Look who’s at the party

Wonder where the media will go if Kejriwal decides not to throw a party, or launch one?

Those of you who enjoy a good mango pickle would have relished the Aam Aadmi Party held on Sunday and Monday. Everyone was invited to the gig — hence the carefully crafted acronym, AAP. Everyone but, we presume, the man who's in a pretty pickle since AAP ka Arvind (hey, that's a suitable name for a TV show with Kejriwal bhai) called him a man of property and impropriety. By the way, where is Robert Vadra nowadays, after the media, with its two-minute memory, lost interest in him?

Kejriwal was the chief guest at the Aam Aadmi Party, as he always is at any IAC get-together. News channels were his special invitees, pleased as they always are to be there with him. This marriage of convenience between the two has been mutually satisfactory, with both getting mileage out of each other. Wonder where the media will go if Kejriwal decides not to throw a party, or launch one?

Well, there's always cricket, you say. After Monty Panesar bamboozled and bowled out India twice, TV news spun whatever was left in the pitch into a spider's web that entrapped our cricket stars. Once Kapil Dev pitched into Sachin Tendulkar, depression set in: is it finally over for the Boy Wonder? Time for another kind of show.

So switched to Qubool Hai (Zee). What can one call this but a Muslim modern — as opposed to the good old-fashioned Muslim social? There's Zoya and Ayaan who will fall for each other, and Asad who looks mesmerised by Humaira. But for their names, they could be Pinku, Rahul and Amit. That seems to be one point the serial wants to convey: underneath the burqa, Zoya's heart beats like Pinku's. The characters fall in love, attend swinging parties (not Kejriwal's), walk the ramp as Humaira did this week, suffer heartbreak and bear it all in the name of "khandaan" instead of "parivaar". Here, the lively Zoya challenges stereotypes and is more fun than most heroines on TV.

... contd.

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