Aswathama hato – naro va kunjaro

When I read in the papers, India clean sweeps the Mighty Aussies, the first thing that came to my mind was “Aswathama Hato”. The sentence discloses and conceals truth at the same time. Media have bashed the Australians and presented as if it was one sided affair. Surely, we won the series (2 test matches and 1 ODI) but I do sympathise with the Australian Team. They fought hard in the 1st test match (they must be thinking that they just few centimetres away from victory {the run out of Ojha}) and in the (only) ODI also they did make the Indian chase difficult in the slog overs of the match. I guess reason for media bashing is because the team is Australia. They have never made friends with any media camps in any part of the world because of their arrogance. Media is choosing this opportunity as unth pahar ke neeche hai.

F.N. – the heartening thing for me was this new attitude of the Indian Team which believes that they can win each and every match (not writing anything more about the series because as it is a lot is written about cricket in India).

PEP SSSS SSSS !!

click here for Ranbir in Virgin Mobile

click here for Ranbir in Pepsi Ad

That’s the fizz going out of the ad campaign of Pepsi. The latest ad of Pepsi looks so Thakela. The ad has no creativity; in fact the idea of the Ad has been borrowed from another commercial of Ranbir Kapoor himself. How many more gay jokes can we tolerate? (Karan, please come with Dostana 2 fast else everyone would exhaust all the gay jokes)

Youngistan Campaign has been quite disappointing. First the game master ad (with Sanjay Dutt) and now this ad. Pepsi team laid off all their stalwarts from likes of the Shahrukhs to the Sachins in the name of Youngistan (personally I think it was a good excuse to cut the salary cheques in the times of depression). Now I feel they have cut off the pay of their creative team too. (May be my wify can throw some light on the matter)

MA . . . !! Rokha Koro

Nauvami is the last day of Durga Puja. On this day Ma Durga prepares for her departure after having triumphed the Good over Evil. The mood among devotees is sad. Just when all seems gloomy, Ma Durga gives us a parting gift, RAKHI KA INSAAF, a new ray of hope for the mankind, which will help protect the truth and deliver justice. (Ma Durga please Please PLEASE forgive me for writing the show as Your Gift)

Indian Television has hit an all time low as it decided to copy Jerry Springer Show  (which prides itself by being nominated as “the worst show on TV”). The show picks out people, from the lowest strata of the society, having IQ of not more than 60, who are loud and full of drama, having issues related to adultery, divorce, infidelity, inheritance etc and most importantly who are ready to reveal ALL on TV. The show has been a huge success and has been running for several years in USA, despite huge criticism. 

I had mentioned that Big Boss satisfies fetish of voyeurism but this show takes this fetish one step further. Not only you enjoy the voyeurism of family secrets of others but also as moral police you get a chance to condemn them. (If you are in studio and lucky enough then you can even slap them or hit them {mar sale ko @$%&}) I am sure Pramod Muthalik would be lending all members of his Sri Ram Sena to this show.

The show could not have had a better host, Rakhi Sawant, the real Ma of melodrama queen (I really burst into laughter when Rakhi said to her guests, “tum to badi hi melodrama queen ho”). The idea is simple if the guests are not providing the melodrama then the host will. I guess the reason Rakhi said yes to this show was to provide budding melodrama queens a launch pad (something that was not available during her “struggling days”). Also via this show she plans to leave behind her prodigies.

  

Only time will tell if Indian TV is ready for a Jerry Springer Show spin-off but till then enjoy the spice. A small note to people who plan to see this show, have you ever asked your chauffeur or your housemaid or your sweeper what are their problems?

F.N

@ Big Boss – With introduction of Khali in the BB, the show can now give some fight to KBC. Khali has huge fan following specially among children.

@ Master Chef India – its remarkable how the producers of the show add so much of emotions to cookery show. 

@ KBC – it seems they are focusing a lot on contestants rather than the game, again thanks to the Indian demand of Emotions and melodrama  

Dulhan vida ho gayi

So finally the Monsoon Wedding is over. It was quite surprising to see that the rest of the event went through without any major embarrassment. Though there was this one interesting piece of news that did tickle even my funny bone; Condoms clog the CWG village drainage system (Wtf! why did my parents not push me enough to be an athlete). But jokes aside, the event was a huge success. In fact people have already started dreaming that one day in the near future we would be hosting the Olympics. (Kalmadi must be already doing the calculation that if in CWG he made millions then in Olympics he should be able to make billions)

Heart filled kudos to the real star of the game, the Indian Athletes. It was also very heartening to see that so many athletes coming from B-towns and villages. They have made a lasting impression in the minds of Millions of Indians (May be just thousands of Indians who followed the CWG). So many records were broken and India finished on all time high on 2^nd. The final medal count stood at 38 – 27 – 36 (which looks like the figure of an overweight woman). It probably signifies that though we have made a mark in the Athletes world but still we need to work hard and be in shape to fight many future battles.

BADE BHAIYA !!!

For last month or so there has been a lot of hullabaloo about the face off between KBC and Big Boss. KBC tickles your IQ (if you have one that is) and is a rags to riches story on TV (with slight dose of the desi melodrama {main paise jeetonga to apni maa ka ilaaz… /bhai ki padhai … / behen ki shaadi … etc}) while BB appeals to the fetish of voyeurism (whatever is permissible in Indian TV) in every man. One is hosted by Sallu bhai (flavour of the season) and other is hosted by Bachchan ji (evergreen). Both shows could have co-existed with harmony but they decided to take each other head on.

