anil kapoor to appear as judge on gurukul

Javed connection

So what made him go against his own norms? "I am appearing in the show because Javed Akhtar asked me. My association with him goes a long way. I can't refuse him," said Kapoor who chilled out with the contestants sans any starry airs.

Writer-lyricist Akhtar is one of the judges on Fame Gurukul along with musician Shankar Mahadevan and singer Kay Kay Menon. While singer Ila Arun is the headmistress of the Gurukul.

Very first time

While shooting for the Sony reality show yesterday, Kapoor admitted that this was the first time he was doing something like this. "I have stayed away from such appearances," he said.

Kapoor has three releases lined up — Jijy Philip's My Wife's Murder, Vivek Agnihotri's Chocolate and Anees Bazmee's No Entry. "Yes, in a way, it's also for the films coming up. When you are on a show, you also talk about your movies," he added.

Celeb judge trail

As for the Fame Gurukul contestants, Anubhav Suman of Ghaziabad has been voted out of the gurukul while Avijit Singh of Murshidabad is back in the reckoning. While Srinagar's Qazi Touqeer is upto his usual antics.

According to the channel, this week Fame Gurukul has garnered 12 million votes which has surpassed all the previous vote records.

The gala round airs every Friday with a celeb judge. Ishaa Koppihar and Alka Yanik have earlier featured on the show.

shaheen@mid-day.com