Music and melodrama

Sur Kshetra

Colors and SaharaOne, Saturdays-Sundays, 7.30 pm

Host: Ayesha Takia

Rating:**1/2

Asha Bhosle says things like 'Our hearts are very big, we can accommodate everyone' (it's a dig at Atif Aslam - that while Pakistan hasn't exactly gone into doing cartwheels with Indian artists performing there, India has had no such qualms.

If you have been tuning into Sur Kshetra, the Indo-Pak music show, that recently went on air on Colors and SaharaOne - then you would have words like fateh, elaan-e-jung, izzat, hamari shaan, jeet hamari hogi etc etc coming out of your ears already. Producer Gajendra Singh is known to go out with his music reality shows. Then there is Himesh Reshammiya, known for his verbal diarrhea - remember mujhe tumhare ghar ki roti chahiye!, a line he had thundered to a shivering contestant in one of the editions of Sa Re Ga Ma, a line that had become so famous that people still spoof it in comedy shows - and a competition that pits Indian singers against their Pakistani counterparts, so it's nothing short of a war. When it comes to Indo-Pak, tempers flare up, emotions run amok and jingoism is at its best/worst depending on which side of the fence you are sitting.

Last but not the least, there is Asha Bhosle who leaves no quote 'unturned' to silence her opponents. For eg: she says things like 'Our hearts are very big, we can accommodate everyone' (if you read between the lines it's a dig at Himesh's Pakistani counterpart, Atif Aslam - that while Pakistan hasn't exactly done anything about Indian artists performing there, India has had no such qualms).

So there you have all the ingredients for a pressure cooker show where tension is in your face and quaking contestants have to win over each other's hearts and save the pride of their respective countries in a musical battle.

... contd.

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