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Sania
Mirza was ill at ease talking on Aaj Tak on Thursday
night. That could be because the correspondent who
spoke to her appeared to be more nervous than she
was. He asked her how it felt to be compared with
Sachin Tendulkar. Sania protested about them being
in two different sports.
 I
agree. It's like comparing Sonia Gandhi with Jaya
Bachchan. I sincerely feel correspondents need to
get more decorous. The same goes for the soaps which
seem to have lost their ability to shock. Last week
on Star's Kahiin To Hoga, Kashish's new suitor
barged into the venue of her dead husband's barsi
and proposed to her loudly arguing, "Does it
matter? Would it have made a difference if I had proposed
to you two months later?"
Er,
is that a question or a statement of premature senility?
Interestingly Rajiv Khandelwal who used to play Sujal
on Kahiin To Hoga is now the self-important
secret agent on Zee's Time Bomb. In spite of
all the hype this show never took off. Not for me
at least. Its attempts to harness anxious energy through
political espionage seem feeble.
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And
what a waste of talent to have KK Menon as the upright prime
minister waiting to be killed. I remember KK had played
the same role in a political thriller called, I think, Sansad
on Star Plus directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia. It was also Neha
Dhupia's maiden appearance.
How
time flies! There was a time when Pankaj Kapoor swept the
nation as the detective Karamchand on Doordarshan. Now he
plays the tired but tireless office worker in Sabe TV's
Office Office. The satire on the bumblings in an
ailing bureaucracy took a yoo-hoo turn this week when we
saw Kapoor trying to make a TV serial. Giving him company
was a team of writers calling themselves Salim and Javed,
if you please.
The
real life Javed Akhtar continues to preside as a judge on
Sony's popular Fame Gurukul. Last week's celebrity
guest on the show was the affable star Madhavan who couldn't
stop smiling at the way the contestants sang. "I'm
amazed at how much singing talent there is in this country.
Let's face it, we're a nation of singers. We may not like
films. But everyone likes songs," the star told me
after the show.
Madhavan
was graciousness-personified with the contestants. He encouraged
them with sincere words, just as I had seen Shahid Kapoor
do some weeks ago. Alas, encouragment isn't enough to keep
the contestants going on Fame Gurukul. Last week,
after a male singer was declared out he fell to the ground
complaining of chest pain.
This
may amount to very good TV ratings. But it doesn't really
say much about the way we Indians react to failure.
I've
to once again object to the way Cyrus Broacha treats the
stars who appear on MTV's The Big Picture. Last week
he had Sammir Dattani and Soha Ali Khan over. They were
on the show to promote their new film. But Broacha drowned
almost every word they uttered in an ongoing smattering
of inanity. Though Soha's attempts to hold her own fell
flat, Sammir did manage to give Broacha tit for tat.
Not
that he cared. Most of the veejays are too far gone to see
whether they're scoring points or getting jacked by the
guests.
****
Amitabh
Bachchan continues to be the host with the most. Every episode
of KBC starts with a homily or an anecdote. On Saturday
his take-off on an Allahabadi bhaiyya catching a train with
his kith and kin running after the moving vehicle, illustrated
his superb comic timing and also his ability to hold an
audience.
Not
too many TV hosts can do that. Look how redundant Shaan
has become on Zee's Sa Re Ga Ma Challenge. The judges
have completely taken over the show, pushing their pupils
on the podium with a passion that pervades the presentation.
Last week there was a contestant from Chamba who we were
told, was so lost in Mumbai he cried and spoke to waves
at the sea beach.
Emotional
blackmail for the audience? Star World's immensely popular
Desperate Housewives is all about finding the centre.
This week Marcia Cross took a sample of her son's urine
to her husband at the golf course and threw the liquid on
him when he refused have the darned thing tested for signs
of drug abuse.
To
pee or not to pee, that's not the question in Desperate
Wives. To do so far enough for it splatter the audiences'
aesthetic sensibility is always the issue.
Cyrus's
pic from: www.hindu.com
Preeti Jain's Pic from: www.despardes.com
Aaj
Tak played footage on Ms Preeti Jain's alleged attempts to
have the director killed in a story they called Preeti
Ki Kahani. The same footage showing the lady talking into
a phone and pointing to her forehead (to question her own
sanity or Madhur's we don't know) was played ad nauseam.
