|
You
are doomed for the next month if you are not a cricket fan, and in for
an
overdose if you are.  There's
no escaping the sport since this Tuesday (and even earlier if you count NDTV's
Pitch Battle and others of its ilk), even if you log on to a music channel
or a glamour channel. If they aren't discussing threadbare Dhoni's hairstyle,
Rahul's kid and Sehwag's mother, they are spoofing Sachin and Sourav on new shows
floated just to cash in on the excitement. All this while India hasn't even played
a single match yet in this World Cup.
Besides,
of course, there's all you wanted (and didn't care) to know about Jamaica, Trinidad,
Tobago and didn't know whom to ask, on the channels that are not authorised to
bring you the matches live. So, Times Now's Kings of the Caribbean has
sent a cool dude who sports bermudas (we are in the caribbean, man!) who's having
a whale of a time in Kingston, sipping beers and dancing with the locals, while
his colleague Nidhi does all the running about, trying to get soundbytes from
the likes of ICC CEO Malcolm Speed and Windies captain Brian Lara.  Some
others take cricket more seriously. Most retired cricketers have found jobs once
again, thanks to the demand for presentable 'authorities' on the sport, who can
share their mite of experience and embellish and expand on it, and make the whole
World Cup spiel sound like a profoud philosophical exercise. Saba Karim and Sandeep
Patil are on Star News' Wah Cricket, and a smattering of such forgotten
heroes are scattered across the other channels as well. Aaj Tak's Extra Cover
has sent correspondent Vikrant Gupta to Port of Spain, and the man's gamely capturing
the finer nuances of the sport as well as finding time to chat up descendents
of Indian migrants who throng the net practice sessions for autographs and photographs.
On
Max, of course, Charu Sharma and Mandira Bedi are back (she wearing Satya Paul,
he sporting Louise Philippe) on Extraaa Innings, and there's nothing to
report there as yet. But the ad inserts during replays in matches almost always
superimpose irritatingly on the spot just where the ball lands, so you end up
screwing your eyes up at the words, Santro Xing, instead of the bowler's hands
where the ball has landed. Can the channel fix the anomaly please?  Besides,
every third ad and every second show (or is it the other way round?) now has at
least a nodding reference to cricket. MTV has just started its Aila Re
show with Suresh Menon doing Sachin spoofs, and Filmy threatens to start its own
Rakhee Ke Bouncers from next week. This show will have Rakhee Sawant being
her inimitable bimbette self, aided once again by Menon who will don avatars of
assorted personalities.
After
Raju Srivastav, Menon appears to be the most over worked actor on the tube these
days. From The Comedy Show on Star One, Kaun Banega Champu on Filmy,
Aila Re and now Rakhee Ke Bouncers, Menon's here, there, everywhere.
He's witty and versatile, but stretching his versatility to the limit may just
leave him vulnerable to being monotonous, instead of spontaneous.  It
must be said however, that on Kaun Banega Champu, Menon and not Sunil Grover,
who plays host Ruk Ruk Khan, is the real star of the show. Menon played Navjot
Singh Sidhu as the celeb participant last week, with elan. The show now needs
to pick up some of the fresh antics that the original Khan is pulling off on the
original KBC, if it hopes to sustain viewer interest. How about appearing
in a 'mundu' next time, Ruk Ruk?
After
Dial one Aur Jeeto last year, Sahara has come up with another get-lucky-get-rich
show Sona Lai Ja Re, and within a month of its launch, pushed the 'live'
show down to a late night slot. Host Aman Verma does all kinds of things that
just wouldn't suit his self-professed stature of the 'king of Indian TV', sounding
like an excited schoolboy as he exhorts callers to guess the four digit number
that will fetch them gold worth some fantastic sum. The show is as tacky as Verma's
co host (someone called Toffy!) and deserves to be pushed as further down the
line-up as possible.
****
Couch
potato's puzzle of the week - Jeete Hain Jiske Liye's Anjali gets an
anonymous call on her mobile phone this week from her sister in law's cell
phone, and spends the day worrying who it might have been!! Ever heard of
caller id, DJs? (The
views expressed here are those of the author and indiantelevision.com need not
necessarily subscribe to the same) |
|
