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Split screen
Big B's magic on the box
It’s time for a heavy reshuffling at primetime. With the ultimate
game show Kaun Banega Crorepati making its long-awaited debut on Star
Plus last Monday, is anyone going to watch anything else on satellite
television? Not for a while. Amitabh Bachchan makes a mesmerizing host.
He makes the guests comfortable. But not too comfortable. He is the perfect
gentle-man, handling his nervous wannabe crorepatis and their patnis with
kid gloves. But he can also swerve unexpectedly into ruthless cunning
to confuse the guest.
In the inaugural instalment, he led the first participant Divya all the
way to an 80,000 rupees prize and flummoxed her by a question on the site
for the first ever planetarium in India.
“Are you sure it’s Calcutta and not Jaipur?” the Big B’s
baritone blurred the lady’s resolve. “Would you like to speak
to a friend,” the suave host suggested while her husband sweated
it out in the audience.
This was high drama, compounded by a grand performance by the one and
only Amitabh Bachchan. The opulence of the presentation and the sheer
thrill of watching participants being quizzed into wealth by the Big B
are enough incentives to keep the nation glued to their seats.With Amitabh
Bachchan assuming the mantel of a television anchor I wonder what the
self-appointed entertainers/standup comedians plan to do with their exuberance.
Archana Puransingh’s grating games are so blatantly copied from Movers
& Shakers, that I often wonder if Archana Puransingh is trying to
be the male Shekhar Suman of Indian television.
Archana not only copies Jay Leno-ke-dene-pad-gaye style in her posturing
and telling jokes she also has a music band to cheer her on. I swear,
one of Archana’s band members looks like the twin sister of the guy
who helms the music band on Movers & Shakers. As for Archana’s
jokes, last week her gags were on where stars should build their homes
(Shabana should build hers by a riverside so that if there’s a Fire
she can douse it with Water), I have my own addition to make to her guffaws.
You know where Archana Puransingh should build her house? Near to Shekhar
Suman’s.
They can exchange notes on how to pass rude comments on showbiz luminaries.Competition
from Star Plus not only comes from the grandpa of gameshows, but also
from the daily night soap Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. I saw the first
episode last week about the mother of the house (Sudha Shivpuri) hoping
that her large family of husband sons, daughters and daughters-in-law
won’t forget her 62nd birthday. And I am hooked! Kyonki.. this nightcap
blends the spicy domesticity of Sony’s Ek Mahal Ho Sapano Ka with
the rapidfire narration of Zee’s Aangan.
The soap didn’t need to fleet and foam. It got going on its own lather
as the plethora of characters introduced themselves through the story.
One of the daughters-in-law drooled over Hrithik Roshan as her husband
looked on indulgently. “I thought you liked Akshaye Khanna. And didn’t
you like Mahendra Sandhu at one time?” That was a succinct comment
on the changing face of pinup idols. Aaj yahan kal kahan?If you want to
see a credible performance on television, then watch Benjamin Gilani as
the troubled father of a rebellious son in Vinod Pande’s D-Line on
Sahara.
The yawning chasm between the two men in the family, the father’s
sense of shock and dismay when he finds obscene amounts of money in his
son’s cupboard and his agonizing outpouring over the phone to the
distress-call company, Gilani expressed it all with a crease of his eyebrows,
in his frown and sweat.Star Plus’ Rajdhani has shaped into one of
the most absorbing soaps ever screened on Indian television. There’s
a touch of sophistication and a ring of reality to the socio-political
proceedings. Speaking of a ring,Dalip Tahil’s screen daughter Tammy
had one (a ring) flung in her face by her wannabe fiance Dev at a bustling
party.
This was just before Dev drove off in a fit of rage and mowed down some
sleeping pavement dwellers on the deathly-still roads of Delhi. Sounds
familiar? Director Tigmanshu Dhulia brings into play a large number of
incidents in every episode without making the characters look like puppets
on a string. The characters are neither black nor white. We don’t
hate Dev because he accidently killed innocent people. We hate the scenario
and circumstances that create anguished emotions, puncture human dignity
and rupture relationships. I can’t remember any soap since Kavita
Chowdhary’s Udaan that is as well written as Rajdhani.
Zee’s crimewatch serial Agnichakra continues to give us real life
incidents of how human beings turn on their own kind and prove themselves
worse than animals. I for one was completely shattered by last week’s
episode where a rehabilitated criminal and a prison inmate rape and kill
a jailor’s daughter. Without sensationalizing the abject tragedy
of the case, the episode structured the itself as a whodunit where we
got to know the identity of the killer only at the end. The gruesome crime
was recreated in repugnant strokes. What we saw was the crime and nothing
else.
Mahesh Bhatt hugged and kissed Manoj Bajpai on Zee’s newly started
chat- masala Without Makeup as though he was his long-lost son. Somehow
I thought of Ram Gopal Varma while this display of star-director camaraderie
was put on for our benefit. Our actors often give much better performances
in talk shows and interviews than on screen.
Perhaps Mukul Dev should host a celebrity chat-a-thon (I’m sure his
brother Atul Dev would love to be his first guest). Mukul is a disaster
at comedy in the new sitcom Gharwali Uparwali. While Nikki Aneja refurbishes
her chic image to play the Gharwali Mansi Joshi as the Uparwali makes
us look heavenwards.
Come back, Priya Tendulkar. In Hum Paanch you are the best dead wife we’ve
seen on Indian television.
Subhash K Jha