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

Doordarshan Nostalgia: The cultural show - Surabhi

This is more like nostalgia for people of my generation, given that a number of today's youngsters would not remember this excellent cultural program called Surabhi; but it was more than just a simple cultural program. The serial attempted to show us the diversity across the length and breadth of this country; it is almost a guarantee that in each episode we would discover something new.
The serial ran for a very long time and had a total of approx 415 episodes making this a very long-running serial indeed. Imagine learning about the martial art of Kerala called 'KALARIPAYATTU', or learning about the art and culture of a city in Tamil Nadu or Rajasthan. The serial was hosted by the popular duo of Siddharth Kak and Renuka Shahne. It was a popular combination, with the slightly more serious Kak and the ever-smiling Renuka. One of the hottest point about the serial was the involvement of the audience, with audiences being asked a question at the end of an episode, and the involvement grew and grew till they had to handle a huge number of postcards (I believe that they had a record of 10 lakh postcards for one episode).
If you want to know more about the contents of each episode of the serial, there is a whole list available at this link. In addition, you can download clips of videos at the Rajshri Site (after some ads), or purchase the entire episode at this link.

Jhalak Dikhla Jaa on Sony

The second version of this dance contest is here. But this was to be expected, since Nach Baliye started on Star Plus, Sony had to come out with its own competitive program, and voila, the second version of Jhalak Dikhla Jaa was born. The serial differs from Nach Baliye in that Nach Baliye takes a star couple and gets them to dance, while Jhalak Dikhla Jaa pairs a celebrity with a dancer, in the hope that with practise, the celebrity will improve. So, for example, in a previous version, the master chef Sanjeev Kapoor appeared and tried his best to perform.
The judges for the earlier version have all changes, so now Urmila Matondkar, Shiamak Davar and Jeetendra replace the judges of the previous version, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Farah Khan and Shilpa Shetty. Similarly, the show was hosted last by the husband-wife duo of Archana Puran Singh and Parmeet Sethi was planned to be hosted this year by Shweta Salve and Rohit Roy, and then Shweta Salve was replaced by Mona Singh.
The twelve participants in the second season are Ronit Roy, Cyrus Broacha, Sonali Kulkarni, Prachi Desai (Bani), Mika, Mir Ranjan Negi, Sandhya Mridul, Sudha Chandran, Aadesh Srivastav, Mini Mathur, Jay Bhanushali and Tapur Chatterjee.
The show will start on September 28th, and will appear on 9 PM on Sony on every Friday and Saturday.

Kasturi: A women-oriented show on Star Plus

Kasturi is a relatively new show on Star Plus at the prime time 9:30 PM slot on weekdays. Star Plus has introduced its new primetime offering daily soap, 'Kasturi' – Laakhon Jaisi Par Laakhon Mein Ek from April 23, 2007. Given that the serial starts with 'K', has ladies dressed with a lot of make-up and jewelery and there is a lot of heavy emphasis on drama, family values and malice, it would seem obvious that it is a Balaji Telefilms serial, and bingo, it is.
It primarily stars Shubhangi Atre, who hails from Indore, and had auditioned for Kasturi in the past and is now playing central character in Kasturi. The serial is the story of the middle class girl named Kasturi and her struggle to protect her family’s legacy as well as the story of her dreams and aspirations which are so closely intertwined with her family. The ambience is pure Delhi- as Kasturi’s Dad has a Saree Shop in Chandni Chowk. Kasturi is born in a middle class Punjabi family. She is bright and intelligent and loves everyday simple things. Kasturi is humble and polite but innately very strong- who’s fighting to forge her own identity. Kasturi graduates with top honours from the University. Kasturi’s father who was earlier not opposed to her carrying on with her education, suddenly changes his mind- as he is afflicted by Engina. From this juncture starts the real struggle- The family wants her to marry but Kasturi wants to do something in her life. Unknown to the family Kasturi begins to work at a firm.
From here the trials and tribulations, the vicissitudes of life begin to emerge through which Kasturi forges her identity. There is a lot of drama at this point, and a lot of trials and tribulations that she goes through at the hands of Robbie Sabharwal (Karan Patel), who is a famous rock singer and thinks he is the best. In fact, he is the best and is also arrogant. He always likes to be in the company of people. She is framed in a morally compromising position at one point of time, and her detractors including some evil family members blame her for letting down the family name. At this point, Robbie's fast friend Raunak marries her.
And so on, with Raunak being implicated in a murder, and then Kasturi saving him by presenting the victim in court, and then believing that Robbie is behind all this. And so the story will keep on moving on, with things happening like this.

These are the songs played in the serial.

Mitwa from Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna



Yeh Honsla from Dor