Rakhi-O!

Rakhi Sawant burst onto most people’s horizons with the kiss that the infamous Mika planted on her. It was the most shocking thing to take place that week and she got her due minutes of fame and airtime. It was all par for the course, which doesn’t explain what she is doing — four years later — hosting her own show called Rakhi ka Insaaf on Imagine TV. The television and film industry has legions of publicity seekers who seek small bursts of visibility and sink thereafter, which makes Rakhi Sawant’s longevity, her continued popularity and her success something of an astonishing oddity.

This latest show has been likened by quite a few reviewers to a fish market. It is a very understandable comparison. Two episodes old at the time of going to print, Rakhi ka Insaaf is a reality justice show with a very twisted shake. Disputes are brought for Rakhi to hear and judge and the disputants (so far) all represent the lowest common denominator. Rakhi, of course, conducts affairs with all the aplomb of a ring master. She is expansive, flinging out a hand to silence the audience, out-yelling her participants, reacting to every revelation with the requisite drama and finally issuing her take on the matter.

But to dwell on the rise of Rakhi Sawant: she has managed to straddle Bollywood as well as television — even if as a fringe item girl in the movies and as a Reality TV specialist on television. Since 2006, she has appeared in numerous shows; two of these bear her name in their titles and ride on her shoulders alone. The truth is that this woman — either by means of native shrewdness, luck or some mysterious factor — has managed to become a brand. What exactly is her appeal?

Her days incarcerated in Bigg Boss (1) gave us a few clues. She was clearly disadvantaged as far as her background went, but she was by turns heartbreakingly humble, ambitious in the most open, grasping way, curiously sincere and laughably manipulative. Her vulnerability came through and so did her love of the limelight. She demonstrated fine comic timing, she was naive. If she launched herself into the middle of an emotional drama with herself cast as queen, her eyes would flicker mid-scene to gauge its effect on her audience. Very few people fell for anything she said, but many were charmed. She had something that can’t be bought in tinsel town: personality.

I’ve found her tiresome on many occasions but one of the instances where she thoroughly delighted me was on the talk show with Karan Johar. Many thought it was a huge coup for Rakhi that she was asked on the show at all. For, throughout the previous season, Johar had taken low potshots at a few persons; they included Mallika Sherawat, Neha Dhupia and Rakhi Sawant. Now the film industry, such as it is, is bound to have a few young women who become embroiled, out of desperation or bad judgment, in something approaching sleaze. It is even more likely if the young woman comes to the industry without the aegis of a big name. For Karan Johar, with his background, success and position, to attack these particular women with such snide relish was ungenerous and ungentlemanly. Still the talk-show producers had bowed to the public’s dubious but thumping interest in Rakhi Sawant and she was invited to Koffee with Karan. She came. If Johar had hoped to expose her further, he succeeded. But he could not discomfit her — for Rakhi out-Rakhied herself.

She came in a cloud of effusive gratitude, took the wind out of his sail by admitting blithely to cosmetic surgery, cried so copiously Johar was left wiping his own nose in involuntary mimicry, she dived dramatically at his feet in a surprise move that had her host yelping in startlement and leaping nimbly out of reach. As a revenge, it was delicious. And she’s still having the last laugh.