What Aap Ki Adalat's 21st anniversary tells us: Even journos can't ignore Bollywood glam

What’s more impressive – that you have Narendra Modi and Pranab Mukherjee give the opening addresses at your anniversary celebrations, or that you manage to get Arnab Goswami to sit silently in the audience? If you’re Rajat Sharma and it’s your party, you can say with pride that you have the pleasure of both options. Last night, the 21st anniversary event for Aap Ki Adalat was shown and boy, what a turnout! In the first 10 minutes, I saw – and this is not the entire list - Rani Mukerji, Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Arun Jaitley, Piyush Goyal, Anil Kapoor, Kirron Kher, Ramdev, Balkrishna, Ritu Beri, Subhash Ghai, PA Sangma, Kiran Bedi, Arnab Goswami, Shilpa Shetty, Anupam Kher, Aamir Khan, Gautam Adani, Shah Rukh Khan, Prasoon Joshi, Vinod Khanna, Dilip Cherian, Naresh Trehan, Hema Malini, Natwar Singh, Kamal Nath, Ram Vilas Paswan, Smriti Irani, Renuka Chowdhry, Anil Ambani, Esha Deol, Kumar Vishwas, Anu Malik, Jagdish Tytler, Jaya Bachchan and last but not the least, an unsmiling Amit Shah. [caption id=“attachment_1839483” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] PM Narendra Modi (left) shakes hands with President Pranab Mukherjee as Rajat Sharma looks on. PTI[/caption] This was the anniversary celebration of what is supposed to be one of the most hard-hitting and the longest surviving interrogation programmes in television journalism. And whatever I may think of India TV, which is not much thanks to their faithful coverage of daayans and aliens drinking our cow’s milk, it is impressive that the same anchor has helmed an interview show for 25 years and had most of India’s national figures in the hot seat. Which is why it warmed the cockles of my heart to see that there was no attempt to hide the fact that the people Rajat Sharma has interviewed are the very same people with whom he forms a cosy club. Also, while the who’s who from the world of politics were present – including the PM and the President, it seems even veteran political journalists can’t resist the razzle-dazzle of Bollywood. Of course, you have to applaud Sharma for getting Narendra Modi to be the opening act, followed by no less than the President. I’m surprised long-time adviser Omita Paul wasn’t called on stage to announce the names of the guests in the audience. Modi’s speech was unmemorable, fawning and avuncular and boring, which begs the question of why our mananiya Pradhan Mantriji was delivering the opening address at a news programme’s anniversary celebrations. That doesn’t say much about maintaining a professional distance between the political and media establishment, but ours is not to question why. For this little turn on stage and the utterly benign and applause-friendly interview show that Sharma had done with Modi on Aap Ki Adalat, the episode featuring the Prime Minister was awarded Best Show. It makes sense that Pranab Mukherjee accepted Sharma’s invite. After all, the President has less work to do than the Prime Minister. Plus, he’d already tested the waters when he played Chief Guest at NDTV’s 25 Greatest Global Living Legends event. Still, it sends a chill up your spine to realise how friendly editors are to the subjects they interview. And then, suddenly, the event transformed into the Cine Max awards. Sonu Nigam (in very shiny pants) stepped up on stage, singing. Much like in the Filmfare awards, the camera cut to his competition’s face – a sad looking Himesh Reshammiya, who seemed to be wondering whether Nigam had stolen the vinyl from his car seats. There was also a glimpse of Amar Singh in a long shot, which makes us wonder if he once wanted to be a Bollywood playback singer. In one of the better moments, Nigam introduced the Khans saying that when people think of “Bhagwan”, they think of the triumvirate of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh, and similarly “Khan” evokes Shah Rukh, Salman and Aamir. Cut to shot of Modi, who looked far from amused. To give Salman and Shah Rukh their due, at least they played to the gallery. Shah Rukh made fun of Salman’s comfort with the format of the show, thanks to his tryst with so many courts. Full points to Salman who was surprisingly coherent and said it’s important to remember India is a secular country and we should always keep that in mind. Cut again to the Prime Minister, who didn’t twitch a muscle. Salman displayed great wisdom again when he said the reason why politicians are grilled more than the actors on Aap Ki Adalat is that actors don’t indulge in the same antics as politicians. Sharma also got to do the towel dance with Shah Rukh, Aamir and Salman – as all journalists should have the privilege of doing. He also got a kiss from both Salman and Shah Rukh. The Shiny Master Of Ceremonies, Nigam, then proceeded to interview various people in the audience. Some fun anecdotes followed, along with some brown nosing and yawns. According to Sharma, Jaitley – his friend of 40 years - was the moral police and didn’t allow anyone to indulge in any romance. Our favourite Sanskrit teacher and bahu of the nation, Smriti Irani – who seemed to be dressed like Ma Anandamoyee for some reason – asked if anyone had made Sharma weep on the show. Sharma spoke of Daler Mehndi and how the singer had been made to remove his clothes in a police station and sing a song. This police apathy had shocked Sharma. (This was the point at which Pranab Mukherjee decided it was time to make an exit.) Even Modi had a question for Sharma, a “loaded” question at that. He asked how Jaitley and Sharma’s friendship had flourished because Jaitley doesn’t stop eating and Sharma hardly eats. Jaitley was questioned about Sharma’s self-styled lawyer image. The bonhomie at the event made my stomach turn. And then, the conscience of the nation, Aamir Khan, was asked to question Sharma. He was followed by Sonakshi Sinha and Shilpa Shetty who delivered their pearls of wisdom. I did notice that Raj Kundra seemed a little nervous looking at the interrogation box. Throughout the evening, you couldn’t help but notice that Sharma does indeed have friends in high places. Of course these were his celebrations, so he is free to do what he wants, but I couldn’t help imagining an anniversary celebration in which Sharma had placed himself in the hot seat and let another editor or journalist, like Arnab Goswami, interview him. To have a galaxy of film stars and political bigwigs ask inane questions did a wonderful disservice to a show that has been the benchmark for interview shows in its time.