Harish Palaniappan's

This was a totally fabulous dance reality show on Sony entertainment in 2006.. (but I got to see it only now), which was retelecast on SAB TV recently... and I have been wanting to blog on it since then.

Jhalak dikhla ja, kindled the senses among other TV channels, and south indian channel Vijay TV did an equally popular show 'Jodi No.1', and many other channels are now catching up.

No wonder, the show's director was none other than the creator of kaun banega crorepathi siddarth basu (huh.. i never knew sony bought him over from star.. how did they). Siddarth is a programme format specialist for TV ever since the 90's when his quiz shows on Doordarshan created TV and movie stars out of the people who presented the quiz show 'CrossFire', which made the boring concept of crosswords extremely popular in india then. A dumbo myself then, it even triggered my interests in solving crossword puzzles.. and I think I did quite solve atleast 2 or 3 words in my daily newspaper.

Only problem with siddarth is.. all his shows are copy cats of international favorite TV shows from the west. Kaun banega crorepathi was copy of 'Who wants to be a millionaire'.. and jhalak dhikla ja was a copy of BBC's popular celebrity dance show 'Dancing with stars'.

Back to jhalak...
Jhalak showcased some surprise dancers alongwith professionals. Like many others, I never expected former cricketer Ajay jadeja to dance so good, leave alone chef sanjeev kapoor dancing. I personally couldn't bear sanjeev kapoor's steps, no wonder in a final dance sequence they made him dance with a cooking spoon. Ajay didn't make it to the finals of jhalak, but was really entertaining and good in his dance on the closing episode celebrations of the finals.

Judges were a special treat in their own way.. Director of black sanjay leela bansali, actor shilpa shetty, and producer-actor-dancer-director-and what not sweet bubbly Farha khan. At the closing ceremony, Farha did a sweet jig, and shilpa...she proved yet again she is the best when it comes to dancing.

The conversations between the judges and contestants, their energizing comments, their expression of disappointment, and importantly the shimmering disco lights.. all fine tuned and made perfect the already great dance reality show.

They very rightly said two things.
After 4-8 weeks of practice and committment, the two finalists Mona singh (of jassi jaisi koi nahin fame) and svetha ( a professional dancer) represented two important sides of dancing.. While svetha showcased extraordinary committment and perfection in the dance floor raising the bar for the finals, jassi (or mona) showed that to dance you only need to feel it and show grace in every step.

By points awarded by the judges over the entire show, out of the two finalists, svetha was the winner.. but as with any reality show, they opened up audience polling and after an hour of the final show and 8 weeks of the whole show, they declared mona singh the winner in audience votes and hence the winner who takes the jhalak trophy.

Towards the climax of the show, they did drag the announcement of the winner a little too much, but the winner mona singh with all her grace of accepting the award pulling the crying runner up svetha forcibly making her also hold it with her.. just compensated for any mistakes on the show.

At the final showdown, Ajay jadeja looked almost like he had fallen for mona singh.. but that is for the gossip club.

While, Mona singh and ajay jadeja must be already busy with bollywood offers, I am looking forward to jhalak 2. (Hey who asked that.. "other than TV and movies, are you doing any software consulting also from home harish?".. )

Pictures show:
mona singh with her dance partner,
mona singh as jassi in the TV soap (jassi jaisi koi nahin)
ajay jadeja with his partner..
and the finalists mona singh and svetha with their dance partners.