If Indian television has been able to do one thing effectively, it is to turn the art of interview into the sort of banality that’s soporific. Most interviews are like lal-la-lal-la-lorisss that put you to sleep, especially the newsy ones.
Barkha Dutt, for example, prefers to chat with politicians under the warm glow of table lamps with some arty accessory and a plant in the frame. The mood is that of a hushed, private conversation snatched in between networking and socialising because she’s concerned, deeply, deeply concerned about something or the other.
Arnab Goswami’s interviews are momentous occasions where he, on behalf of all of India and Andaman & Nicobar, thunders questions, but is completely uninterested in the answers. He’s the kangaroo of his court, who repeatedly jumps on the head of the interviewee, wanting only his questions to ring in our homes. The answers, for all he cares, could go to hell.
Karan Thapar likes to think that he is India’s Jeremy Paxman and so he badgers. Sometimes I like that he’s so relentless, but every time I wake up after his interviews, all I remember is his wagging finger. It’s hypnotic. He should get it patented.
We’ve done better when it comes to interviewing Bollywood celebrities. Vir Sanghvi’s Star Talk was hugely entertaining, as is Karan Johar’s Koffee with Karan. Always glamorous, mildly scandalous, and basically gossipy and bitchy, watching these shows felt like we had been given privileged seats in the star’s vanity van and were privy to a very cosy conversation.
And now we have The Anupam Kher Show: Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai (Colors), where, obviously, Anupam Kher interviews Bollywood personalities in a style that’s inspired by James Lipton’s Inside The Actors Studio. The setting is different though. Instead of a classroom, the set is a rang-manch, a stage in the ruins of Pompeii with a live audience. But Anupam is not just an interviewer; he is a senior method actor, a psychologist, and a healer-inspirer.
Judging by the show’s first episode that’s been telecast — part one of a two-episode special where he interviews Shah Rukh Khan — the conversation will stay strictly in the realm of inspirational anecdotes. We’ll learn details of the stars’ roots, their lowest points and the rise from there to stardom. At every crucial juncture a refrain will rise, “Kuch bhi ho sakta hai”. The idea, I guess, is to inspire more Abdul Rehmans to become Shah Rukh Khans (Abdul Rehman was what Shah Rukh Khan’s nani called him. It didn’t stick).
It’s a slow, meandering conversation, yet the first episode worked because of Shah Rukh Khan. Unlike the other badshahs of Bollywood, he is warm and funny, but also candid, spontaneous, courageous. He doesn’t mince words and is always himself, i.e. controversial.
I don’t much care for SRK the actor, but I’m riveted by Shah Rukh Khan the man. He is like the sum total of all of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes — supremely bright, insanely troubled, annoyingly self-assured, scarily dark, and always with his hand on a self-destruct button. Anupam Kher did a decent job of asking the right questions, but there was always
Anupam Kher in his questions. I couldn’t help but miss my favourite telly interviewer — Farooq Sheikh. His Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai wasn’t a great show, but his touching humility made it very special. Mr Kher’s show is about celebrating the ego. Especially his own.
