Dance party on Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2007

I must confess Sanjay Gupta's shilling for his anthology flick Dus Kahaniya on SRGMP this week did leave my curiosity duly tickled. Ten flicks, roughly ten minutes each, filled with starlets and aspiring wannabes and some item numbers to boot. The last time one of my favorite directors - Allison Anders - tried this on a smaller scale in Four Rooms along with her buddies Tarantino and Rodriquez, it fell flat on its face. So this looks intriguing!

It was a stroke of genius on the part of the SRGMP producers to invite Gupta and his considerable entourage on the show. Because I went crazy ass bananas trying to take in the reactions of everyone - not to mention poking fun at some of them kept me thoroughly busy and entertained.

At one point, I remember Mika Singh jumped on stage and did a helicopter with his hair. This made my head spin. And no one had even said Mindblowing yet, so I was pretty sober. I also noted that Neha Dhupia was completely outdanced by the girl on her left. Poor Mika looked pretty insecure every time one of the three finalists turned in yet another rousing performance. Diya Mirza, with her left arm in a cast, did a chest thump to applaud Amanat. Himesh Reshammiya was forced to dance and gave us a glimpse of his Amitabh-level competence. And Baby Bleeng Bleeng appeared to have consumed way too much coffee in the pre-show reception.

But what I enjoyed the most was when everyone found themselves on stage and very gamely tried to shake a leg - often looking severely comical - not that they seemed to mind. Manoj Bajpai jumping on stage to issue a horrific, but rather sporting, dance with Raja Hasan led to the first impromptu Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa audition.

Then when Aneek sang, Himesh tried to engineer yet another romanchuk moment for his chela. First, he had poor Diya Mirza trot on stage and surprise Aneek. Aneek looked as surprised as my toothbrush is to see me in the morning. Somehow Himesh managed to convince all the girls to go on stage and say cute things to Aneek. To his credit, Aneek didn't bat an eyelid and lapped it all up.

Now this made me cringe, but what I did have fun with was the pressure this put on Ismail Darbar to bring some glitter to his chela's subsequent performance. Thus when Amanat sang, Darbar grabbed as many of the stars he could lay his hands on and pushed them on stage to clap and dance with Amanat. And here's the rub: surely this doesn't help the votes. So this sideshow is now entirely a platform for the gurus to outdo each other. Later Darbar - who looked somewhat depressed throughout the show - paid kudos to Amanat mentioning that his performance had drawn so many hastis on stage. Gee, Darbar, next time try not to drag everyone up there and then we'll see.

So who has the momentum now on SRGMP? Raja gathered more moss on this show than either Aneek or Amanat. Aneek was rock steady again and to his credit, Himesh is still trying hard to manufacture a come-from-behind win for his entry. But Amanat dispelled many doubts over his presence on the show - especially mine - with his fearless singing.