Kya Aap Panchvi Pass se Tez Hain - Not doing great

One was reading an article in the newspapers about how this much awaited show is running into problems with its sponsors; apparently the show is not drawing enough viewership and the sponsors are applying pressure to reform the format of the show. The show, even though based on an international show, 'Are (confirm)', has been modified to the Indian context, with a lot more celebrity power thrown in. Hence, even 2 ads of the show that I saw talking about some future episodes of the show had 2 more TV celebrities shown - as an example, one of the episodes had the 2 main leads of the drama 'Vidaai' appearing on the show along with most of the cast.
This is apparently something that the sponsors seem to be fulminating against; they believe that the show is focusing a bit extra on the star quotient (and these were minor TV stars, not big Bollywood stars who can be expected to lend more glamour to the show). This is also in contrast to the previous Kaun Banega Crorepati since the focus of the show remained the questions and not more about the celebrities. With a limited time format, and some focus on the star power, the show is losing out and just not generating the required viewership (although when the show was proposed, there was worry that the show will generate so much interest that the IPL matches going on at the same time - evening at 8 PM) would lose out on some of the viewership.
The worry for Star is that 30% of the episodes already have apparently been shot, and it would get difficult to rework the basic format of the show; and since a major Bollywood figure such as Shahrukh Khan is involved, re-shooting episodes would be very difficult.

Update 28 and 29 September: Sa Re Ga Ma Pa

The programme is now reaching the final stages. There were 4 contestants left before this week's episode, Amaanat, Anik Dhar, Poonam Yadav and Raja Hasan. In Friday's episode, another contender was to be evicted by the public voting. It would be even more painful for the contestants since they have come so far and it would be hard to go now, so close to the end. This time the voting was to have international votes as well, and the voting was actually best for the serial, since there were a total of more than 54,00,000 votes sent via SMS, and since the vote costs a person at least Rs. 6, the channel made a huge amount of money. However, after all the voting and singing, the person to lose was Poonam. This was sort of expected since the voting for the girls had been lesser than that for the boys, and with Sumeidha getting out last week, the path for Poonam was clear. It was disappointing to see her go, but this is a competition based on audience voting, and such things are bound to happen that you don't like. It was good to see such eminent talents such as Pandit Jasraj and Jagjit Singh being the celebrity judges.
The other thing that we have been seeing nowadays is that movies about to release jump on the bandwagon of these reality shows, and this episode was no different. This time it was the Shahrukh Khan production, Om Shanti Om, that was the combination. So you had Farah Khan, Deepika Padukone (looking radiant) and Shreyas. Obviously, Shahrukh Khan would have been too big a personality to get on the show (although he did spend time with the contestants off-stage). The movie and then Shahrukh was the center of attention, with the songs of the film (and some were pretty good) song pretty nicely by the contestants. The other attraction for the singers (all male) was the inducement of singing the songs to Deepika Padukone and maybe getting her to dance with the singer. They were all a-blush over being so close to her. In addition, Vishal-Shekhar were the music composers for the movie.
It was a bit disappointing for people who wanted to know what the movie was about, since when Farah Khan was asked about the movie, she said that you should watch it for seeing Shahrukh, Deepika, Shreyas and the songs. This was so strange, because the movie should have something on its own, and you are not expected to watch it only for the stars.
And then the singers got a chance to meet Shahrukh 1:1 at another location where selected songs for them to sing, all from his movies. However, one thing that struck me was how well they seemed to sing. Another observation from Farah Khan was about how this was the only program where the judges did very little fighting with each other.

Shahrukh Choice - Amaanat



Shahrukh Choice - Aneek Dhar



Shahrukh Choice - Raja Hasan



Amaanat singing Ajab Si from Om Shanti Om



Raja Hasan singing classical - Dil ye pagal dil mera



Pandit Jasraj in Sa Re Ga Ma Pa



Poonam Yadav's last performance in Sa Re Ga Ma Pa



Amaanat Ali singing a ghazal



Dastaan-e-om Shanti Om - Shaan full song



Ajab Si - Om Shanti Om Audio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFV7fdG1LK8

Om Shanti Om Main Agar Kahoon

Fauji - Shahrukh Khan's first serial on air

I was reading some stuff about good old time when there was only Doordarshan, and my thoughts went back to some of the serials we used to watch at that point, and of which memories are somewhat dim. I remember Fauji as one of them, and one of the reasons why it is so remembered is because it was the serial that introduced Shahrukh Khan to Indian television, and then I found an interview with Lekh Tandon who had made the serial, and he revealed that Shahrukh had actually started shooting for another serial called Dil Dariya first, but Fauji was the first one to be released. One interesting point was that he forced Shahrukh to cut his hair for the serial.
Fauji was about commandos joining their training school. Shahrukh Khan was Abhimanyu Rai, a bright young, but naughty trainee. His elder brother Vikram is a senior training officer, who cannot behave with any leniency towards Shahrukh. In one incident, Vikram sentences Shahrukh to a rigorous punishment, but then forgets about him. When he remembers, Shahrukh is still struggling with that punishment even as he is near collapse.