Hindi Reality show - Dance India Dance on Zee TV - Cabaret Queen Helen Graces Dance India Dance.

Dance India Dance Season 2 has been graced by some of the biggest names and best dancers in the industry. ‘Jumping Jack’ Jeetendra to our favorite Govinda have both added zing to the stage, but coming on soon will be one who sent pulses rising and hearts beating faster. Helen in her heydays was proclaimed the ‘Cabaret Queen’ of Bollywood and her grace is still intact decades later.
Helen, the ‘cabaret queen’ of Bollywood will grace the last celebrity episode of Lux Dance India Dance. This is the episode wherein all the final 5 contestants will be given a challenge by Geeta Ma to dance to her Bollywood style.
This episode will also declare the 4 finalists for the mega finale that will take place live on 23rd April at Andheri Sports Complex, Mumbai.
It will be interesting to watch who will finally win the coveted title of ‘dance ka sabse bada superstar’ but until then, we’ll just sit back and watch awe stuck when Helen throws her moves as Grandmaster Mithun Da along with Remo and Terence try to woo her..!!

Catch the episode on 16th April, 9:30pm exclusively on Zee TV.


Helen with saumya on Zee TV Dance India Dance


Helen with Mithun da on Zee TV Dance India Dance

Series on Discovery Travel & Living - Living with a Superstar - Shahrukh Khan

Shahrukh Khan is the biggest star of Indian cinema (for his generation - since we also have Amitabh Bachchan, who is probably more respected than Shahrukh Khan, and you have Aamir Khan, who has developed a much respected branding of his own, and who owns 2 of the biggest money making films of India). He has a huge number of fans, and yet, there is a lot that people really do not know about Shahkukh Khan. When he travels anywhere, he has an entourage with him that prevents people from getting too close to him, and a security team that will guard him relentlessly. However, the interest in knowing more about him will also be great. And this is where this new program comes in, to show a behind the scenes look at Shahrukh Khan, at his home, his family, his travels, everything.
The show is called "Living with a Superstar: Shah Rukh Khan", and is a 10 part, behind the scenes look. This involved a fair amount of work, with the production team traveling along with Shahrukh Khan across 4 continents; covering a set of different activities such as shooting, getting a personal tour of his home 'Mannat', being with him on vacation in London, access to another home in Dubai, getting to work with his wife and children, a lot of background on the experiences in his ownership of the low-performing Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team. For those fans who want to know more about the superstar, the series is a must watch.
The series has been produced by a small production house called Blue Mango films along with Red Chillies Idiot Box and shows up every Friday at 9 PM starting February 26th.

Some videos from Youtube (link)

The charm & effervescence of B- towns Aladin – ‘Reitesh Deshmukh’ on L’il Champs

For some time now, the concept of Film Stars appearing on TV to promote their movies has been prevalent. Viewers get to see movie stars on their TV sets, and the stars get a chance to promote their movies to many more people.
It’s packed with oriental mystique – not one, but two genies, wicked magicians, gold and jewels galore, a palace that is transported through thin air, a beautiful princes, and a poor boy who gets very lucky indeed. This is the story of Reitesh Deshmukh’s latest movie Aladin which was promoted on L’il Champs this week.
Keeping the same theme in mind, Dhairya had become Dhairuddin and his wish granting genie was Afsha.
So when Dhairya said, “mujhe ice cream chahiye…” two bowls were presented one with ice and the other with moisturizing cream, literally connoting ice and cream. It was one crazy episode with some mind blasting performances and Reitesh adding the much needed zing to the episode.
Hemant Brijwasi’s rendition on the song “saanwre from Bandit Queen” had everybody transported into some other world. Reitesh was literally speechless at such a power packed soulful voice. Abhijeet da gave the best compliment he has ever given to anyone. He gave Hemant the title of ‘Sir’. “aaj se tum mere liye Sir Hemnat ho…”
Reitesh could not stop his feet when the boys teamed up to sing “dekha jo tujhe yaar dil mein baji guitar…”the masti wala song with its tapori lyrics was just idle to make Reitesh leave his chair and attack the floor.

