SIGHT & SOUND
From tears to laughter
Amita Malik

I often keep on asking myself, as a hardened radio and TV buff, which is the most weepy programme I have seen? Is it Sa Re Ga Ma or Indian Idol 2 that show tears of the losers? Is it one of the saas-bahu serials in which the bahus weep only a little less than their saas? Was it the programme on the widows of poor farmers who committed suicide? Or was it the one on the anguished parents who lost their children in the tsunami? Or was it on those who lost their relatives in the violence in Kashmir?

I have distinguished between TV tears and those from real life on TV and now I come to the tears which have caused the least pain to viewers. There is a programme called Shukriya (Thanks) on NDTV where well-known celebrities, mostly from the film world, give thanks, as the title implies, to all those who helped them in their personal and professional lives. It could be Sushmita Sen or Rani Mukherji—it is mostly women, which makes the crying part of it more easy; very few men cry on the programme.

In one programme, the tears started flowing from both the celebrity and her mother, as she recounted how dear mom gave her a loving upbringing, presumably with no slaps on the bottom or harsh words when family rules were broken. Even John Abraham was accepted by the family. And then you had Sushmita’s adopted daughter Renee say some sweet things which made the actress and everyone else in sight cry.

By the time each programme finishes, with family, friends, professional gurus and fellow actors having had their say, buckets have been wept and enough water collected to solve the water shortage in the immediate neighbourhood. Yes, tears play a big part in Shukriya.

I must remind you that a programme by the same producers on Zee Channel, Jeena Issi Ka Naam Hai had the same friends, relations, professional gurus and colleagues popping up in the programme, allegedly by surprise, but it was all laughter and jokes and lots of fun. It is up to you to decide which you preferred. For myself, I found so much sweetness and honey in Shukriya, with not a note of dissent or disagreement, that far from weeping buckets I found it a little too good to be true. Sorry, but I prefer to be cheerful.

From tears to laughter. I am afraid I am not one of those who find the official laughter programmes that funny, not even when they have Shekhar Suman and Navjot Singh Sidhu. It is mostly ribald jesting rather than subtle jokes, more reminiscent of the laughter in the older Bombay films which began with someone slipping on a banana peel.

So it was with a vast sense of relief that I watched some genuinely funny April Fool pranks on April 1. And the one I enjoyed most was when two of NDTV’s reporters, with completely dead-pan

faces, made an ass of Sidhu (hope he will forgive my using the phrase, since he feels free to use much stronger expressions about his victims). What the reporters did was to pretend they had come to interview him (which indeed they had, but not seriously). They first annoyed him by calling him a spin bowler. The more Sidhu angrily protested, the more they kept on apologising but called him the same. Then they referred to him as Cherry, whereas he revels in the pet name of Sherry. Sidhu painfully and angrily explained to them that cherry is a fruit and sherry a "lady’s wine". It was only when he had completely lost his temper and betrayed his outsize ego that a colleague appeared and told him he was made an April Fool.

Similarly, a large number of fashion designers were caught off guard at the Mumbai Fashion Show when designer Sabyasachi Mukherji and anchor Aneesha Baig told them individually that Liz Hurley had chosen them to design her outfits. They all fell for it and a good laugh was had by all. May we keep it that way.