Posted:
KBC –who scored with KBC SRK or Amitabh?
Lata Khubchandani | Tuesday, 24 April , 2007, 10:55
The SRK VS the AB Sr war makes interesting copy at any point of time. Two superstars with a 25 year age difference fighting for supremacy… doesn't sound real does it? But this has become a case of a real war between the stalwarts unfortunately. And it needn't have existed at all if the media hadn't speculated so much! So who's the real star on KBC? Amitabh Bachchan? Or Shahrukh Khan? Who did a better job? who do the people love more? who are they dying to meet? As if in the answers to these lies the supremacy of both these already highly successful stars.
The answers to all these questions are subjective. Like the channel, one can be politically correct and use platitudes like Shahrukh is bringing more youthful energy to the show while Bachchan had more whatever and it's aunt.
A personal judgement aside, the interesting issue now is that we have two anchors to pit against each other. It is not so much about Amitabh Bachchan or Shahrukh Khan, but more about their persona, their images. For the contestants, meeting with Bachchan was like meeting an elusive king from his ivory tower, it dumbed everything else down. The awe, the unbelievability of actually meeting the larger than life star, of films one has lapped up for 3 decades and more made everything else seem insignificant, including the prize money. Even if the contestant didn't win much or anything at all on the show; he still had a feeling that he was taking home something. He could put away in his memory bank the meeting with Bachchan, if nothing in his saving account. If you recall in Bachchan's days as host, the debate used to be between Bachchan as host being more attractive or the prize money!!
To come to Shahrukh, his elusiveness is less; he was the one who started dancing at private weddings remember? He is more accessible, he is young, even his roles haven't made him an unreachable or larger- than- life persona. To sum it up Shahrukh is more a people's person while AB is more a private person. Too simplistic?
Shahrukh, (and others will vouch for this) is a human being who is truly interested in people -- he enjoys people, gets along with them and makes an effort to be friendly. Bachchan, (and this is surprising considering he has received so much affection, adulation and devotion from the masses) remains primarily a family man. People matter to him only in as much as they contribute to him or his family, otherwise he is supremely disinterested in others, even his long time associates, and people from his initial days in Bollywood are wary of offending him, so they refuse to talk about him.
And now between the two hosts we tend to forget the third, and to my mind, the more important element of KBC. The contestants.
It is the contestants who make the hosts behave the way they do. The hosts become a response to the person in the hot seat .It is in each contestant's individuality that a new script gets written and the host has to write it himself, quickly, as he goes along with the contestant.
Critics argue that people were more thrilled when Bachchan rang them up for the phone-a-friend lifeline or recited poetry in his honour or expressed their lifelong desire to meet him, so it made him bigger than Shahrukh, because they don't feel equally awed at meeting Shahrukh.
True. Shahrukh does not inspire that kind of awe. But it is precisely because Shahrukh doesn't inspire that kind of awe that with Shahrukh the contestants come into their own, they are cheeky, funny, more poised, more unhappy when they don't know an answer.. they are more themselves. Their personality flowers in Shahrukh's presence while with AB senior the contestant didn't matter except as a response to him. . They were so dazed to meet him that their personality just didn't show up.Their individuality didn't express itself. The result? The script on Bachchan's show became increasingly repetitive with contestants going gaga at meeting him and Bachchan playing modest.
It is to Shahrukh's credit that he allows the contestants so much space. For example, the teacher from MP Rachna Sharma, who wanted to get her piece, said at Shahrukh's expense that her obliviousness towards SRK or her opinion of SRK didn't make him a lesser star. But Shahrukh's manner of dealing with her unwarranted attack definitely made him a bigger star! Or the young boy from Gujarat could say straight faced: "My sister was so taken with talking to you that she couldn't even answer me properly and she made me waste a lifeline." The kind of resentful candour, with which he delivered this piece of information, could only be said to someone you can trust and he trusted Shahrukh to understand and SRK didn't fail him.
It is interesting to see Shahrukh play a new role exactly as it was seeing Bachchan do so, but for Bachchan, his KBC role was perhaps his most fruitful. It fetched him so much in terms of money, popularity and exposure at a time when his career was seeing a slump.
He'd told me once that after the first episode was aired he had gone for the Amarnath yatra and there so many 1000 ft up he met people who raved about seeing him on TV. He was carrying the entire baggage of all the roles he had essayed before KBC and people loved seeing him in their homes.
For Bachchan it was a win -win situation throughout KBC .For SRK it is more difficult. Though his career is going strong, he doesn't need that incredible amount of money that's being touted as being his fee, he's being examined… judged, criticised when all he's doing is, his best. Perhaps the only thing both star TV and SRK have to keep in mind at all times is. that Bachchan has already carved a place, a marbled, cemented place in the Indian audiences' heart.