Lara Dutta appeared on the show:
Lara Dutta felt doubly special because she came in an episode which also welcomed the best violinists and piano players of our industry to jam with the kids. The music and the orchestration had Lara totally besotted and awe struck.
If Priyanka Chopra taught Afsha the tricks of the ramp, it was Lara’s turn to tutor her how to do a ‘chiggy wiggy‘ on the stage. It was hilarious to watch Afsha ape Lara.
Shreyasi’s performance on “haan maine chu kar dekha hai…” from the movie Black got her appreciation galore. So was Hemant’s performance which took everybody’s breath away. Seemed like Shreyasi and Hemant are all set to outshine each other at the finale.




The competition is not yet over but the five finalists have already become play back singers. Shreyasi, Hemant, Prateeksha, Yatharth and Swarit all have rendered their voices for the forthcoming movie ‘ Bal Ganesha ‘ – the music release of the same was done on the coveted stage of Saregamapa. Lucky kids to have become playback singers much before the competition is over…

Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao - the last week

Now, we are in the last week of 'Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao', and there are just 4 participants left in the serial. For the past several weeks, it would seem that the serial is bent to put more exposure, more fight, and more scare tactics in the show. First, the show separated the male and female participants and made them compete against each other. There were lots of fights in the show, with Akash Sehgal being the worst element in these shows. He used bad language with abandon, tried to portray all the female participants in a bad light, and considered himself superior to the others.
Anaida and Mona Wasu were the ones who fought the most with Akash, although they also fought with Chetan, and a few others on occasion. The show made participants do a lot of things that seem pretty horrible such as cooking insects, rats, and other such creatures on an open flame and then making the male and female contestants contest to see who would eat the fastest. In other contests, the participants would have to withstand time while all sorts of creepy crawlies such as rats, cockroaches, wasps, ants, scorpions, frogs, etc were raining on them, or were all around their legs, heads, or bodies. Takes a lot of courage to do that.
Many participants came and left during the course of the show, with Nigar Khan being there for very little time, Marc and Aman were there from the beginning and then were finally evicted. Kashmira Shah came for some time, did a lot of gossiping, strutted around in a bikini, and then finally left. Jay Bhanushali came in, got overawed by Akash and Chetan, and finally left. Mika came in for a short time, and so did Chitrashi. In the end, the following four are left:
Aakashdeep Saigal
Anaida
Chetan Hansraj
Mona Wasu

Videos of the show from Youtube:

Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao 1st September 2009 Part 1



Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao 1st September 2009 Part 2



Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao 1st September 2009 Part 3



Negar Khan and Chetan Hansraj in swimsuits taking a bath:



Kashmera Shah in a bikini taking a bath:

Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao - New people added

Looks like the competition in Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao just got tougher. Other reality shows such as Big Boss do add people from time to time as wild card entries, but over time the number of people in the show does reduce.

Akashh Deep Saigal
Aman Yatan Verma
Anaida
Chetan Hansraj
Marc Robinson
Mona Wasu
Palak Kaur Johal (left)
Shweta Tiwari (left)
Fiza Chand Mohammed (left)
IshQ Bector (left)
Negar Khan (joined later)

Now, all of a sudden, 3 new people have joined the show, all of them wearing red shirts. These are Jay Bhanushali (TV actor), Komal Chautala (Chak De), and Mike Singh (singer). Now the show has been set with these 2 teams opposite each other, and they have Aman and Chetan on their side versus the others. Now the teams will contest against each other, cook separately, and so on. For Chetan and Aman, they will suddenly have to contest against people who were all part of the same team earlier.

Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao - Not very exciting

In this age of reality shows all over, Sony Entertainment Television copied another reality show appearing outside (called 'I'm a Celebrity…Get Me out of Here!') India, and setup the local equivalent called Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bacha0 (Starting from 13th July, 2009 at 10pm. Mon-Thurs at 10pm & Fri 9pm for 1 hour). The show took 10 celebrities to a jungle in Malaysia, and makes them live there without the usual comforts (and most of them are people who either needed the glamour, or who are without much work). They are forced to do tasks over there that can seem pretty horrible:
- such as being forced to spend minutes in a coffin with water coming in and 60 frogs provide company (Shweta Tiwari)
- having a glass helmet over one's head while different insects and other creepy crawlies (snakes, scorpions) are also in the same helmet (Akash)
- having to break pots to get the stars hidden inside the pots while the pots contain vile animal stuff, and so on
If they complete such tasks successfully, then they earn food.



