Features

Lakshathipathi is now Maha-Lakshathipathi

Vijay Lakshathipathi the popular game show which offered Rs. 1 lakh every day by way of a LG TV and Rs. 45,000 in cash has been upgraded to Mahalakshathipathi with the prize money being raised to Rs. 5 lakhs with actor Nizhalagal Ravi as the anchor person. It is an all-woman show with participants from the age group of 18-45.

The show is divided into six segments with three woman contestants. From the first round onwards, Rs. 1000 is the prize money. The first participant to press the buzzer gets to answer. If her answer is wrong, she will lose an amount equal to the prize money. But the question will not be passed on to the next participant. One of the three who gets the lowest marks will be eliminated in the third and fifth round and the winning participant who goes to the final will be given seven questions from a subject chosen by her. If she answers three questions, she gets a lakh. For all seven correct answers, she gets Rs. 5 lakhs.

Meanwhile, Tellyzoom, the production house which was given the contract to produce the Lakshathipathi, show has been asked to discontinue the show abruptly. The production house says that they were given a contract for one year to produce the shows. In fact, they said that they have stopped taking up production of other programmes and concentrated on this game show alone. Y. S. Prakash of Tellyzoom points out that with LG backing out as the main sponsor, Vijay TV asked the show producers to start making changes in the question round format. It then became the order of the day for a winner to get not more than Rs. 5,000 and Tellyzoom had pointed out that the TRP’s has fallen since the winner was not getting more than Rs. 5,000. They also alleged that many winners have not got their prize money.

Rohit Adya, the CEO of Vijay TV said that it was the standard practice of every quiz show to change its rules after 50-60 episodes and it had nothing to do with the sponsors or the TRP. The show, he said, was not intended to raise the TRP but to achieve the purpose of holding viewer interest. It was only natural that the show be upgraded to a higher amount and presented in a different manner, he said.

Sarath Kumar to anchor quiz show on Sun
Popular Tamil Actor Sarath Kumar is to anchor the quiz show produced by Radhika for Sun TV on the 9 pm slot with a prize money of Rs. 1 crore and it will be telecast only Saturdays and Sundays.

Parvathi: Surya’s answer to Asianet’s Sthree
Parvathi a daily soap of 400 episodes directed by Sasimohan who directed Ahalya in Surya is to start telecast from September end at 7.30 pm to give Asianet’s Sthree a competition.

In accordance with Surya’s new policy of not allowing dubbed serials in prime time, producers like AVM and now Radan TV have conceived Malayalam serials. Parvathi is about two friends Sivankutty and Krishnankutty who come to the town to earn a living and they start off by selling cutpiece cloth in the streets and as they prosper they bring their families to town.

Their families born in the village and not knowing the hypocritical ways of the city find the going tough. The story is about how they come to terms with the new environment. Devardarshini plays the central character Parvathi while other artistes are Krishnachander (he is a singer and actor and comes back to acting after a gap of 14 years) with yesteryears artistes Bhavani, Ravikumar.

Director Sasimohan said that the serial will be shot in Calicut-Thalaseri locales and unlike other serials will not be confined to indoor locales as in the case of most Malayalam serials produced by Chennai based producers. Two songs have been composed by Dhina with Shankar Mahadevan, Unni Menon and Arundathi. Camerawork is by Hemachandran.
Ayyappa Prasad

Historical serial Peshwai on Alpha Marathi
A new historical weekly serial in Marathi, Peshwai, is being telecast on Zee’s Alpha channel (Marathi) every Sunday at 11 am, the inaugural episode having gone on the air on September 17. Being produced by Smita Talwalkar under the banner of Asmita Chitra, this 105-episode serial is being directed by Sanjay Surkar.

The research, screenplay and dialogues are credited to Ninad Bedekar, who, at a Press briefing, narrated some of the highlights in the serial which will cover the march of events during the near century-long Peshwa period (commencing 1713) in Maratha history. The inaugural episode which was shown to the Press related to the incidents following the death of Moghul emperor Aurangzeb in 1707.

The principal artistes in the serial are Nina Kulkarni, Manoj Joshi, Shrirang Godbole, Mohan Joshi, Dilip Prabhavalkar, Amrita Satbhai, Sachin Khedekar and Purnima Bhave. It is being cinematographed by Harish Joshi. The title song has been written by Vijay Kuvlekar and set to music by Narendra Bhide, who is also scoring the background music. Vikram Gaikwad is the make-up artiste.
Pandit Shimpi