Pit Mamatadi against
Rakhi Sawant and who would you bet on? After their respective performances on Railway Budget Day and Swayamvara, put your money on the lady from Kolkata. Anyone who can take on Lalu Prasad Yadav in a gab fest and make him look jaded-aged has to be declared the winner!
Forget for a moment, that she was somewhat unintelligible in that quaint mixture of English and Hindi which came out sounding like Bengali. Fact is, she gave a highly entertaining performance laced with wit and trenchant comments as homespun as her sarees. She was not afraid to speak her mind and her jousts with Laluji were the highlights of a refreshingly candid speech. Such a relief from the usual smooth and suave politician we watch on TV.
Pranab Mukherjee’s Budget speech was a sedate, composed affair, offset by his rather natty white bandh-gala. For those of us who think ‘fiscal’ is the wrong spelling of ‘physical’, two aspects stood out in the Budget telecast: Hindi channels such as Aaj Tak, India TV and Star India provided a simultaneous Hindi translation of the speech and the FM appeared on a DD News interview within an hour of his speech.
What stood out in last week’s incessant debates on Section 377 before and after the Delhi High Court ruled against the criminalisation of homo***uality, was that people came onto TV and said what they really, really thought about homo***uality — be it gay activists, politicians or religious leaders. For possibly the first time we had a fearless exchange of views on ***. Such openness suggests we are willing to face up to what has been hidden in the closet so far. Tolerance if not acceptance maybe at hand.
Smouldering is something
Rakhi Sawant has always been accused of. She is one of the hottest, spiciest cheez, on and off the screen. And she is certainly not the kind of girl you thought was waiting to fall in love and be married happily ever after. So it is a coup for NDTV Imagine to launch a marriage reality show with the unlikeliest candidate for the job. Last week, Rakhi did what she has never done before: she appeared on TV without make-up; she appeared on TV in casuals; she appeared on TV not as a coy prospective bride, but with a certain demureness. The show’s format — where 15 men from various parts of the country and one NRI from Canada woo her — demands that Rakhi remain expressionless for much of the one-hour episode (to hide her preferences), that she shroud her responses by lowering her eyelids (and what gorgeous half-moons they are too) and that she appear like your average female who just happens to dress up like a miniature Mughal painting.
She’s placed in a false position: she must behave like an ordinary woman looking for a life partner but the only reason she is being courted — and we are watching it — is because she is Rakhi S and out of the ordinary. So far she has managed to convince us she means remarks like, “I am just looking for a man with an honest heart”, and “God, I hope I get the man of my dreams” but for how long we will have to wait and see.
The men did not strike you, immediately, as RS’s type, less her jeevan saathi. But as they read out love letters to Rakhi, danced and sang for Rakhi, they began to acquire substance. If the show is to succeed, the suitors need to play their part well. So far so good. Of course, it is bizarre to watch a show set in an Udaipur palace with RS, host Ram Kapur (comfortable in his generous frame) and 16 men talking about Rakhi, what pleases Rakhi, what displeases Rakhi, what Rakhi wants in a man. Well, nobody promised you more of less.
07-15-2009, 02:51 AM
Mamata competes with Rakhi for airtime and wins