Every contestant gets a handful of rice and some soyabean for food every three days, which is clearly not enough for survival. Therefore, they must participate in various physically challenging contests and win "food credits" for themselves and their team members. Each day, the team must nominate one participant to play in the day's contest and be the so-called bread-winner for that day.
Audiences can vote for their contestants and people have started getting nominated for eviction, with Chand Fiza Mohammed becoming evicted after losing a contest with Anaida.

Hosts:
Mini Mathur
Yudhishthir Urs aka Yudi

Contestants

Marc Robinson - Fashion Choreographer
Chetan Hansraj - Actor
Akashh Deep Saigal - Actor
Shweta Tiwari - TV Actress
Anaida - Singer
Mona Wasu - TV Actress
Aman Yatan Verma - Actor, Presenter
Palak Kaur Johal - 2nd Runner-Up in Roadies (Hell Down Under)
Fiza Chand Mohammed - Famous Personality in marriage, divorce, re-marriage case (out)
IshQ Bector - Hip-Hop Singer (out)

Video of Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao on Youtube

Iss Jungle se mujhe bachao 16 july - Shweta Tiwari looking cool and sexy



Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao contestants walk out of the show! (A reality show that has been scheduled to last for two months saw 8 of the 10 celebrities on Sony Television's Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao have walked out of the show. It seems this came after Akashdeep Saigal, a contestant on the show, performed a task called 'Fill your Face' where he had to put his face into a jar filled with snakes, meal worms and bugs. When Akashdeep returned to the camp, his face was swollen after being bitten by the bugs. The incident shook the rest of the contestants and eight of them reportedly decided to walk out of the show, and came back only after talking to the contestants)



Marc's confession about Priety



Videos of Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao on Youtube (link)

Dus ka Dum 2 - second part of the game show on Sony

Dus ka Dum was a game show started in 2008 (to compete with the Star Plus Shahrukh Khan and Akshay Kumar on Colors), and starred Salman Khan as a show which allowed its contestants to quickly scale upto an amount of Rs. 10 crore very quickly, once by eliminating the contender, and then answering 5 questions within a required percentage scale to get upto the top prize. The show also had a large number of celebrities taking part, thus making the show more attractive.
Dus Ka Dum 2 is the second season for the show, and it started on May 30, with Salman Khan as the hosts and a range of celebrities gracing the show and contesting. So far, we have had:
Kareena Kapoor (defeated her sister Karishma) and won Rs. 10,00,000
Daler Mehndi (defeated his brother Mika) and won Rs. 1,00,000
Darsheel Safary won over other child stars (Tanay Chheda & Azhar) and won Rs. 1,00,000
Katrina Kaif (well awaited, the girl friend of Salman came with co-star of New York Neil Nitin Mukesh for promotion of their film).

Blog of Dus Ka Dum on Setindia.com (link)

Video of Salman Khan with Katrina Kaif and Neil Nitin Mukesh on Dus Ka Dam

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Videos of Dus Ka Dum on Youtube (click here)

More actors joining Zee TV's Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Hi Kijo

Veteran Actors Roped in to portray Zee TV’s Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Hi Kijo in a different light!!!

Zee TV’s ‘Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Hi Kijo’ has been doing great ever since the launch. The show has already created waves across the country for showcasing a prevalent social evil in society – ‘selling the girl child in the midst of utter poverty to raise money for the rest of the family’. By far the story revolved around seventeen year old Laali’s optimism about life and her courage and compassion when it comes to rescuing her family from the throes of hunger and abject poverty. Due to sudden crisis in Laali’s family, her parents are forced to sell her to the ‘Thakurs’. The show has a big turning point here where Laali will experience a different world altogether. The Thakur’s house calls for a complete new team of actors from Rupa Ganguly, to Sushmita Mukherjee, Sudesh Berry, Anjoom Farooqui, to name a few. The new change will certainly add a touch of richness and glamour to the show. Though the story would still remain about Laali’s adjustments & fight with the harsh truth of being sold off by her parents, the new characters would have a pivotal role to play in the show hereon.

The characters that are now being seen as part of the show are –

SUDESH BERRY as Loha Singh, (head of the Thakur family)
He is a arrogant, opportunistic man who’s ego sores above the sky. He only does things as he pleases. He almost rules over the village. He has no respect for the women of the house and no one has any say in his decision.



