WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONEY CRAZE ON INDIAN TELEVISION?

Indian television had caught a bug, the money bug. Indian Television began these game shows which offered their participants sums of money once unimaginable to the common man.

        It all began with the Hindi channel Star Plus. Introducing their copy of the American game show “Who wants to be a millionaire”, “Kaun Banega Crorepati” popularly known as KBC. It was hosted by the bollywood phenomenon Amitabh Bachchan. This show was an instant hit and so began the onslaught of game shows on to the Indian Television screen.

        Next in line was Zee TV’s  reply to KBC, “Sawal Dus Crore Ka”. Hosted by two more bollywood celebrities “Anupum Kher” and “Manisha Koirala”. Before the show was launched there was a lot of talk that it would destroy KBC, for it offered ten times more money. But that did not happen. “Sawal” was a huge flop and was soon scrapped. It showed that not only did money matter but also that the show had to be interesting as well, which it was not.

        It was then time for Sun TV to get into the act. With a Tamil runoff of KBC, “Kotteswaran” which did quite well in South India. The competition was  brewing up in South India as well, with other channels starting new shows, but none of them were able to stand up to Sun’s show.  

        A few more new shows came up. Sony TV’s “Jeeto Chappar Phaad Ke” which was a fun game show where people could win anything: from money which was of course unlimited, to a car. This show did reasonably well with it’s very jovial presentation in keeping with the host Govinda’s style.

        All these shows kept bringing out special episodes in an attempt to stay fresh. Even the  very popular Hindi music show Close-up Antakshari which has been running for over five years caught this bug and introduced a new round called “Close-up Encounter” where the winner had a chance of winning up to 1.28 crores of rupees.

       

        After this the public was quite bored. Such shows kept coming and going. Jaya TV’s show starting “Kotteswari” a quiz show exclusively for women hosted by the Tamil movie star “Khusboo”. This show was aimed at giving competition to “Kotteswaran”. Star TV’s programme “Khulja sim sim” an advertising show where they gave away money for nothing ! Zee and Sony after scrapping their old shows tried to start many new shows which haven’t yet scorched the air.

        The only people who really enjoyed these shows I guess were the participants who became overnight celebrities and fulfilled lifelong dreams of being on television. But just like dreams they were soon forgotten. Harshvardan Navate is of course the only one in the entire lot to have gone down in Indian folklore as the first Television-Crorepati. As for Harshvardhan, an aspiring IAS student (before the show) was doing advertisements for Britannia and KBC soon after the show. Where is he now?         

Regardless of the number of programmes introduced, the Indian audience has shown that the show has to be interesting, informative and appealing in order to be a success. But today all these shows have faded away or have flopped. But all these shows on some level helped revive their Networks in some way or another.

But showbiz proved one thing. They can sell anything as long as they can make their audience dream.


Rahul.

The potential of the human race

The humans are a violent, greedy and self-centered race.

        We have only one planet to live on, “EARTH”. Today earth is in a sorry state thanks to wars, over consumption and senseless pollution.

        The humans have overused this planet’s limited resources. The realization that this planet is slowly dying has come quite late, already many species of plants and animals are extinct affecting the ecological balance. But the realization has come only for a few while the rest of the people still loot and plunder this planet. They don’t realize that their over consumption will kill their planet and if it dies it will take all of us with it. What we really need is another “green revolution”, what I mean is plant trees in order to increase the forest cover, reuse and recycle in order to reduce pollution.

A few steps are being taken in the right direction by a few organizations and we must help them by not promoting to pollution on our behalf.

        Conservation is fine, it could help revive our planet but there is a more serious matter we as a race have to address.

          We as a people have waged wars from time in memorial. Although at the moment it appears that steps are being taken towards world peace there still are problems, wars in today’s world have to be avoided for they are

Hi-tech and extremely destructive. The peacemakers have got into the act trying to make peace but the big problem is that “the peacemakers” are as well armed as the nations at war themselves, how can you advocate peace when you yourself have weapons of mass destruction. We have to disarm. Let’s try and solve our problems in a more civil manner rather than resorting to violence.

         

We are all Homo sapiens (humans) but we still categorize people on the basis of skin color, race and religion. But why? Are we  not a civilized race, why cant people follow what ever beliefs they please, why go to war over such ridiculous matters. I as a person believe that there is a little good in every person and that good can be brought out only if they are shown the good in the world.

          When you read this article you might think that this writer is a dreamer for he dreams of a perfect world. But, just think, it’s not impossible; we could live in a world where there is no unwanted violence and we all live in peace. With a little love and a lot of effort it could be a reality.

“Come on let’s make an effort to form a society webbed together in love”. 

           

(Note: The views expressed here are only that of that of the writer and editor of this article) 


Rahul