The question of replacing him doesn't arise, his presence just has to be included in the show. This fact, though, is no threat to Shahrukh whose presence makes the game the focus while in Bachchan's presence his personality became the focus.
Every episode with SRK became increasingly interesting as one saw him relate to the contestants , he increasingly mirrored the contestant sitting opposite him and the more interesting the contestants the more interesting did the show become.
If Bachchan was a little too intense SRK's more easygoing charm carries the show along, Today Shahrukh has grown with the show and with every episode that passes he owned the show more and more.Now that people have accepted him per se the shadow of Amitabh that loomed large over is fading by the day allowing Shahrukh his own space and style of dealing with it.
. With Bachchan if at all his attention wandered, which it did, at times, he lost the audience for that
With SRK it works in reverse order. Watching the show may not even be on your evening's agenda but if you catch it, it holds you. SRK allows the contestant to breathe, think and feel he's participating in a game. Bachchan gave the show a feel of life and death.
It probably has some relation to the human mass that waits outside the Bachchan bungalow year after year with a very real devotion, to catch a glimpse of their idol who gave them a set of values to live by when they had nothing else. There's a crowd outside Shahrukh's house too, this crowd is the kind who'll ogle at every celebrity, and saunter off if he doesn't turn up.
Interestingly it is these innocuous faceless people who are the real stars of KBC and everyone should stand up and acknowledge that. Now that the series has ended for this season SRK is heard saying that this experience with the common man will make him a better actor. This is probably true and one saw it already on the show itself. SRK empathised so much with the contestants that he was reacting for them when they were puzzled, sad, upset happy, etc.
When someone lost he had the sensitivity to NOT gift them his biography, which he was doing in the last several episodes. All this shows how clued in he was to the contestants emotions.
Interestingly on this show one saw more varied expressions on SRK's face as he reflected the diversity of his companions feelings. It is as if he has added to his repertoire merely by anchoring KBC and that makes him a winner.
Bachchan on the other hand was projecting himself as anchor exactly as he would do for a film's character. SRK just sat and tuned in to his contestant and the rest just flowed effortlessly. There was no laboured projection of himself. For Bachchan it was one more act for, SRK the actor became a person through KBC.
http://sify.com/movies/bollywood/ful...4436590&page=1
I don't know about you, but I think it's a nice summary of the whole Amitabh/ SRK who's the best saga.
Lata Khubchandani | Tuesday, 24 April , 2007, 10:55
The SRK VS the AB Sr war makes interesting copy at any point of time. Two superstars with a 25 year age difference fighting for supremacy… doesn't sound real does it? But this has become a case of a real war between the stalwarts unfortunately. And it needn't have existed at all if the media hadn't speculated so much! So who's the real star on KBC? Amitabh Bachchan? Or Shahrukh Khan? Who did a better job? who do the people love more? who are they dying to meet? As if in the answers to these lies the supremacy of both these already highly successful stars.
The answers to all these questions are subjective. Like the channel, one can be politically correct and use platitudes like Shahrukh is bringing more youthful energy to the show while Bachchan had more whatever and it's aunt.
A personal judgement aside, the interesting issue now is that we have two anchors to pit against each other. It is not so much about Amitabh Bachchan or Shahrukh Khan, but more about their persona, their images. For the contestants, meeting with Bachchan was like meeting an elusive king from his ivory tower, it dumbed everything else down. The awe, the unbelievability of actually meeting the larger than life star, of films one has lapped up for 3 decades and more made everything else seem insignificant, including the prize money. Even if the contestant didn't win much or anything at all on the show; he still had a feeling that he was taking home something. He could put away in his memory bank the meeting with Bachchan, if nothing in his saving account. If you recall in Bachchan's days as host, the debate used to be between Bachchan as host being more attractive or the prize money!!
To come to Shahrukh, his elusiveness is less; he was the one who started dancing at private weddings remember? He is more accessible, he is young, even his roles haven't made him an unreachable or larger- than- life persona. To sum it up Shahrukh is more a people's person while AB is more a private person. Too simplistic?
Shahrukh, (and others will vouch for this) is a human being who is truly interested in people -- he enjoys people, gets along with them and makes an effort to be friendly. Bachchan, (and this is surprising considering he has received so much affection, adulation and devotion from the masses) remains primarily a family man. People matter to him only in as much as they contribute to him or his family, otherwise he is supremely disinterested in others, even his long time associates, and people from his initial days in Bollywood are wary of offending him, so they refuse to talk about him.
And now between the two hosts we tend to forget the third, and to my mind, the more important element of KBC. The contestants.
It is the contestants who make the hosts behave the way they do. The hosts become a response to the person in the hot seat .It is in each contestant's individuality that a new script gets written and the host has to write it himself, quickly, as he goes along with the contestant.