ROOPA GANGULY as Sumitra (Loha Singh’s wife)
A quiet, motherly, cultured woman and religious woman who takes care of the family and is petrified of her husband.



SURBHI TIWARI as Nandini (The eldest daughter-in-law of the family)
Takes responsibilities of the house but doesn’t get the respect she deserves.



SUSHMITA MUKHERJEE as Gangiya (Loha Singh’s mistress)
She is the head matron of the house. She is very cunning and manipulative.

Khatron Ke Khiladi Akshay Kumar

When you launch a new channel in a field already having a number of new channels, you need to have some great programs to draw people. Typically, film stars are seen to get some excitement to the scene (you already have Shahrukh Khan on 'Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain' and Salman Khan on 'Dus Ka Dum'), and so getting a top film star to be the host of a new program is good. Now, when you have a channel launched by a major international media company such as Viacom, funding is less of an issue, and so getting a truly hot star such as Akshay Kumar worked. Combine this with the excitement of a reality show with actual stunts performed by amateurs, some good locations, and female TV / Other stars, and the channel could actually have a winner in terms of attracting viewer attention. Going by the buzz I hear in the office, people are watching this regularly.



The program is based on the reality show 'Fear Factor', the first episode aired on July 21, 2008. The show is based in military style boot camp in South Africa, with settings based on water, buildings, etc (and there are many different challenges such as jumping off a building into a net hung in mid-air, cycling across a ramp high in the air, driving a cycle into glass and fire, climbing a helicopter from a speed boat, eating disgusting things, and so on). The ladies are teamed up with ex-military men, but most of the stunts have to be done by the ladies. If a lady hesitates or does not do the stunt, Akshay has been known to be critical. On the other hand, he does seem to encourage the ladies and even poke cheerful fun at them (or their make companions).
The various contestants are:
Nethra Raghuraman
Anjana Sukhani (Eliminated)
Aditi Govitrikar
Pooja Bedi
Sonali Kulkarni (Eliminated and then brought back)
Yana Gupta (Eliminated and then brought back)
Meghana Naidu (Eliminated, brought back, and then again eliminated)
Anita Hassnandani (Eliminated)
Dipannita Sharma (Eliminated, brought back, and then again eliminated)
Vidya Malvade (Eliminated early, but not brought back since she disappointed by not doing stunts)
Urvashi Sharma
Tupur Chatterjee (Eliminated, brought back, and then again eliminated)
Tapur Chatterjee (Eliminated, brought back, and then again eliminated)

Video of Stunt on Youtube (driving in an obstacle course)



Videos of the episodes:
http://watchkhatronkekhiladi.blogspot.com/, Youtube

Kahani Hamaray Mahabharat Ki on 9X

When it became known that Ekta Kapoor was going to be making her own version of the Mahabharat on 9X, there was a lot of fear that with her concept of entertainment, TRP's, and popularity being pegged to things such as the drama of saas-bahu serials, abrupt screen transitions, plastic surgery, and so on, this will be a Mahabharat that will remove the positive memories of the BR Chopra version. And now the serial is on air, having been launched on July 7, 2008, and appearing on 9X at 9 PM on weekdays.
The serial started out with depicting the episode of 'Draupadi Vastraharan', and this one did not go down too well. There was a lot of screaming by Anita Hassandani (playing the role of Draupadi), and one could actually see her using the full level of her voice while exhorting the Pandavas to take action to save her, while also screaming at the Kauravas. Over a period of time, the serial has started to reveal its cast, and the cast is essentially all the regulars of her serial (so far, no major new faces).



The costumes are very different from that of the original Mahabharat serial, more in the nature of costumes that would be there from the Indo-Greek fights shown in the 'Bharat Ek Khoj' serial. There is less of an emphasis on color (as in the original), and more of a focus on tight skin, functional costumes, a slightly darker hue, and tattoos. Acting is okay for the episodes that one is now seeing, although the initial reaction was one of shock.
Some of the traditional TV artists that one can see in the serial are / were Kiran Karmakar (Shantanu), Makrand Deshpande (Ved Vyasa), Rakshanda Khan (Amba), Chetan Hansraj (Bheem), Saakshi Talwar (Ganga), Ronit Roy (Bheeshma), and so on, all people from the various saas-bahu serials.

