review:srk :valentine on KBC

Shahrukh Khan proved himself adept at the showmanship style of quizzing, pioneered by Derek O'Brien this Valentine's Day, with a two-hour glitz'n'glamour episode of Kaun Banega Crorepati III, featuring celebrity guests, musical overtures, balloons and simplistic quizzing.

The episode's onset was more treacly than ever, with a Bollywood-style musical rendition by Shahrukh, followed by an exposition of the varieties of the romantic experience, an earnest explanation that it transcends the mere romantic or erotic to include parental, sibling, and familial. Given that inisght, the celebrity guests were couples of different sorts, from friends to siblings to married couples - Farah Khan and Karan Johar, Farhan and Zoya Akhtar, and Malaika Arora Khan & Arbaaz Khan. Most looked pleasantly befuddled, and only Malaika & Arbaaz passed the 'Fastest Finger First' trial, an ordering of cricket events chronologically (Tests, ODIs, World Cup, Twenty20).

Malaika and Arbaaz did the wiggle and jiggle, including the two-step to Chaiyya Chaiyya with Shahrukh. The pair faced the Shahrukh trivia challenge, ably, donating their Rs. 12.5 lakh winnings to the St. Andrews Home for the Aged in Bandra, Mumbai. The tradition of celebrity winnings being donated to a charity of their choice is a laudable one, and one will not quibble about that. One will take issue, however, with the evidently 'easier' questions that were presented. Even on a 'light' quiz like KBC, one is accustomed to increasing complexity in the questions. The Rs. 12.5 lakh question however, was about where is the body of St. Francis Xavier - not as complex as one might imagine. A number of the other questions for most of the contestants were drawn from the realm of media and entertainment, rather than a more holistic pool of general information. Perhaps this was for the better, since it enabled a higher level of winnings for their charities.

The Akhtar siblings were a pleasant pair, donating their winnings to Nivara Hakk Welfare. Zoya has an upcoming film Love Story with Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor, while Farhan is still riding the Don wave. They picked their questions off with ease, using the 'Phone a Friend' lifeline to solve a toughie on which singer was originally known as Tannu Mishra, calling on the one person who would be most likely to know the answer - their father, Javed Akhtar. For the record, it's Tansen. A short while later, they rolled a Banarasi paan to celebrate the Rs 6,40,000 milestone. The next question was a rather good one, about who is India's first woman brewmaster (Kiran Mazumdar), which they flipped for another, and got a simple one in return about Interpol. The Rs. 25 lakh question was knocked out of the stadium by Farhan, who reasoned that Greg Chappell has never played a Test match or ODI in India during his cricketing career.

That brought on the 'junglee billi' pair of Farah Khan and Karan Johar, who were donating their winnings to the Bal Jeevan Trust. There was more banter in this group, with Farah giving Shahrukh a massage, and Karan taking the directorial hotseat, as it were, prior a commercial break. The questions were of low calibre, from what kind of animal is a stingray to which country nominated Deepa Mehta's Water to the Oscars. They flipped a tricky question about Ghazals to get another sitter, which seems to be the way the flipper algorithm is configured. A tech-oriented question had them phoning a friend, who led them down the wrong path, and the audience leant the same way, recommending the iPod Nano, but they recovered in time to pick YouTube as the Time magazine Invention of the Year 2006. They wrapped up at the Rs 25 lakh mark as well, going out with a flourish, and effectively donating Rs 62.5 lakh to charities collectively with the other participants.

To wrap up the Bollywood-flavoured episode, everyone got jiggy with Shahrukh's new KBC jingle Karle Karle Tu Ek Sawaal. Much fun was had, and intellectual elitist quibbles aside, good quizzing was experienced.