Koffee With Karan: The Show tells us about the art of articulation

Edwin Land, the American scientist once said, the world belongs to the articulate, and it does – look at some of the most charming and powerful people in the world, and you’ll see how they are great storytellers. Storytelling and articulating your thoughts well, is actually more important than we’re made to believe, because stories persuade, empathize, and inspire people, the very people who are in some or the other way your consumer or customer. This philosophy applies even more to actors, and artists who are public figures, whose off-screen personas are as important, if not more than their on-screen characters. Shows like Koffee With Karan make these artists into entertainers not just as characters, but also people in general. Their candour is commodified, and their real lives (of course, this is not to forget that even this apparent reality, is manufactured and airbrushed to be politically correct) are put on a display, with discussions about their sex life, friendships, marriage, and more being served on a platter to an inquisitive and beady-eyed audience. It’s one of the reasons we love the show, and why it continues to be the quintessential guilty pleasure – we love watching our favorite stars and actors be outspoken, and intimate about their personal lives, even if it is to a certain extent, not completely honest, and quite diplomatic, for obvious reasons. However, the first episode of the much anticipated Koffee With Karan Season 7, shows how not every actor is an entertainer out of character, and neither a good storyteller with sass, charm, wit and eloquence to accompany them. Articulation is an art, one that not everyone is good at, but to try and provide that, when you evidently can’t, makes one seem like an absolute mess. Case in point, Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt, two very talented actors, but definitely not the best talk show guests. In trying to be sharp-witted, the two actors mostly ended up being quite transparent of their inability to engage candidly in a conversation that has to be both, scandalous, and politically correct. The former is the need of the couch they grace, while the latter seems to be imperative in these times where viewers aren’t that innocently consuming gossip, instead have their hawk-eyes cast upon these celebs, ready to claw at them with unwarranted judgements. Right in the introduction of the show, Karan Johar says that Koffee With Karan Season 7, is a bio-bubble of political incorrectness, when in reality, you know there’s a legal team making sure that no one puts their foot in their mouth, and very immaculate PR team, perfecting responses on the side. To put it simply, we know they are being diplomatic, we only expect them to be waggish and unassuming while being so. However, instead of that, we have a desperate host who knows that even amidst the restraints of being politically correct, the show must live up to the image it has built in the past 6 seasons, of being frivolous, sexy, and shallow. On top of that, we have two actors trying extremely hard to be risque and quick-witted, whereas it is that very performativity that eventually makes it look so constructed, and even daft at times.  As I said though, articulation, and storytelling are skills that some of the most amusing and compelling guests of the show in the previous seasons have demonstrated. You have Shahrukh Khan, Twinkle Khanna, and even Abhishek Bachchan, to show us how it’s done in the most astute and attractive way. Their candor isn’t mimetic, in fact, the sharp, and raw humor to their conversations, prove to be a testament to what I’ve been trying to say about articulation being an art. They are sassy, but never tactless, audacious, but never unsophisticated, saucy, but never tawdry. All in all, all the humor, all the borderline inappropriateness that we’ve devoured so deliciously, weren’t really a product of compulsion, as opposed Bhatt and Singh, who look like they have been told on a gunpoint to be funny and ribald, which they obviously don’t. The conversations, especially the one where we’re discussing sex playlists couldn’t be more tacky. It looked downright forced and unconvincing, almost as if the two had been given que cards, with sex being a talking point on them. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying sex shouldn’t be talked about – it has, and it should, but in a manner doesn’t seem vulgar at least? Just take for example, Shahrukh Khan saying that he could wake up with Karan Johar, instead of as Karan, or Twinkle Khanna saying that Akshay Kumar has extra inches as compared to the Khans. I am not being a moral police here, all I am saying is that the poise, the charm, and the elegance to being even brash, was unfortunately missing in the two formidable actors. Even an honest experience, like the time Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor hit it off, or when Ranbir proposed to her, are narrated with such pretense, that you’re left sighing with disappointment at the sheer drama that’s being staged. A visual that will haunt me for days, is Ranveer enacting how Ranbir on the sets of Student Of The Year, joked if he should marry Alia, who then might have barely been 18 years old. Whether true or not, this was not a story that was to be told with so much passion, thinking that anyone would find this even remotely chucklesome. If Bhatt cannot tell a story about her own marriage proposal with even some amount of alacrity, then no wonder she looks like such a bad actor when she paints a picture of Ranveer or Karan reacting to the news of her getting married. Singh, on the other hand, does salvage the episode a little bit with his outstanding mimicry of Hrithik Roshan, Varun Dhawan, Kartik Aryan, and Aamir Khan, but for the most part seems to be overdoing it, just like his co-guest. To think this was a show, where Vidya Balan flirtatiously claimed that she had a fantasy of a married man cheating on his wife with her, and that Shahrukh Khan could be that man, adding that the second one always sticks, is appalling. The phenomenal actress also said that women want it, need it, and enjoy it as much as men. The grace and charisma, seem to have been lost, and so have the candor and wit. People like her, Khan, Bachchan (all of them, in fact, the least entertaining one has to be Amitabh Bachcan), Khanna, and even Mahesh Bhatt, teach you, and I shall come back to where I started, of how some of the most charming and powerful people are great storytellers. The more captivating and sharp-witted stories you tell, the more people you win over, and perhaps that is why Shahrukh Khan, is one of the most loved actors, after all his interviews, including appearances on Koffee With Karan (it’s unfortunate that he shall not be gracing the couch this year), have separate fanbase of their own, something that Bhatt and Singh can’t even begin to fathom. The gift of the gab, is truly rare, and invaluable, the first episode of Koffee With Karan, only reassures us of that.   Takshi Mehta is a freelance journalist and writer. She firmly believes that we are what we stand up for, and thus you’ll always find her wielding a pen. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram