Here’s our question: when Rahul and Priyanka went for a stroll, on a balmy afternoon last week and walked into a live television broadcast, did anyone pop the question: aapko kaise lag raha hai?

Anybody who wants to be somebody, on and off the tube, either asks or gets asked this question. It’s TV news’ gift to the nation. Last week, when Shilpa Shetty hosted producer-director Goldie Behl for a free promo of his upcoming film Drona on Bigg Boss (Colors), her first tender inquiry was: kaise lag raha hai? When Abhishek Bachchan joined them to promote his role as Drona, she asked him: aapko kaise lag raha hai? (To which he responded — I feel dreadful for the people in Orissa, Bihar hit by floods ... just kidding.). Ditto question to evicted Raja when he visited her confessional couch. On the new Colors show Ek Haseena Ek Khiladi, presenter Sandhya Mridul observed Vinod Kambli wearing sweat like a body suit after his dance item and asked judges Sushmita Sen and Wasim Akram: kaise laga aapko? To Irfan Pathan who had as little swing in his movements as in his bowling these days, she offered a variation: kaise lag raha hai? No wonder, then, that TV news journalist in the film A Wednesday asked a gentleman recently embraced by a livewire electrical pole — aapko kaise laga? To which he gave the standard reply: accha lag raha hai.

Ek Haseena Ek Khiladi has six cricketers with six maidens (!) from TV trying to move to the music. We saw Sreesanth and Dinesh Karthik dance, Vinod Kambli sweat it out, Irfan Pathan retire hurt, Nikhil Chopra dance with himself (instead of partner Barkha) and Harbhajan Singh spin Mona Singh like a top and sweep a rather heavy set Sushmita Sen off her feet. It was lively and enjoyable. Sen and Akram were individually pleasing but had, as Sen remarked about Nikhil and Barkha, “chemistry alag-alag”. Now, if only Sen would stop exclaiming ‘fab’ five times in each over, sorry sentence.

... contd.