Opinion Making a song and dance

Onto other contests. This question is completely irrelevant but it still deserves an answer: why is Vindu Dara Singh judging a children’s dance talent show,Chak Dhoom Dhoom (Colors)? It’s not like he is the next Michael Jackson; it’s not like he knows how to choreograph a number like Saroj Khan or Ahmed Khan (who happen to be his fellow judges). It’s not like he’s got this magnetic personality that will automatically attract and hold our eyeballs. So why is he there? Have the show’s producers such little confidence in the children,they hope Vindu Dara Singh’s height will lift the programme above the competition?

The show looked quite promising when the children were performing. Should children be performing is a question that is invariably asked but never receives a satisfactory reply. A new season of Boogie Woogie (Sony) begins and the promos (right in the middle of Indian Idol-5) show small kids in acrobatic stunts,and with more paint on their faces than a Kathakali dancer. And you ask yourself,why? Why do parents put their children through the torturous contortions on the floor just for the sake of that fleeting phenomenon,fame?

The dancing on the latest Zara Nach Ke Dikha (Star Plus) was less than moving — literally. It was Mother’s Day,on Sunday,and the girls and guys danced for Ma. Wish they hadn’t. The girls moved like puppets — awkwardly. The guys moved like puppets on a string — as though they might fall off any moment. And they were doing something on the floor that you wouldn’t call dancing because it looked very much like they were in tears — as if that is what their mothers have reduced them to! Oh dear. This Mother’s Special did no justice to a show that is otherwise lively and entertaining.

Anu Malik compared one of the contestants on Indian Idol-5 to a fruit and called her cute — he found the others equally appetising. Salim Merchant described every (other) singer as “fantastic”. Sunidhi Chauhan was somewhere in between the two,but always encouraging. And for once,these judges were in complete harmony,agreeing more than they disagreed.

More than their opinions,you were left staring at them and at the presenters: Hussain Kuwajerwala was dressed in a smoking jacket he borrowed from Sherlock Holmes; that or he cut up the curtains at home; Anu Malik dressed in black,blacker,blackest,whatever he wore; on Monday,Salim Merchant sported jodhpurs (jodhpurs?) and a grin that left his mouth only when he spoke or sang. As for Sunidhi Chauhan,it was a contest between her eye make-up and her nail polish. The nail polish won.

As for the contestants,well,this is a slice of India. There’s Shivam from Lakhimpur (UP),Swaroop Khan from a village near Jaisalmer,Lakshay who is a pilot,Tia who idolises Chauhan and has auditioned three times for the show,plump Meghna,and 11 others in many shapes and sizes from all over the country. Each one stands a chance to win. That’s what makes reality TV so watchable.

shailaja.bajpai@expressindia.com