Disaster strikes: Akshay Kumar's stunt washed away

By Subhash K Jha

What was planned as an explosive stunt featuring the King Of Action Akshay Kumar with the the all-girl contestants of the daredevil reality show Fear Factor turned out to be a massive damp squib.

In what the personnel of the fledgling channels Colors are jokingly referring to as their first fiasco the planned stunt at Mumbai's Mukesh Mills came crashing down quite literally.

The entire prop from which Akshay Kumar was supposed to plunge 30 feet below came crashing down in the torrential rain that ripped through Mumbai's skyline on Monday afternoon.

Says a source from Colors, "Akshay had been practising rigorously for the stunt for two days. Disaster struck a day before the event when during the dry run one of the contestants Mandira Bedi got a hairline fracture. And if that wasn't bad enough, just before the event the whole prop crashed down and so did the area we had cordoned off for the press."

Confirms Colors CEO Rajesh Kamat, "It went wrong. Akshay couldn't do his stunt. Doesn't matter. There will be many other occasions."