Critics argue that people were more thrilled when Bachchan rang them up for the phone-a-friend lifeline or recited poetry in his honour or expressed their lifelong desire to meet him, so it made him bigger than Shahrukh, because they don't feel equally awed at meeting Shahrukh.
True. Shahrukh does not inspire that kind of awe. But it is precisely because Shahrukh doesn't inspire that kind of awe that with Shahrukh the contestants come into their own, they are cheeky, funny, more poised, more unhappy when they don't know an answer.. they are more themselves. Their personality flowers in Shahrukh's presence while with AB senior the contestant didn't matter except as a response to him. . They were so dazed to meet him that their personality just didn't show up.Their individuality didn't express itself. The result? The script on Bachchan's show became increasingly repetitive with contestants going gaga at meeting him and Bachchan playing modest.
It is to Shahrukh's credit that he allows the contestants so much space. For example, the teacher from MP Rachna Sharma, who wanted to get her piece, said at Shahrukh's expense that her obliviousness towards SRK or her opinion of SRK didn't make him a lesser star. But Shahrukh's manner of dealing with her unwarranted attack definitely made him a bigger star! Or the young boy from Gujarat could say straight faced: "My sister was so taken with talking to you that she couldn't even answer me properly and she made me waste a lifeline." The kind of resentful candour, with which he delivered this piece of information, could only be said to someone you can trust and he trusted Shahrukh to understand and SRK didn't fail him.
It is interesting to see Shahrukh play a new role exactly as it was seeing Bachchan do so, but for Bachchan, his KBC role was perhaps his most fruitful. It fetched him so much in terms of money, popularity and exposure at a time when his career was seeing a slump.
He'd told me once that after the first episode was aired he had gone for the Amarnath yatra and there so many 1000 ft up he met people who raved about seeing him on TV. He was carrying the entire baggage of all the roles he had essayed before KBC and people loved seeing him in their homes.
For Bachchan it was a win -win situation throughout KBC .For SRK it is more difficult. Though his career is going strong, he doesn't need that incredible amount of money that's being touted as being his fee, he's being examined… judged, criticised when all he's doing is, his best. Perhaps the only thing both star TV and SRK have to keep in mind at all times is. that Bachchan has already carved a place, a marbled, cemented place in the Indian audiences' heart.
The question of replacing him doesn't arise, his presence just has to be included in the show. This fact, though, is no threat to Shahrukh whose presence makes the game the focus while in Bachchan's presence his personality became the focus.
Every episode with SRK became increasingly interesting as one saw him relate to the contestants , he increasingly mirrored the contestant sitting opposite him and the more interesting the contestants the more interesting did the show become.
If Bachchan was a little too intense SRK's more easygoing charm carries the show along, Today Shahrukh has grown with the show and with every episode that passes he owned the show more and more.Now that people have accepted him per se the shadow of Amitabh that loomed large over is fading by the day allowing Shahrukh his own space and style of dealing with it.
. With Bachchan if at all his attention wandered, which it did, at times, he lost the audience for that
With SRK it works in reverse order. Watching the show may not even be on your evening's agenda but if you catch it, it holds you. SRK allows the contestant to breathe, think and feel he's participating in a game. Bachchan gave the show a feel of life and death.
It probably has some relation to the human mass that waits outside the Bachchan bungalow year after year with a very real devotion, to catch a glimpse of their idol who gave them a set of values to live by when they had nothing else. There's a crowd outside Shahrukh's house too, this crowd is the kind who'll ogle at every celebrity, and saunter off if he doesn't turn up.
Interestingly it is these innocuous faceless people who are the real stars of KBC and everyone should stand up and acknowledge that. Now that the series has ended for this season SRK is heard saying that this experience with the common man will make him a better actor. This is probably true and one saw it already on the show itself. SRK empathised so much with the contestants that he was reacting for them when they were puzzled, sad, upset happy, etc.
When someone lost he had the sensitivity to NOT gift them his biography, which he was doing in the last several episodes. All this shows how clued in he was to the contestants emotions.
Interestingly on this show one saw more varied expressions on SRK's face as he reflected the diversity of his companions feelings. It is as if he has added to his repertoire merely by anchoring KBC and that makes him a winner.
Bachchan on the other hand was projecting himself as anchor exactly as he would do for a film's character. SRK just sat and tuned in to his contestant and the rest just flowed effortlessly. There was no laboured projection of himself. For Bachchan it was one more act for, SRK the actor became a person through KBC.
http://sify.com/movies/bollywood/ful...4436590&page=1
I don't know about you, but I think it's a nice summary of the whole Amitabh/ SRK who's the best saga.
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