No Khan do: Khan Sisters is just rubbish, not trashy fun

Now here’s the truth and you can judge me all you like, but I really enjoy watching Keeping up with Kardashians. It’s the height of trash American reality TV and features the mega-derriere queen Kim Kardashian and her family of multiple sisters and dysfunctional parents, boyfriends and husbands. The Kardashian family’s claim to fame is that Kim’s father is Robert Kardashian who was the person whose house OJ Simpson took refuge in after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The Kardashians are a shining example of how reality TV can make celebrities out of unknown people.  That is also why in India there’s a mad rush by all sorts of unknowns to take part in any and every reality TV show.  And now that we’ve ripped off practically every reality TV show made abroad – from Cheaters to American Idol to America’s Got Talent to Dancing with the Stars to Big Brother, how could Keeping up with the Kardashians be far behind? The only problem being that unlike the land of milk and honey, India is sadly lacking in bona fide celebrities who don’t mind airing their dirty laundry and dysfunctional behaviour in public. So, UTV’s gift to Indian reality TV is Khan Sisters which is an unabashed rip-off of the Kardashians. Rumour has it that the Sen sisters — Riya and Raima and the grand doyenne of Sen-dom, Moon Moon were the first choices for the show but turned out to be such a handful to manage, that they were booted out to make way for the Khan sisters. Ayesha and Nitisha Thapar were supposedly also considered for the show, but the show was most probably too déclassé for them. Also daddy Thapar can most probably buy out UTV and re-christen it if he wanted to. So we’ve been left with the bottom of the barrel aka the Khan sisters and despite my lack of fondness for the Sen sisters, I do believe that they would have been far more entertaining than the Khans. The Khan sisters in question are Gauhar and Nigar Khan, who most probably nobody other than I can recognise. Who are these contenders to the Kardashian throne? Nigar Khan acts in Hindi serials as a vamp and Gauhar Khan is a model who was catapulted into dubious fame by participating in Jhalak Dikhla Ja — the Indian version Dancing with the Stars. [caption id=“attachment_143011” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“You can’t understand why anyone would want to watch their shenanigans for an hour every weekend.Reuters”]  [/caption] She, much like Kim Kardashian, is quite the hotty and has a derriere to die for as well. But that’s where the similarity begins and ends. The one thing which keeps the Kardashians interesting is that they are genuinely quite entertaining —going by reality TV norms. There’s a dominatrix mother, a bevy of good looking sisters, a useless brother, an alcoholic husband and Khloe and Kim Kardashian’s NBA basketball player boyfriends. They actually do have a life which the normal American TV viewer aspires for — a mansion in Beverly Hills, holidays in Bahamas, limitless money and designers and fans fawning over them. And they’re good looking to boot. It’s the American Dream being broadcast into homes. Sadly, Nigar and Gauhar Khan are not living any dream — American or desi. So you can’t understand why anyone would want to watch their shenanigans for an hour every weekend. The ubër-exciting life and times of the sisters in the last two episodes have included a Maxim bikini shoot, a glimpse of Gauhar’s turn as the star of Zangoora (the Bollywood musical which was performed at the Kingdom of Dreams which is Gurgaon’s answer to Sun City), and Nigar wearing a slim-sauna belt and the sisters fighting and crying over Nigar calling Gauhar a blonde bimbette and Gauhar telling her that that’s a racist term and asking her to look up the dictionary meaning of bimbette. Riveting stuff. The show is very obviously scripted because there’s almost a forced fitting into the Kardashian mould. So Gauhar like Kim is shown to be the more confident sister— more famous, more attractive, more composed. Nigar is clearly being positioned as our answer to Khloe Kardashian — complete with insecurities about her figure and weight, and constantly comparing her ugly duckling self to her swan-like sister. The Khan extended family of brothers and sisters who live in Dubai is also brought into the show, because if the Kardashians have their bevy of batty siblings, so should the Khans. It’s not looking promising at all. I’ll give this much to the sisters though, they are easy on the eye and seem to be delivering their lines quite naturally — the perks of having actors in a reality show. I can’t say the same though for Gauhar’s strange manager who had a faux American accent and delivered her lines like a not-so-talented understudy in a school production. So will the Khan sisters also get married on camera and divorced in 71 days, or canoodle with maybe a Yuvraj Singh or a Zaheer Khan (we don’t have NBA players after all) or model nude for PETA? Ours is to wait and watch. The good thing going for the show is that the only other new show on the block, Love 2 Hate U is so pathetic, that Khan Sisters shines in comparison. Watch YouTube video of Promo Rajyasree Sen is a bona fide foodie, TV connoisseur and unsolicited opinion-giver. You can read about her adventures with food and life in Delhi on her blog www.brownsahiba.blogspot.com or follow her at @rajyasree