Makes You C-C-C-Cringe

Indian television’s fascination with international franchises continues. After Kaun Banega Crorepati, Indian Idol, Fear Factor, Masterchef and a host of others, here comes a version of the international game show format Wipeout. Bollywood stars tend to eye these new reality shows with almost lascivious relish, and this one hopes to ride on the shoulders of the ever-keen Shah Rukh Khan.

Zor ka Jhatka: Total Wipeout started to air on Imagine TV on 1 February. Shot on a massive obstacle course in Argentina, the game comprises various rounds of competition before winners make it to the final ‘Wipeout Zone’ and then ultimately to the finale. The 16-episode run offers participants a whack at Rs 1.5 crore.

Now a game show of this sort has its place in the scheme of things. It’s only when the game show in question starts to assume other elements of grandeur that it begins to grate. And that is the problem with Zor ka Jhatka. It doesn’t want to be the mildly amusing, moderately popular game show that it is all over the world; it wants be a ‘duniya ka sabse bada, sabse anokha’ (the world’s biggest, most unique)  game show. 

But first, the contestants. They numbered 30 when the show began, but what with dropouts, eliminations, wild cards, special SRK recommendations, the exact count has been lost. These are an assortment of TV actors, sportspersons, army commandoes… but a bulk of them are what you might call ‘reality TV specialists’— a fearsome, hardy breed of wannabes who will assiduously apply to (and be taken on) any reality show that needs discretion, dignity and decorum left far behind.

Typically, as the participants go through the obstacles, Wipeout is attended by two sets of anchors—one on the spot for interviews and reactions (a job held by Saumya Tandon in this version) and another presenter (or two) to provide humorous running commentary on the proceedings—that is, Shah Rukh Khan.

Unfortunately, Khan is ill at ease, he tries too hard and he’s more than a little crass. His mockery of the unsuspecting participants—echoing them in high-pitched falsetto—offends us, the pelvic thrust that he finds necessary to perform every time ‘zor ka jhatka’ is uttered makes us cringe, and his jokes do not make us laugh. He inflicts his preoccupations and insecurities on us. “Kisike paas Kareena hai, kisike paas Katrina hai, mere paas Khabreena hai,” he tells us, reducing his co-host to an informant. He becomes inordinately excited by ‘Big Balls’—a course that involves giant rubber balls that contestants must navigate. We are naturally clued in to the fact that ‘big balls’ sounds like Bigg Boss, a show only recently anchored by another Khan.

Part of the problem is the logistics and the producers’ slippery hold on how to make it work. Standing in Mumbai, SRK is expected to comment daily on a video recording of activities in Buenos Aires. This means a significant loss of spontaneity. Not only does SRK not interact with participants in person, but worse, the banter between the two stations is manufactured at the editor’s table. Having invested in so many celebrities, the producers are unable to balance their airtime between the happenings in Argentina (which could have been interesting if we’d been privy to the backstage excitement or engaged more with the personalities) and the set where SRK presides. They err on the side of SRK. The contestants, chosen presumably for their respective star-pull, are severely underused. Even the production quality falls short of Wipeout, US, standards.

The studio is rendered odious by a few factors. One, a series of Bollywood celebs (Abhishek Bachchan, Kangana Ranaut, Priyanka Chopra), who come on to hard-sell their forthcoming movies. Two, sponsors who find it in their power to actually infiltrate the content rather than merely book-end it. So Khan says the words ‘Chocolaty Laila’ on cue as they appear on the screen.

Still, Zor ka Jhatka achieves what it craved—to be talked about. I mean, we like Javed Jaffrey’s Takeshi’s Castle better but then, we are reviewing Shah Rukh Khan here.


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This appeared in Open magazine, issue dated 28th February 2011.

Colours of life

In one strip from Calvin & Hobbes, Calvin is seeking information from his erratic father. “Dad, how come old photographs are always black and white? Didn’t they have colour film back then?” Calvin’s dad, who likes his little jokes, tells him: “Sure they did. In fact, those photographs are colour. It’s just the world was black and white then.”

It’s easy to believe him. Look at old family albums, silent movies and the wonderful era of black-and-white cinema — we (those of us from this generation) have a hard time paint-bucketing colour into the world as we imagine it was then. Our visual conditioning assures us it must have been monochrome or sepia-tinted. But eventually, we will no longer be put to the trouble of conjuring up mind pictures, for the colourisation of our nostalgia is on.

The opulent Mughal-e-Azam was retouched, pigmented and released in 2004. Since then we have had other classics repackaged thus — Naya Daur and earlier this month, Hum Dono. In the south, we have embraced anew the cult mythological Mayabazaar. There are many more to come in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada.

It isn’t cinema alone. Discovery Channel has begun a 13-part series called World War II in Colour — a magnificent sweep of the events between 1939 and 1945 narrated by Robert Powell. The footage, acquired from across the world, has been painstakingly cleaned, re-coloured and restored. Even I, normally averse to retellings of WWII, am caught up in the epic drama of it all.

Colourisation of our collective black-and-white past may be the dernier cri in India, but it is a fad that has run its course in Hollywood. In the ’80s, media moghul Ted Turner embarked on a rather insensitive colourisation drive that had lovers of cinema up in arms. When he coloured and reintroduced Casablanca, film critic Roger Ebert was unequivocal in his loathing of what he termed “artistic sin”. He said in 2005: “Anyone who can accept the idea of colorisation of black-and-white films has bad taste.” In India too, although the coloured Mughal-e-Azam was accepted by uncritical masses, it had its detractors. Cinematographers and film historians were deeply uneasy. Mahesh Bhatt compared it to “painting the Red Fort in acrylic emulsion”.

It is a worthy debate. The critics make thoroughly valid points. There is no doubt a film shot for the contrasts of black and white is tainted, diminished by the introduction of colour. We would be equally aghast, I imagine, if someone mooted the idea of colouring Pyaasa or Kaagaz ke Phool or Charulata. But what of films where black and white was not an artistic choice but a necessity? K Asif longed to make Mughal-e-Azam in colour and was only impeded by his circumstances. He brought in craftspersons from all over India to bring authenticity to jewels, costumes and weaponry. Belgian glass was imported to adorn the famous Sheesh Mahal. The battle sequences were the grandest India had seen. It was a film that cried out to be seen in colour. Mayabazaar too is a grand spectacle of a film whose frames are deepened, not degraded, by colourisation.

The techniques of colourisation may perhaps influence opinion as well. Early attempts were crude, and not unlike the crayons Orson Welles once accused Ted Turner of wielding. But now, programmes are able to intelligently guess the colour used originally. Even the five or six years since Mughal-e-Azam have seen technological advances — studios now use 16.7 million shades against the 65,000 colours the previous generation did. The effects are subtle and, for the most part, aesthetic.

This sounds like an argument for colour, but had Guru Dutt consulted me before he re-shot the title song of Chaudvin ka Chand in colour, I’d have begged him not to. I suppose the test is to look at a film with love and ask of it how it would like to be rendered.