With the telecast of the 1^st episode of KBC, it very clear who is the real Big Boss. It has been the most successful reality show in Indian Television history. It did not just reinvent AB (from where his ‘2^nd innings’ took off) but also paved way for a number of reality shows. The formula was simple, CCP (what we MBAs do a lot), CUT COPY PASTE. Take any successful reality show and copy the format in desi istyle. Indian Idol, Big Boss itself, India Got Talent, Master Chef etc all are lineage of this mega show. I guess the only original reality shows that India has ever produced are Rakhi ka Swayambar and now Rakhi ka insaaf (Puneet, I hope you do see this one too as you are her No. 1 fan. {Actually, no other country can have these shows as no other country has Rakhi [even though these shows are also rip offs]}) 

Coming back to the face off between BB and KBC, the result was out last week itself when Sallu bhai introduced the contestants. I guess in race to compete with KBC, they completely overlooked the participants. The house breeds Dacoit, Thief, Lawyer, Actors, Models, Losers, Controversial figures and even foreigners. Following are the contestants (and possible reasons why they have joined):

Sweta Tiwari: if Raja can do it so can she

Manoj Tiwari: if Sweta can do it so can he

Seema Prihar: to play the role of all rounder – Dacoit, Actor, Politician all in one (many don’t know she acted in the movie based on herself and is now an active politician)

Abbas Azmi: to look for prospective clients in the house

Rahul Bhatt: to escape from FBI

Veena Mallik and Begum Ali: to promote aman ki asha

Ashmit Patel and Sakhshi Pradhan: they have already proven their credentials in satisfying the thirst of voyeurism via respective MMS

Sameer Soni, Sara Khan, Anchaal Kumar and Hrishant Goswami: uhh …. Uhh!! I wish at least they know why they are there.

Only other place where such heads are bundled together under one roof is our respected Parliament (ironically there also all people do is fight). So if someone is looking for masala, I guess they will turn to channels like Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha (which are now shown live) rather than tune to BB.

F.N.-- BTW from this weekend Akshay will be "serving" his show and Rakhi bhi insaaf karegi at 9 p.m. 

Dimaag ki Khichri

After watching Khichri the movie today, I have just one formal appeal to MTA (Mumbai Tapori Association) to rename their famous catchphrase dimaag ka dahi to Dimaag ki Khichri in honour of this movie. I went into the movie with very mixed reviews and did not know what to expect. I was quite blown away with the comedy as it was far above the expectation. With khichri comes a new genre of clean but sick comedy to Bollywood. I have always felt the serious deficit of good humour on Indian screen (TV or big screen).

Govinda single handedly carried comedy on his shoulders (may be his pelvic) during the 90s and created a niche for himself. David Dhawan and Govinda was a pair to watch out for! (May be still is) Govinda handed the torch to Khilari Akhsay who also did carve out some excellent stuff before he became monotonous. After that came a new genre of comedy – “dimmag ghar mein rakh kar aao” comedy. There were a flurry of comedy movies that hit the screens but only a few created a lasting mark. Their trade mark was loud/slapstick humour, where the plot revolved around mistaken identity leading to situational chaos. Funnily enough most of movies where comedy was not the central theme had better comedy than the so called comedy movies. For me a good comedy is one which has a repeat value and I therefore rate the 70s era of Hrisikesh Mukherjee the best. But there is a silver lining as there is definitely a paradigm shift in the current movies. May be going forward we will see people making comedy on the territories they have not explored enough like intelligent comedy, adult (not cheap) humour or even Spoof.

In the world of Idiot box (in India it deserves to be called that) whatever little progress was made has been retracted. The prime time is full of the Saas and their Bahus and their never ending fights with fulltu melodrama and top it all their reactions, their Reactions, their REACTIONS (had to put in 3 times). I have never met a single soul who watches these serials and not say, “dhat! aisa  kabhi hota hai kya ? kya bakwaas dikha raha hai” and next day go back and see the same stuff all over again. (I wish I could get some tips from those producers to build a reader base who would say, “dhat! kya bakwaas blog likhta hai” but come back to read my blog again.)

Why was Priyanka trying to commit suicide?

I watched 2 movies today back to back – Anjaana Anjaani and Robot. In the 1^st movie I could not understand why Priyanka was trying to commit Suicide, amongst a lot of things. Actors/Directors always say my movie is Hatke, but there were only 2 things I found that was hatke.  The heroine bachofies izzat of the Hero. Hero saying, “I am Virgin.” (Now as I am writing this I guess the Hero was really sissy). Weak script, Weird story, Useless melodrama and Bad direction made it a nothing movie (Can’t even say a usual Bollywood Movie because Dabaang showed Usual Bollywood Movie does work)

Coming to Robot, I did enjoy it. (May be because after a horrid movie like above, any movie would seem nice.) There were some real hatke moments in the movie.

1)      They really tried to build a story in Rajni movie

2)      Love triangle Man-Woman-Robot

3)      The special effects were really good for an Indian Movie. (Best part was when they added water in desert for a song just to prove that they can.)

4)      Lyrics were so hatke that our Dear P K Mishra would also be proud.

5)      And the shocker: Rajnikanth, the human one, actually runs away to avoid a fight.

1st half could have been shorter and lesser song. But what the Heck! Why should I even bother writing because there are 2 types of people who watch Rajnikanth’s movie.

1)      Who go to see Rajnikanth

2)      Who go to see what the above people go to see

Lots of Rajnikanth’s jokes, videos, SMS etc are doing the round but I will end with one I heard recently. A woman was very upset that she had lost her virginity; so Rajnikanth got it back for her. (May be he has the answer, “Why was Priyanka trying to commit suicide?”)