.  It was chaos, it was mad chaos, but it was good chaos.

Finally, a nagging sense of paranoia for my safety got the best of me, and my friends and I decided to walk home before the final votes were tallied.  As we slipped through the darkened, empty streets, the sound of Indian Idol commentators surrounded us in stereo, as every single television in the ramshackle buildings on either side of the road, were tuned to the same channel.

An hour later, I awoke in my darkened room to screams and explosions in the street.  Apparently, their boy, Prashant Tamang, had won, and his victory sparked a celebration in Durbar Square that might rival that of Time Square on New Year’s Eve.  Whistles, horns, fire crackers and shouting drowned out my sleep and I awoke, a bit groggy, the next morning to find a country that was smiling quite proudly.

Proof to me that even in times of war, unrest and violence, there’s nothing like a little Simon Kowell put down (or the Indian version at least) to bring people together.

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What you can do now:

• Leave a comment on this post below.
• See a photo taken in Durbar Square In This Picture
• Want more pop stars? Where I Come From I’m The King of Karaoke
• Or see a pop video, What It’s Like In A Karaoke Bar in Hong Kong