Link to Youtube videos on the serial (link)

The promise made by Bheeshm

Ek Se Badkar Ek on Zee TV - Another contest show

With all other channels having their mix shows dealing with getting the previous contestants from reality shows (music, dance, etc), Zee could not be far behind. Given that all the previous year finalists from Sa Re Ga Ma Pa would still be in a contract with Zee, it was pretty easy for Zee to launch a new show feature Raja Hassan, Anik Dhar, Harpreet Deol, Amit Paul, and so on. Combine them with a dancing person from the world of TV (and which TV actor does not want publicity today), and you have a reality show with teams comprising of one dancer, and one singer, and their performances are evaluated on that basis. Try and get a new host, the Bhogpuri film super-star Ravi Kishan (I find him most irritating, not a particularly good host).
Like most other shows, it is now mandatory to bring in celebrity judges, and so in addition to the usual judges of singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya and choreographer Ahmed Khan, the following celebrities have so far made their appearance on the show (Jackie Shroff, Salil Chadda, Vivek Oberoi, Priyanka Chopra, Harman Baweja, Manoj Bajpai, Ganesh Acharya, & Hansika Motwani). These celebrities also appear to promote their forthcoming movies, and as more movies get released, there will be more film stars who will show up in the form of celebrity judges. The show appears on Sat-Sun at 7:30 pm



The contestants, have been formed into the following teams:
* Sanchita Bhattyacharya & Kushal Punjabi
* Emon Chatterjee & Purbi Joshi
* Raja Hasan & Jasveer Kaur
* Harpreet Deol & Amrapali Gupta
* Aneek Dhar & Shayantani Ghosh
* Sumedha Karmahe & Abhishek Awasthi
* Amit Paul & Rajshree Thakur
* Poonam Yadav & Apurva Agnihotri

As always, the singing performances of Aneek and Raja Hasan have always impressed. And since no show nowadays can proceed without the usual burst of controversy, the channels always like to show dispute, objections, and even arguments. No longer do the judges object to this sort of drama anymore.

Video of Raja Hasan singing on Ek Se Badkar Ek (Youtube)



Other Youtube videos of the show (link)

10 Ka Dum on Sony

There can be no easier way to make money. If you get 5 questions right, then you are going to make Rs. 10 crore, so how can you make money easier than that (unless you are a MP / MLA and every vote will count) ! The format of the show is pretty simple; you get on stage, shake hands with Salman Khan, do some polite chit-chat, he asks about your family, makes a few funny jokes, and you are on. So what do you need to do ?
You will be asked a question about something that they have gone and asked people in India about, and you need to give an answer that falls close to how the average person in the street has answered. So, for example, you could be asked:
"how many men would like to have a harem" and you have to give an answer. Suppose you say 30% - 60%, and the correct answer is 49%, then you win and move to the next round. As you move, the amount within which you have to guess the right answer keeps reducing (so it is 30%, but could come down to 5% or 10% near the end).



The show is basically an attempt to get starpower onto the screen, to also compete with the Shahrukh Kya Aap Paanchvi Class Se Tez Hain on Star Plus. Here also, celebrities are brought in from time to time, such as cricketers Yuvraj and film stars Aamir and Imraan (seeking to promote their movie Jaane Tu .. Ya Jaane Na).

Videos from Sify site (link)
Another 10 ka Dum blog (link)
Videos from Youtube (link)

Yuvraaj and Harbhajan along with Salman in video:

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.

