Multiple awards, multiple roles

By the time you read this, three things will have occurred if there is anything called logic in this world: Amitabh Bachchan will appear in ...

By the time you read this, three things will have occurred if there is anything called logic in this world: Amitabh Bachchan will appear in yet another TV commercial, Shah Rukh Khan will perform at Zee Cine Awards and Bachchan will be felicitated at them. Bingo: Khan danced and Bachchan won the Golden Grade Award (uh?). He would have won an Oscar as the recipient of more awards than any other actor in the history of motion pictures but for a glaring oversight: the category doesn’t exist. Maybe next year. Or, if there’s still a Bush in the White House, he can outsource the show to Bollywood and they’ll institute Bachchan, oops, the award.

Two more comments on Zee’s Awards: even the Oscars don’t run for over five hours and while it was very neighbourly to hear every Indian and Pakistani sing each others praises, will someone please tell Omar Sharief (not the Egyptian actor but a Pakistani comedian) to extend his repertoire of jokes beyond women, otherwise we’ll have to assume he doesn’t find men amusing.

While Bachchan collects awards like a piggy bank does coins, TV actors are busy acquiring something rather different. Question: when last did you see Jennifer Aniston play anyone other than Rachel on TV (Friends)? Question: name one Indian TV actor who appears in single TV role? Last Wednesday, Gurdeep Kohli first showed up as Snow White in Son Pari (Star Plus); half-an-hour later, she was Juhi in Sanjivani (Star Plus). This Monday, Mahesh Thakur will appear simultaneously as Sridevi’s madcap husband (Malini Iyer, Sahara) and Dr Simran’s former crazed lover (Astitva, Zee). Insane. Till very recently, Aman Verma was a good guy in Kyunki…, a besotted lover in Arzoo Hai Tu (Sahara), the affable game show host in Khullja Sim Sim (Star Plus). Still feeling inadequate, he’s become a supernatural villain in Devi (Sony). Why the multiplicity? If our gods have many avatars, why not their subjects?

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Maybe Smriti Malhotra can answer this one. Throughout last week, she wore a seedha pallu as Tulsi (Kyunki…, Star Plus), then reversed its direction for the talk show Kuch Diil Se (Sab) and finally, changed into a red saree for an ad praising the NDA government’s housing policy. So: Bachchan sells chocolate, paint, Chawanprash, pens, suitings and every other product in the market, Malhotra the BJP! Is that the difference between a big screen and a small screen superstar?

Jaya TV News, as its name suggests, is news about Jayalalitha first and then the rest of the world. However, for Jaya TV the rest of the world does not include those Jaya ji does not like or vice versa — namely Opposition political parties — unless it’s to criticise them. Or glorify The Leader. Last Wednesday, there was an item on the the demise of filmmaker N. Reddy. The story began with Jaya’s condolences. It continued with the entire text of her message displayed on a graphic and read out for the illiterate. Next, we learnt Jaya was ‘‘personally grieved’’ by the loss of this ‘‘multifaceted genius’’ — a ‘‘genius’’ who did not merit even a photograph because the story was not about him but her bereavement!

The Maharaja of Patiala, Yaghuvendra Singh, seemed weighed down. So would you if you were carrying a necklace made of five heavy platinum chains containing a total of 2,930 diamonds (The Patiala Necklace, Discovery). What strikes you most about the Patialas is that they only did things in hundreds or thousands: over 1,000 horses, more than a 100 wives….and God know how many offspring. The living couldn’t have been easy.

An epitaph for Ravi Shankar Prasad’s CAS: it’s the way you do the things you do that’s wrong.