Indiantelevision.com > Box Populi by Subhash K Jha

They came, they sang , they got rejected. That could be the epitaph for the short-lived glory of some contestants on Sony Entertainment’s Indian Idol. Others, the lucky ones, made it right to the finals with beaming faces , brimming hearts and anxious vocal chords.

I loved the gracious warmth of ‘special judge’ Juhi Chawla on Thursday. She had a special heartfelt message for every contestant, and they all knew it wasn’t being faked. Juhi is a trained singer herself. She can understand the pain and the effort behind those efforts.

A lot of the problems that plague interactive shows on television stem from the host’s inability to connect properly with the subject. All those ‘tributes’ to Amrish Puri(did they all have to refer to him as “Mogambo”?) proved how vacuous these homages can get in the wrong hands.

Aaj Tak’s So Gaya Khalnaayak on the evening of Puri’s death put us to sleep. It had the host Manish Dubey spewing undecipherable philosophy on life and death. At one point I distinctly saw Anupam Kher looking at Dubey in a puzzled manner. Honestly the best comment from the volley of nice-guy talk came from Kher who said he often called Amrish Puri on his cellphone just to hear him say ‘Hello’ in that distinctive voice of his.

On another channel I saw small-time actor Goga Kapoor say, “He and I both loved hats. We both had the same number of hats.”

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Hello, is what I felt like asking the instant-homage makers, so different from what we get to see in the celebrity-profiles on the History Channel’s Biography. This week I caught an excellent profile on Rock Hudson. It went through the entire gamut of the actor’s life and times, including Hudson’s much-discussed homosexuality.

Old friends came forward to talk of Hudson’s promiscuity and how he contracted the HIV virus. According to a close friend, the catastrophe occurred when Hudson was invited to New York to visit a man. A few months later he received a regretful letter from the man informing Hudson that he had been detected with AIDS.

Except for the terrible Hindi commentary (“Cannes” was pronounced with a non-silent ‘s’) it was a comprehensive profile that made me know Rock Hudson better than ever before. How long would it take us to create a similar frank, fearless profile of our stars?

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Speaking of bad translations , on Thursday evening Aaj Tak splashed a scoop interview with the German hockey coach Gerald Rakh who spoke in what sounded like broken English. No wonder he sounded like a ‘broken’ man! He accused the hockey federation of being run by lunatics. To this K.P.S Gill reacted tersely. “Rakh ko angrezi nahin aati hai.” Mad for each other, I guess.

The wives’ vibes were really strong on Star World’s Koffee With Karan this week. Karan got the two star-wives Gauri Khan and Suzanne Khan to come on the show together. The pair in their chic outfits and rather contrasting attitudes (Shah Rukh Khan was reserved and worldweary, Hrithik Roshan was far more demonstrative and spontaneous ) made a very sponsor-friendly visual.

And when they were joined by their respective spouses Karan’s show looked like quite a multi-starrer.

So what about the content? Hmmmmm…..There was a lot of giggling banter about how the wives handled the women in their husbands’ lives and we also got to know that the host had waxed his chest before doing the show. The classic lines came from Gauri Khan who said, “Most of the star wives have run away or are planning to run away.” Jaya Bachchan was deservingly selected as the best star-wife. She in turn graciously complimented the two guests .

And how well do the wives know their star-husbands? During the commercial break the camera catches Gauri and Suzanne frantically calling their husbands to compare notes on what the star-spouse likes.

The soaps are getting aggressive in mid-life. Sony’s Yeh Meri Life Hai has a heroine who looks like she has swallowed a soap (Kyunki Sobs Bhi Bahut Bahut Thi?) , a hero who looks chronically constipated (he’s been forced to marry his beloved’s sister) and a vamp who purposely goofs up on English phrases.

“Waits(sic) a minute,” she commanded the senti Pooja this week, before making the poor girl feed her former flame and new brother-in-law with ritualistic food.

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Some folks love to put their food in their mouth.

Some more food for thought. Sahara One’s Cinema Ghar. This one was named Boond. It was about an alcoholic woman’s brave efforts to break the bottle with her kind husband’s support. Inspired by Meg Ryan’s performance in the film When A Man Loves A Woman Rajeshwari pulled out all stops to deliver a performance with punch and pathos.

In contrast I saw this woman on Star One’s Kingston Hotel giving an absolutely pathetic performance as a boozed-out bombshell. She narrowed her eyes, stumbled dangerously and fumbled with her words. If she wanted to to get noticed, she got it. If she was applying for a therapy session at the Alcoholic Anonymous then she would have been rejected outright.

At the moment the spoilsports who are coming out of the closet. On BBC’s Question Time India a lady in the audience asked Rahul Bose where his conscience was when Orissa had been hit by a cyclone.

Rahul handled the rude question well . “That’s because at that time my conscience hadn’t awakened.”

Why must celebrities be made answerable for their nobility? Is this a twisted way of making them pay for their largesse?

The Screen Nominations party, telecast on Star Plus had singer Kunal Ganjawala gushing from stage about all the faces he had grown up watching on screen. I could see Mr Dilip Kumar was distinctly puzzled. By the time Ganjawala started warbling Kabhi mere saath ek raat guzar the “distinguished “ gathering looked positively out of place.

On NDTV’s 24X7 I caught Rajeev Sardesai in conversation with Mahesh Bhatt and Dilip Cherian on the cynicism that accompanied the actors musicians and sportspersons who came forward to rally around the Tsunami victims.

Said Bollywood’s resident seer Mahesh Bhatt, “Catastrophes bind nations.”

Yeah, he should know. He has just penned one. And it’s called Rog. Ha ha.

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