Say Shava Shava on NDTV Imagine

This is a reality singing show, and they feature some upcoming TV stars to sing. One word of caution, given that these are TV actors, and not all of them act all that way, some of their singing can leave you with a real need to switch channels. For example, Divyanka (Vidya / Divya from the Banoo Main Teri Dulhann Serial on Zee) needs badly to improve her singing. But she looks pretty nice, so a lot of people will excuse her lack of singing capabilities :-).
The show appears on Friday and Saturday from 9:30 - 10:30 PM (confirm this). The host for the show is the TV actor Ali Asgar (the devoted brother Kamal from the Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki). He also does a lot of comedy, and in this serial, every week he does a comedy act of imitating the various older stars; I have seen him doing a comedy imitation of Manoj Kumar, Shatrughan Sinha, etc
Divyanka, Moni (KT from Kyunki ..), Manish Goel, Approva Agnihotri, Juhi Parmar, Aman Verma, Sumit, Nayarani, etc are some of the actors who have tried to sing on the show. The show has also tried to get some of the sophisticated glamour in term of the judges (Simi Garewal and Karan Johar); in addition, the show also allows an evicted opponent to give a trump card in the next show, and Aman did the show after he was outed, giving a trump vote that led to a lot of controversy in the show. In the same show, when Manish Goel was evicted, there was a lot of drama - he broke down and cried that he was being made a lot of fun of and he felt humiliated (and his wife who was also there also jumped in and said that she preferred that he left since he was feeling very bad about attending the show).
This is when the host, fellow contenders and judges all got into the act of consoling, but the judges were a bit cold as well, telling him that if he wants to be a public figure, then he has to be able to take all these in his stride. And that was the conclusion of the drama. On the other hand, some of the singing has been pretty good, with Moni getting pretty appreciated for her singing; the same with Sumit. For some of them, you can feel that they have done a lot of effort. There is also more drama, since Divyanka got her co-star Sharad (from Dulhann ..) on the show to depict romance, and she got a lot of leg-pulling from the judges.

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:

Shararat comedy serial on Star Plus

For a break from all the heavy saas-bahu serials on Indian television, it is necessary that we have comedies also playing. Of course, many times these comedies are not exactly very good. One serial that does not try too hard, and manages to keep the whole atmosphere very light is called 'Shararat'. It used to originally appear on Star Plus, and now comes on Disney India. The serial is primarily based on an English serial called Bewitched.
The story is of 3 generations of a family. A long time back, a lady called Rani Devi was very good and kind, and she was given a blessing by a sage - she would get magical powers and these powers would be handed down the generations to daughters, not to sons. However, in a slight twist, Rani Devi sneezed at the sage when the power transfer was happening and the sage modified the power to be ineffective if the lady had a cold (this would be for a period of 24 hours).
This was from a much earlier generation, and now the modern generation has these powers as well. First there is Nani (grandmother Sushma played by Farida Jalal), her daughter Radha (played by Poonam Narula Goel), her son-in-law Suraj (played by Mahesh Thakur), and the grand-daughter Jiya (played by Shruti Seth). There is a constant skirmish between Mahesh and his mother-in-law (in fact, Mahesh got to know about the magical properties of his wife and mother-in-law soon after marriage and was not so happy). Whenever his mother-in-law gets angry with him, she turns him into some creature or the other.
Then there is Shanti Saberwal (Shoma Anand), the nosy neighbor who feels that something is strange in their house, but never can seem to find out exactly what. Things keep on happening mysteriously, but she can never figure out what exactly is happening. The serial also focuses on Jiya who is a recent learner of magic, and who also uses magic in her college (where she likes Druv), while a new girl Pam seeks to be the center of attention.

A video shot from the serial:

Jhoom India on Sahara One

There are many a reality shows that have been seen on the various Indian TV channels by now, with the list being something like Indian Idol, Sa Re Ga Ma, Voice of India, Nach Baliye, Jhalak Dikhla Ja, Little Champs, Big Boss, and so on (you name the concept, and there is a show on that). Sahara One came out with its version, called Jhoom India. The concept being: teaming up a singer or a music composer with a well know artist. Hence, you have the following combinations.
* vinod rathod and roshni chopra,
* jatin pandit and chhavi mittal,
* akriti kakar and varun badola,
* vaishali samant and sharad kelkar,
* parthiv gohil and apara Mehta,
* madhushree and sachin tyagi,
* sunjeevni and shekhar suman,
* sudesh bhosle and mrinal kulkarni,
* jolly mukherjee and shama sikander,
* suresh wadkarr and shweta tiwari

As with the other reality shows, this show also has its fair amount of controversy, when in an episode, one of the judges Mahesh Bhatt walked out when one of the participants was rude to another judge Shabana Azmi. The third judge is Anandii of Kalyanji-Anandji fame.

You an get a recap of earlier episodes at this link.

At this point, there are a total of 3 jodis left:
1. Roshni Chopra - Vinod Rathod
2. Sachin Tyagi – Madhushree
3. Varun Badola - Akriti Kakar

The show appears on Sahara One on Friday and Saturday at 9 PM.

You can also watch some videos of Jhoom India on Youtube.

