The IPL circus on SET Max

Well the IPL T20 circus has started. After the first show on April 18th on SET Max, people started getting an idea of what the show will entail. You had the match between the Kolkata team and the Deccan team, or you could call it a contest between Shahrukh's team and Vijay Mallaya's team. The show was everything you thought it would be - lots of glitz, glamour - Shahrukh Khan has been getting the film star community to show up for cheering, and he himself was dancing and screaming the whole time. There were massive ceremonies such as fireworks displays, full stands, imported cheer leaders and the likes
The show otherwise has been a slug-fest, as expected. The bowlers are now used to being ravaged and hit for so many sixes and fours that would have caused them to hit the batsmen during normal test or one-day matches. Hitting 15 runs in an over was not a surprise.
So things have moved okay so far, except for the matches on the 20th of April. First, during the second innings of the first match, the lights went out and the match was delayed for quite some time till they figured out the possible outcomes (Duckworth Lewis was no solution since the match was exactly where Duckworth Lewis said that it should be) and then the game resumed; and then during the second match, the start of the game was delayed since there was a lot of debris from the spectacular fireworks display and they had to wait for the debris to be cleared.
There are many many matches yet to happen, so let's see whether the fever catches on; so far from office conversation, a good benchmark, things are not exactly very hot.

Videos of matches of the IPL T20 from Youtube (click link)

Highlights of the 1st match between Kolkata and Bangalore:

Nachle Ve with Saroj Khan

Nach Le Ve with Saroj Khan is a dance show with a difference. It has dared to be different, with the show not geared towards a dance contest like most other shows, instead it to geared towards teaching the art of dancing. Saroj Khan, who has directed so many great dances in movies, and has won numerous awards for dances, takes the role of a teacher and teaches the dance steps to many famous dances from movies (Saroj Khan is famous for teaching Madhuri her steps for many of the famous dances in movies and she focuses on these dances).
It takes great patience to teach people dancing, since it could take many weeks of training to teach dancing, and to try to fit into a TV format makes it boring to the normal viewer (however I can visualize many people wanting to watch the show to learn these dance steps from a famous choreographer), so it may be more of a focused show.
Saroj Khan is encouraging and sarcastic by turns, but one does not see her showing many star rudeness during the show. The show started on January 21, 2008 and airs from Monday to Friday at 7 PM on NDTV Imagine.
The show takes normal dancers (Meenakshi Desai, Swati, Bhakti). In addition, there are many others who have joined from time to time such as Divyanka and Sharad (from Banoo Main Teri Dulhan), Shweta Salve, Gaurav Chopra.
The official home page of the show.
Here is the link to Dance Mela, a chance to feature on the show.

Videos from Nach Le Ve on Youtube (link)

A sample video from the show:

Rock n Roll family on Zee TV

Contests on TV are getting a a dime and a dozen, and it gets a challenge to see how to make a show that is not based on either singing or dancing or comedy (since these are very common formats on all channels now). So, Zee decided to be clever, and tried a new format for making a reality show. They really could not change the type of contest, so they tried to
1. Get some different judges, and they seem to have managed
2. Appeal to the whole family by involving the whole family
And so they came up with the Rock n Roll family, that started on march 15, at 10 PM. The show is on the air on Friday and Saturday at 10 PM on Zee TV. The show is hosted by Sharad Kelkar (of Saathe Phere, Nahar fame) and Mauli Dave (who managed to make it to the last 10 of Sa Re Ga Ma International).
The judges is where the channel has managed to make it big, with having got in a new set of judges - Ajay Devgun, Kajol, and Tanuja. Ajay and Kajol make a charming set of judges, and seem different from the common set of judges who manage to alternate on the various other channels.
So what is this show all about ? It is still a dance competition, but the contest involves teams (who are families). So you have a family of grandparents, parents, and children who all take part in the dance. It looks pretty cute when you have the grandparents and children all dancing together. These are all supposedly middle class families from many cities all over India, and judgment is through a combination of judges and audience votes.
The show has also got many celebrity judges to have taken part such as Suniel Shetty, Tusshar Kapoor, Sameera Reddy, Tanisha Mukherjee, Jeetendra, and Esha Deol. The families that have taken part so far are:
Bhalke family (from Indore), Gupta family (Delhi), Neema family (Indore), Oza famiy (Bhavnagar), Patel family (Ahemdabad), Roy family (Kolkata), Saxena family (Jaipur).
The following have been eliminated already: Rathod family (Indore), Jain family (Ghaziabad), Kapoor family (Jaipur), Ubale family (Pune), and Jodhi family (Lucknow).

Videos of Rock n Roll family on Youtube (click link)

Video of Mauli Dave performing at the Rock n Roll family set

Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi - Smriti comes back ..

After being seen on ads and promos for some time, Smriti Irani made her appearance back on Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. It was just a short appearance, but it happened after major scenes of confrontation between Mihir and Mandira on one side, and the rest of the family on the other side. The family is not prepared to accept Mihir with Mandira and are willing to let him go from the house, rather than accept him. But is Tulsi (Gautami) actually Tulsi, or is she somebody collaborating with Mandira ? More will become clear as time moves on.
The other thing that got shown in this serial was something that is not in the best of taste. Kyunki is a prime time serial with a big audience, and to show black magic discussion, and all the stuff related to that is something that the show could have done without. One would hate to think that in some remote area of the country, a woman is persecuted for being a witch because she is accused of doing black magic.

Main Teri Parchhain Hoon on NDTV Imagine

NDTV Imagine has a tough task on its hands; by launching itself as a new Hindi channel, it has to try and catch up with the currently entrenched channels of Star Plus, Zee and Sony. So, they have to make some good serials that will hopefully attract viewers; it is however difficult to make channels that are too different from the current theme of serials on the air on different channels.
NDTV Imagine went to a reputed name to get a great prime-time channel, and they have come up with a serial called "Main Teri Parchhain Hoon", produced by Rajshri (who also make 'Woh Rahnewali Mahilon Ki'). This channel started on January 21, 2008, and shows up at 10:30 PM weeknights from Monday to Friday. They have tried to make this a different serial, but one is not sure as to how much it will be different.
The theme of the serial is about a young 21 year old girl who takes on a lot of responsibility (feeling guilt for causing a major problem in the family, and her struggles). So, the serial is about Aanchal and her interaction with the Dharmadhikari family. The family has parents (Hariman and Lalita), 2 brothers and their wives. Elder brother Siddharth is happily married to Jaya and has 3 kids, while younger brother Dheeraj is married to Chanchal (Jaya's sister). Jaya is a very well liked lady with a great temperament, while Chanchal is more self-conceited and very insecure. She is very different from her elder sister.
This family interacts with Aanchal when Aanchal and Jaya exchange their tickets on a bus, and Jaya gets killed in the accident with the bus. Aanchal believes that she is responsible for the tragedy and wants to help as much as she can. She takes on a job as the teacher to the 3 kids (Ayush, Sachin and Juhi); at the same time, she also helps Dheeraj out with some designs for a contract that he is looking at getting.
Chanchal sees Aanchal with Dheeraj and gets very suspicious, and ultimately throws her out of her teaching job. However, she is not capable of taking care of the children and mistreats them so that Sachin lands up in hospital in a critical state. Dheeraj is very angry at her, and this is where things are.
Eventually, it is projected that Aanchal will marry the elder brother Siddharth, and be a step-mother to the 3 kids. A 21 year old girl being a step-mother to 3 kids !!

Videos from the April 3, 2008 episode:







Cast of characters:

* Jaya------------Lata Sabharwal
* Aanchal---------Megha Gupta
* Siddharth-------Sameer Dharmadhikari
* Dheeraj---------Abeer Goswami
* Lailta Devi-----Kiran Bhargava
* Aanchal’s Mamaji-Neeraj Kshetarpal
* Aanchal's mami---Leena Prabhu
* Manu------------- Rajat Wats
* Ramakant--------- Uday Tikekar
* Bharti----------- Nishigandha Wad
* Ravikant--------- Shailesh Datar
* Hariman Tyagi---- Pramthesh Mehta
* Chanchal--------- Indu verma
* Dr. Sudeep------- Aman Sondhi

Kyunki goes for a twist

When you don't have a proper story, you can bring in anybody and make the story dance till it gives you a headache. And that is what seems to be happening on Star's prime-time 10:30 PM weekdays soap, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Some time back, there was a drama since they had to change the person playing Tulsi since Smriti Irani was leaving (or forced to leave because she was setting up a production house, depending on which source you believe). Finally, with the famous plastic surgery option, they managed to get Gautami to play the character.
And now, after all the drama over Tripti was over, the serial made a few twists very quickly. After Tripti admitted in court that she was alive and that Mihir did not have a role in any murder, he was acquitted by the court. Of course, since Tripti promised vengeance, you can be sure that she will come in some time again as a villain. But other things first; it seems that there is a move to bring in changes in Mihir. So, for example, Mihir wants to move in with Mandira (bringing back Mandira after some time spent in jail) because she was apparently a great support to him when he was in jail.
So Mihir finally turns against Tulsi and it seems that he wants a situation where he will be with both Tulsi and Mandira (although there is some news that Ram Kapoor - also known as Thakur Jas from a few months previously would be coming back, and Mihir's current behaviour is something to do with plastic surgery and that maybe this is not Mihir; anything can happen in a Balaji serial !). It will be interesting to see where this leads to, and what are the new twists and turns. Right now, everybody in the Virani khandaan is against Mihir.
And onto the other major news, whereby apparently Ekta Kapoor and Smriti have made up (speculated because the serial is losing its popularity and hence Smriti needs to be got back, and Smriti's attempt to be a producer does not seem to be going well). If Smriti does come back to the serial, it will be interesting to see what will be the way in which she will come back, and what will happen to Gautami who is currently playing Tulsi (maybe she will turn out to be an imposter after all).