Indiantelevision.com > Box Populi by Subhash K Jha

So which one is sexier? Amitabh or Abhishek Bachchan? On Star World’s Koffee With Karan there seemed to be a little dispute on the matter, as an array of extremely attractive ladies ranging from Kareena Kapoor to Tabu to Bipasha Basu to Mallika Sherawat to (journalist) Malavika Sanghvi paraded across the video monitor to say the senior Bachchan was sexier.

Hmmmm…. Wine and Bachchan have one thing in common. They get better with the years.

They were having so much fun, the father and son. It was a double bonanza Bachchan and Bachchan ….or as host Karan described them…the ‘Men In Black’….Black being the colour of the season.

For sure, the most talked-about promotional clippings on television are those of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black. So far two trailers of this monumental film featuring the senior Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee in intriguing interaction, have been aired. Each trailer has evoked a nation-wide curiosity and debate. For the first time the background music heard in the trailers has created a nation-wide interest in the end-product.

How many film promos today register beyond the immediately visible optical sensation? This week I happened to see producer Vashu Bhagnani with his stars Amisha Patel, Zayed Khan and Arjun Rampal promoting their film Vaada on India TV. All three made every effort to hide the film’s plot.

That’s a bit like going to the top of the Empire State Building and not looking down. That’s what the interviewers on these celebrity chats need to do. Stop looking down, I mean. Almost every interview on TV is about how to get the better of the interviewee. On India TV I was shocked by the way the correspondents spoke to Ashutosh Gowariker about Swades.

First of all, they insisted on branding Swades a flop repeatedly. Whether it is true or not, isn’t it indecorous to instigate your invitee by repeatedly reminding him of his failure specially since none of the correspondents had actually bothered to see the fine film before talking to its director.

The film’s leading lady Gayatri Joshi was offered condolences. “You must have been so excited about being in such a big project. Kya se kya ho gaya!”

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The habitually composed Gowariker finally lost his cool and blurted out, “You’re determined to label my film a flop.”

There’s no point in inviting guests to the studio with a preconceived agenda. That’s where the free-flowing conversation on Koffee With Karan scores high marks.Whether it’s the Bachchans or the Khans, Karan knows how to push the right buttons . With the Bachchans Karan wanted to know about their relationship with one another and with the people they interact.

There was an air of informality throughout, whether in the way Abhishek sat himself down close to his dad on the sofa or the way he raised his foot to show he was wearing his father’s shoes.

*****

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Good going. Wish we could say the same about some of the serials. I caught a deplorable thriller on DD’s National channel called Aakrosh where I was shocked to see the respectable Aakash Khurana playing a sleazeball who gangs up with an adulterous (played by what seemed to be a housewife who needed to get out of the kitchen) to finish off her haggard husband and laughs wickedly at the dead man’s inert figure.

Such cardboard villainy doesn’t suit an actor who once did some exemplary work in cinema. Remember Aakash Khurana in Mahesh Bhatt’s Swayam where he played Waheeda Rehman’s husband?

I was also shocked to see Kruttika Desai, one of the oldest TV actresses, as part of Zee’s daily Tumhari Disha. I don’t know what exactly she’s meant to be. But that she plays a wicked woman is proven by her snazzy wig and glinting contact lenses. The other day Ms Desai had a man hanging on to her lips. For some strange reason the lover’s identity was concealed from the camera.

Another veteran on TV is Sukanya . I remember seeing her as director Ashutosh Gowariker’s wife on a horror show called Woh on Zee some years ago. Now she’s back making so many evil faces in Tumhari Disha that you wonder if her facial muscles are insured.

Thank God for Zarina Wahab who plays the protagonist Disha’s mother. She remains graceful under the most unimaginable pressure put upon serial actors. Last week during a confrontation sequence between Sukanya and Disha, Zarina remained bunched in her squirmy dignity, not willing to ham even as it became the practical norm all around her.

Not too many actresses can do that. ‘Tulsi’ Smiri Irani can. But what can poor Rimjhim on Zee’s Piya Ka Ghar do when she’s required to be in bed with her sandals on?! That’s what she was supposed to do to prove she had been out without her absence being detected by the other characters.

The serial writers are under such acute inventive crisis, it isn’t funny. I do get to see sparkling writing and acting in Zee’s daily Khabhi Han Kabhi Na. But even there the three protagonist’s merry-go-round with various eccentric and demanding girls is getting repetitive.

*****

Hema Malini….. ah, the dream girl!! What was she doing on Shekhar Suman’s talk show on Sab TV? Doesn’t know what sort of guests Shekhar brings on? Hema was flighty and frivolous insisting she was merely 22. Considering she has a double role on Kamini-Damini that number could shoot up to 44 pretty soon.

Could that be the number of times she has appeared on television? Sony’s Yeh Meri Life Hai has gone for a crisis boost. The protagonist Pooja’s brother-in-law-to-be was killed on the eve of their marriage. The death sequence was milked for all it was worth… and then some more. Banshee wails, crashing violins, askew camera angles. And lots of tears of course.

Did it help the TRPs? Ugly kadi ka intezaar. Before I leave, I want to know what Zayed Khan’s qualifications were to be a judge on Sony’s Indian Idol? For reasons unknown, he joined the usual judges Sonu Nigam, Anu Malik and Farah Khan and even made appreciative noises about the contestants’ singing abilities.

Let’s put it this way. Zayed knows as much about singing as he does about acting.

(The views expressed here are those of the author and indiantelevision.com need not necessarily subscribe to the same)