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Celebrated
views?: What were the TV channels thinking when they
invited celebrated panel members to express humanitarian
thoughts for the man in death row? In this context I liked
Amar Singh's concerns on NDTV. "I've two little daughters
myself. And since Dhananjoy's guilt had been proven beyond
doubt, why the delay for so many years?"
I
am afraid I agree with Amar Singh's reasoning. Why was Indian
television trying to create a sympathy wave for the rapist
and killer, even as women activists on various channels
fumed furiously at this effort to extend compassion to a
cold-blooded criminal?
****
|
Serial
Killer: That reminds me of Aparna in Kasautii Zindagii
Kay, who after slaying her husband Anurag has now come out
of the closet. Forget the role of the weeping widow. She struts
around like the 'Flavour Of The Month'. On Thursday, she slipped
off her weeds and got into a slinky slit gown and pouted down
a flight of staircase to greet her open-mouthed guests at a party.
Kasautii….
isn't the only serial on air that's coming out of the closet.
On Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii, the battle between the two women
claiming to be the protagonist Parvati is over. The "original"
Parvati, played by Sakshi Tanwar, is the real Parvati. That means
the impostor Parvati played by Jaya Seal is being given marching
orders by Ekta Kapoor. But all those missing Anurag Basu on Kasautii...
should simply stifle their sobs. I've a feeling he's going
to make a comeback sooner than we expect.
Twin
problems? |
Double
Trouble: In the meanwhile Cezanne Khan, who plays Anurag,
is now part of a new daily serial Hum Do Hain Na on Sony.
It stars the child actress Hansa Motwani (who played the gang-rape
victim in the gruesome film Jago) in a double role. I've
seen children play twins earlier on. In AVM's huge 1960s success
Do Kaliyan, Neetu Singh had played the twins with a mature
élan.
The girl in Hum Dono Hain NA is black and blonde…
and that's the only way they can be told apart.
Please
brush up your acting skills! |
Acting
lesson anyone?: The performing level on the average Indian
soap is beyond hope. The way they hem and ham on Zee's whodunit
Tamanna House isn't the least amusing. Forget who did the
murder? Who the hell told these people they can act in the first
place? The confusion of histrionic abilities is created strictly
by the glut of soaps which necessitates mass scale employment
of sub- standard talent.
Zee's
talent-scouting contest India's Best is quite revealing.
If these young people from all over the country are supposed to
be the stars of tomorrow then I'm glad to say Shah Rukh Khan needn't
feel threatened for many many years to come.
Miles
to go before you sleep, er can act... |
It's
interesting to see how these wannashines react to being rejected.
Most of them bluntly accuse the judges of favouritism. One male
reject last week chased the cameraman for recording his misery.
Another girl in Kolkata attributed her loss to a "lucky cap",
which she didn't wear while auditioning.
I must say some of the judges seem to be strugglers themselves.
And surely, in trying to accommodate as many 'winners' as possible,
these judges are doing the young of the nation a disservice.
So many dream seekers in this land of ours! And so few Bollywood
Bosses to accommodate them.
****
With stars in his eyes- Sanjay Leela Bhansali |
Passion
for the big screen: We saw one such moghul again on Anita
Horam's fine series on the BBC, on the movers and shakers of our
movies. While the first episode on Ram Gopal Varma telecast last
week was stark straight and in-your-face, this week Sanjay Leela
Bhansali, unarguably the finest living filmmaker of India, came
across like his cinema: larger than life, sensitive , expansive
and extremely passionate.
The
BBC cameras took him to his roots in a chawl of Mumbai, where
he emotionally told us that the secret longing for epic spaces
that that we see manifested in his films originated from the cramped
space where he lived with his mother. Bhansali also took us to
visit the Pune Film Institute to show us the beginnings of his
genius.
The
visuals from his film made our hearts leap. But where were the
voices that have worked with Bhansali to such telling heights
of glory? Where was Aishwarya Rai, whose career owes so much to
Bhansali's cinema? Where was Shah Rukh Khan whom Devdas immortalized?
There were just Salman Khan and Ajay Devgan mouthing a few lines
about a man, whose talent cannot be described in a full-length
thesis. And there was a trade specialist Amit Khanna making surprisingly
churlish comments on Bhansali's lavish cinema. Can't the unsuccessful
be generous?
****
Playing
her trumps card- Mallika Sherawat |
Small
talk: Prabhu Chawla's one-to-one with Mallika Sherawat on
Aaj Tak's Seedhi Baat was revealing, though not in the
way Chawla wanted it to be. He went on and on about her stripping
and would she do a full nude sequence until Ms Sherawat almost
lost her cool and exclaimed, "You must be feeling like a
real vidwan (scholar) treating me this way, just because I'm a
small town girl."
Sherawat never fails to play the small-town card in her interviews.
And of course her two most famous lines: "I'll marry a man
who has more balls than me" and "There's a censor within
me"
The
rest was touch-and-go with Chawla, treading the offensive path
while Mallika refused to be defensive.
