New Reality Show!! Any takers???

The answer to the above may be both yes and no by almost an equal number of people. Though the truth is that, we Indians are sort of bored with the number of lousy shows being aired day and night. But still we seem to pretend to others and to ourselves that we really miss X or Y show.

Let me get to the point.. Its been quite a while since I stopped watching television ( but for times when I don’t have any other lousy thing to do in the world or may be lets assume checking cricket scores or news headlines once in a while as an exception). I may be an extreme case, its just that I don’t buy all that hype and drama which is made up to fool u and me (mind it, I don’t watch so I am still not a fool ;) ). I was just wondering what has happened to Indian television, every second channel I tune in to either shows some female Dracula or some reality show which makes its participants/judges portray things the way they aren’t ( am not getting into swayamvars at all). And this is when I started missing days of my childhood when I used to watch shows like ‘Bonkesh Bakshi’, ‘Hum Paanch’ and so on.

One lousy evening I finally had nothing lousier to do, so as expected I switched on the Reality box (I guess its time we changed televisions name from idiot box to reality box!!! :D, now I know tats an out of the box idea.. appreciation welcome :P). So while trying to get the best out of the gun used to shoot as many channels we can per second I ended up at this channel which actually changed the face of television a decade ago. Yea am talking abt Star Plus, it launched a show called ‘Aap ki kachari’ a couple of months back and trust me, for a change I stopped firing!!! I placed the gun beside me for a while to see, what actually is the first top Women Cop of the country doing on the reality box?!! Is this another reality show?! Is this another show doing some swayamvar?! (:D) and yes all the above questions had a half yes as the answer!!

Kiran Bedi is back, this time being the first one on Indian television giving judgment, giving justice. Must be sounding weird!! Justice and judgment on television?! Tat too in a reality show kinda set up, such a brilliant concept and most importantly the outcome. Aap ki Kachari is the first ever indian television show which does something ideally a court would do. It calls people having problems in their life, be it a domestic problem, problem with neighbors, marriages at the verge of coming to an end and many such issues we see and hear day in and day out in our life and the Indian courts with more than multi million cases pending not being able to pronounce justice. Aap ki kachari is acting like a fast track court, taking arguments from both sides, people representing themselves instead of appointing lawyers.

Kiran Bedi acts as a devils advocate and tries to talk out the differences of the concerned parties and more often than not helps in working out an amicable solution. One good thing about the show is, it does not impose any judgment on the people participating. Bedi makes sure that both the parties are mutually convinced about the solution worked out. The icing on the cake is Aap ki kachari also provides financial and NGO help to make sure that the solution worked out is being carried on as discussed by the concerned people.

One would argue that, there is already a show called Aap ki adalat being aired on Indian television for many years now hosted by one of the most versatile journalist of the country Rajat Sharma. There is a major difference in the format and deliverables of both these shows, as Aap ki adalat ends up more like a talk show in a court room kind of set up while Aap ki kachari goes much beyond discussion. It educates the viewers about important acts relating to certain issues after each show and so on.

One would also argue tat, may be most of the cases aired are set up (fixed) or may be on the show people agree to the solution provided while in real life they don’t follow the same. But I still guess it’s worth the effort to make people solve their problems much quicker than one would be able to if they knocked the doors of Indian courts otherwise.

It feels nice to see this show, to see the problems aired live on television which we otherwise see at times in our neighborhood, most importantly cos here we see them getting solved. That’s what matters at the end of the day! Hats off Kiran Bedi and the producers, for a change I try to watch tv at times when this show is being aired on Star Plus at 8pm on weekdays.

Today's Favorite Line - A lot of trouble in the world would disappear, If people were talking TO each other instead of ABOUT each other.

Today's Favorite Song - Ye Dooriyan (Love Aaj Kal)