Mahabharat 2.0 & Khatron Ke Khiladi

after a long, long time, i am actually waiting to be home and switch on the TV.

so what’s gripping my attention these days?

there are two daily serials that i long to watch – Mahabarat and Khatron ke Khiladi.

mahabharat comes on 9X channel at 9 in the night. the best thing about mahabharat is that i do not draw comparison between the old and new mahabharat. this generally happens with remakes of popular TV serials and movies. so when NDTV imagine came up with a new Ramayan, it failed to grip my attention – it appeared as an old wine packaged in a new bottle – the serial has been directed by the same Sagar family.

so why wasn’t i drawing comparisons with the old mahabharat directed by B.R.Chopra?

yes, the story is the same. still the way the director has filmed the scenes gives you a feeling that it is actually new.

not the usual chronological way of depicting scenes from the epic mahabharata. so if the director has to bring the krishna story to the fore, it is not the customary “once upon a time, in a kingdom called mathura …”. in the new version, the story of krishna is brought to focus by Kunti (who is a relative to krishna) who rues about the cruel kansa, the brutal uncle of krishna.

the old mahabharat showed each character as a supernatural being. the new mahabharat shows them as more human.

more so, the story is moving at a steady pace. in a single episode, the director covered six important incidents of the epic – the marriage of pandu with kunti, the marriage of pandu with madri, pandu getting cursed by a sage, pandu giving up the throne and leaving for the jungle, the birth of yudhistra (first son of pandu and kunti), and finally gandhari conceiving through a fairly interesting method – a period as long as two years (according to the serial).

i am loving the serial and bet you too would like it.

however, there are also some points where the serial lags behind:

1. the choice of actors is not very good. dhritrashtra doesn’t know how to act. so does pandu. maharshi vyas overacts.
2. the pace with which the serial is going is okay for people who have read the epic or seen the old version of the serial. people, who don’t know thru either sources, will be confused or get half baked information.
3. the ladies of mahabharat seem to have received the same boon as all actresses of ekta kapoor soaps. they never age. see the mothers of pandu and dhritrashtra. gandhari and kunti appear bigger in age than these two ladies.

about the next serial now. fear factor – khatron ke khiladi is the flagship serial of Colours, a newly launched TV channel.

i wasn’t very excited to see fear factor again. but there was akshay kumar who was first hosting a serial and so it was a must watch. gripped my attention from the first day onwards.

there are 13 female participants, all of them models. they are accompanied by army officers with plenty of experience at stunts.

the stunts are actually daring, puts you on the edges as to what will follow next.

6 episodes have gone by and with each day passing, the excitement is on an increase.

my personal favorites among the participants are yana gupta, nethra raghuram (2 of the most athletic participants). also there are anita (anjali of kavyanjali fame) and urvashi (i have started liking her. its good to see her make faces at the stunts. in last night’s episode, she was seen pleading to akshay kumar for a safety band. ha ha). pooja bedi is good but she tries to act too childish.

6 participants have already left. out of them, i was actually praying for vidya to leave. it was really disappointing to see her pilot – if a participant wins, the prize money goes to the pilot – his dream was shattered – all because of this silly girl who refused to do any stunt – shattered all her reputation of sturdy girl from chak de.

can’t gather any negative points about this reality show.

really a breather from the current package of reality shows that dealt with songs, dance and quizzes. there are so many that i can’t remember any.

so the conclusion is that my prime time views are pretty occupied and satisfying as well. touchwood.

A baba in my backyard

naval, my neighbour’s neighbour, woke up one fine day to become a devout krishna bhakt. no, the transformation was not so revolutionary, but i got to witness this revolutionary change only on this sunday. normally i open doors only when i get ready to go to office. so until it’s a sunday, people seldom get to meet me.

so when i went out to buy milk, i was taken aback by naval’s ‘hare krishna’ rather than a usual ram ram (as is typical delhite’s way to address known people) or a simple namaste. another shock was waiting for me when i raised my eyes to his face. he had this big vaishnaviite tika on his forehead. the sandal wood tika had also flown on his nose, making his black complexion look odder. chilling delhi weather has failed to make his complex any fairer. and FYI, his daughter, by-product of a dark man and a relatively less dark woman has grown up to become the darkest.

so along with that prominent tika and the hare krishna address, he also likes to give pravachanas to people who he encounters. just yesterday i watched him discoursing about gods, kalas, karmas etc to another neighbour’s son, who would on other occasions mince no words to show he is disinterested, leave aside listening patiently to a lecture. good that naval doesn’t talk much to me or else i too would have to go through those boring talks.

yes, i feel such things as boring. no i not that hippie kind who don’t have faith on god. only that i don’t like anyone telling me how am i to pray to god so that i will get moksha. sorry i dont want moksha; i only want a good life here and here only, and that is what i pray to god. for this i dont want any gurus. in fact i hate gurus and anyone who preaches (except for ramdev baba, who doesnt preaches anything, just tells us how to keep our body and mind fit).

and how do i believe that this naval has good intentions. bagal me ram muh me churi. just on sunday night i heard that he was fighting with his brother. he doesnt have good relations with his elder brother although all of them live in the same house (they can make only as much money to get a bare enough living in delhi).

but that does not make naval any less baba material than the many babas who throng the TV. i am told that most babas had a black past. many of them are not as well known outside their state as they are inside the states to which they belong to. so it will really not be a shock for me if i open the tv one day to find naval discoursing to a large crowd.