Bollywood @100: KJo is a great host, but please drop the 'Amit uncle' jokes

You wouldn’t think it, looking at the promo in which Karan Johar is sucking his cheeks in and hurling what looks like a digital red boomerang at the screen, but Bollywood @100 on the History Channel is actually a pretty good programme. I’ll get the bad and ugly out of the way first. One would think that the History channel, known for its well-researched programmes, would at least have gotten the title correct. This is not 100 years of Bollywood. It’s actually 100 years of Indian cinema – Dadasaheb Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra was released on 3 May, 1913. But either their researchers were on leave, or you can’t have KJo as a host and not have Bollywood in the title. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, more on the show itself. [caption id=“attachment_753269” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Image courtesy History Channel[/caption] Each episode of the series will focus on one aspect of cinema - heroes, heroines, playback singers, directors and so on, and there are supposed to be interviews with film luminaries – which might just mean Salman Khan. I honestly wasn’t expecting much, but was quite pleasantly surprised. The first episode I saw was about directors in cinema. What keeps the series interesting is the footage that they’ve managed to get their hands on. So you get to see clips from Alam Ara, the very melodramatic Raja Harishchandra and others. They’ve also managed to pepper the script with very fun anecdotes. So it’s not just a retelling of how cinema came to form. You get to hear tid-bits about the difficulty that was faced while shooting Alam Ara in sync sound. Or that our national anthem, Jana Gana Mana featured in Bimal Roy’s Hamraahi before it ever became our national anthem. It’s interesting trivia like that which makes the show quite enjoyable. Then of course you’re told how Satyajit Ray is a part of Bollywood@100. So that brings things crashing down. I can just imagine Ray’s ashes churning in the Ganga when they mentioned him in the same breath as Randhir Kapoor. The second episode I watched was the one on Bollywood’s heroes. Which again had lots of trivia. Such as how Ashok Kumar got his break in films. I for one didn’t know that he was a lab assistant who was chosen to star opposite Devika Rani by Himanshu Roy, since he felt that his missus wouldn’t be tempted astray by Kumar’s charms. Quite insulting. Luckily for him, Ashok Kumar became a superstar. Of course where there’s KJo, there is a slight digression into the romances of the heroes. Which made me suddenly feel like Karan Johar would morph into Devyani Chaubal. Actually, there should be an episode just on the film gossip columnists who almost made or broke stars during the seventies and eighties. Once I’d gotten past the unnerving close-ups of Karan Johar – to distract you from his eyes darting to the teleprompter – I got to hear about a bunch of romances. From Suraiya and Dev Anand’s romance to Nargis and Sunil Dutt’s to how Nargis promised to kiss Shammi Kapoor if she got to star in Aawara. It’s fun to watch the stars being interviewed. Rajesh Khanna’s interview on this show is as different as chalk from cheese from BBC’s Bombay Superstar film on him. He’s humble, sensible – and of course older. So the madness which comes with fame has vanished. There are interviews with Anil Kapoor (not so humble) and Jeetandra (very humble) and Rishi Kapoor who is just a little pudding to look at. But you do wish that KJo didn’t keep referring to Amitabh Bacchan as Amit Uncle. I can just imagine international audiences wondering why KJo’s uncle was suddenly being spoken of. It’s just a tad childish and unprofessional. But ignore that part and Amit Uncle’s little anecdote about how his expertise in chewing gum helped him land Zanjeer is quite amusing. And then we get the KJo soppiness. I thought he’d burst into tears of joy while speaking about Shah Rukh. He even remembers what colour shirt SRK was wearing the first time he met him. He doesn’t however remember what shirt Salman Khan was wearing when he said he’d take the role in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai after Saif and Chandrachur Singh both rejected it. If you get past the gooey personal references to Yash uncle-this and Amit Uncle-that, KJo is an excellent host. He’s obviously and very understandably at ease with the topic. He knows almost all the people he speaks about. If you’re a film buff, but not too nit-picky about facts, I’d say you should watch this series. It’s fun, you’ll learn something and you’ll get to see some excellent footage from old films which you wouldn’t get to see otherwise. I can only hope that at the end of the series, KJo says that that they meant 100 years of Indian Cinema and not Bollywood. But I’m not holding my breath. Bollywood@100 is telecast on History Channel at 10pm every Saturday. Disclaimer: History Channel is owned by Network 18 which also owns Firstpost