Nach Baliye 3 winner declared

And the winners are the couple of Sanjeeda Sheikh - Aamir Ali on the final held on December 22, 2007. The winning couple defeated the pair of Rakhi Sawant - Abhishek Awasthi in the final. The final is now bathed in controversy, with the losing pair of Rakhi and Abhishel having filed a police case against the channel (Star Plus) accusing the channel and the winning pair of fraud, of manipulating results and of depriving Rakhee and Abhishek of a win. One could have expected something like this to happen; for example when I told a couple of people about this police case, they were not totally surprised and expected Rakhi to be a sore loser. In fact, later I read that Salman Khan (who was the star judge for the final), had told Rakhee to go back on stage to get her trophy, but she refused to listen. If this lady continues to behave like this, her career could get severely impacted.
Overall, the performance of the dance show was good. You could see people striving to improve their chances, with the judges not being lenient, and pointing out bad performances when they saw one. The judges were Isha Koppikar, David Dhawan and Vaibhavi Merchant. David Dhawan seemed the most lenient one, as you could see by the facial reactions of both Vaibhavi and Isha when they were not satisfied with the performances at times. The show was hosted by Hussain Kuwajerwala and Tina.
So how did the participants fare overall in terms of where they reached ?

Sweta Keswani - Alexx O' Neil (Eliminated on November 17th)
Karan Patel - Amita Chandekar (Eliminated on December 15th with Jodi No. 8)
Rakhi Sawant - Abhishek Awasthi ( Runners Up )
Shakti Kapoor - Shivangi Kapoor (Quit on October 6th)
Amita Sethi - Vikas Sethi (Eliminated on October 13th)
Karan Grover - Kavita Kaushik (Eliminated on October 20th)
Sanjeeda Sheikh - Aamir Ali( Winners)
Kashmira Shah - Krishna Abishek (Eliminated on December 15th with Jodi No. 2, Second Runners Up)
Kiran Janjani - Ritu Janjani(Eliminated on September 28th)
Pooja Bedi - Hanif Hilal (Eliminated on October 27th)
Indraneil Sengupta- Barkha Bisht (Wildcard Jodi) (November 23rd) (Eliminated on December 2nd)

Some videos:

Making fun of the judges



Aamir-Sanjida



Youtube videos

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa and Salman Khan

Now the the movie release of the latest Salman Khan movie, Partner has just happened, Salman appeared on the singing talent show, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa on Zee TV at 10 PM. This was a show that lasted for around 100 minutes, and this episode was essentially centered on Salman Khan. The songs were from his movies, he spoke a lot during the show and he also captured a lot of the attention by dancing for some of the songs.
There are many things endearing about Salman. At times, he seems just like a kid in the way that he behaves, suddenly jumping on the stage to dance and have fun. He had some fun by going and removing the upper shirt from one of the contestants when he was singing a song that Salman had sung bare-chested in the movie, Jab Pyar Kiya to Darna Kya.
At other times, he was very endearing in the way that he tried to speak in a very friendly and normal way to many of the contestants, trying hard to give none of the star airs, encouraging them, and pepping them up. He also praised a lot of them for the quality of their songs, and many of the judges also seemed to get inspired, giving many of the contestants top scores.
It was easy to miss his co-star from the movie, Lara Dutta. Salman is obviously the more important star, but the crowd, the judges, the contestants all made a beeline for Salman, so one could see Lara Datta being left out. She spoke for all the contestants, but in front of Salman, somehow one did not much of a impression of her being noticed.
Slowly, this concept of stars coming on TV to promote their movies has increased more prominently in the recent past, with publicity being such a strong need to make a movie hit, a popular music show with the potential to showcase the movie to some extent seems like an excellent choice. For the TV show also, getting a super-star would have brought more people to the show. So Govinda, co-star from the movie appeared in Indian Idol, just the day before.
Such things have happened more frequently. In the past, this marriage between movies and TV would never have happened, with movies stars looking down on the small screen, and TV shows not even trying to movie stars (or has-beens on their shows). But, you find besides the people mentioned above, Suneil Shetty, Shilpa Shetty, Javed Jaffrey, and numerous other stars all appearing on TV. And I did not even mention the cast of Big Boss that had a number of stars such as Rahul Roy, Kashmira Shah, Rakhi Sawant, etc, giving it all up to spend some dedicated time on TV.