A. R. Rahman launches reality show for budding musicians

New Delhi, Oct.15 (ANI): Noted music composer A. R. Rahman and Phat Phish, an integrated entertainment and communication company, have joined hands to launch India’’s biggest reality show of its kind –”The Big Band”.

The official announcement was made in the national capital on Tuesday.

The reality show, which is slate to provide ethnic and contemporary musicians a credible platform, will be telecast on Doordarshan, the national television channel, after mid-November.

“Like the success of Rabi and other albums there is a huge audience waiting for this kind of music. And we are doing it in bits and pieces. We decided to launch this massive hunt to get the whole of country and South Asia to get to know the potential of this music. It is unique and never done in history” said K. R. Harish, Managing Director of Phat Phish.

The Big Band aims at lending a new identity to Indian television and web cast history by all measures of budget, viewership, regional breadth and diversity. It also aims to enliven the hopes, dreams and aspirations of budding musicians.

“This show will be based on an indigenous format. It will provide a platform for nurturing and building musical talent across languages and the broad genres. We have seen so many shows in every channel and what makes this different is that we come up with the idea of discovering brands in the country. There are other countries involved as well that make it all the more exciting,” said A. R. Rahman.

“What makes this different are the bands from all over India and outside India and there is also a possibility of cross cultural exchange. India is the young nation. So this is the right time to see,” added A. R. Rahman, music director.

Rehman informed that presently he was completing an album that was content for a mobile company having various tracks in it.

This show will be presented as a travelogue through A R Rahman’’s eyes as his journey across 15 cities of India in course of the hunting the talent for The Big Band.

This show would be telecast in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia and is open to participation from these countries.

To participate in The Big Band, bands must have between 2 to 10 band members with at least one lead singer. They must submit three tunes.

Short listed bands will be invited to the first stage audition where they will be asked to perform any of the three pieces that the judges ask them to play.

The winning band in the talent hunt show will get a three-year recording contract with Phat Phish Records which includes end-to-end artist management , upto 3 albums and 6 music videos, tours and concerts on the national and international stage.

The top bands will walk away with prizes (including cash) worth rupees 10 million awarded proportionately through a pyramid structure.

For information on rules and requirements for participation in the contest , the band groups can log on to www.bigbandindia.com.

The hunt for the talented band members has already commenced and the last date for screening of entrants list is Nov.15.

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Final list of Jalwa Four 2 Ka 1

Jalwa Four 2 ka 1 is soon to groove TV sets. There had been many specualtions in past. Now we give you final names on the show...

Finally the curtain raises from all the contestant of Jalwa Four 2 ka 1 right here on tellybuzz. The format of the show includes acting, singing and comedy by the contestants.

There will be four Teams and each will have its respective captains and members.

Rakhi Sawant, Mika, Shakti Kapoor, And Shweta Tiwari are the captains in the show. The teams consist of members as follow:-

Rakhi’s Team: Bhaktyaar, Amit Tandon and Purbhi Joshi.

Mika’ s Team: Kashmira Shah, Khayali and Sandeep Archarya.


Shakti Kapoor’s Team: Krushna Abhishek, Tanaz Currim and Shubangi Atre.

Shweta Tiwari Team: Rajeshwari Sachdev, Twinkle Bajpai and Gaurav Khanna

Our khabroo from the sets witness, " The Tashan star Anil Kapoor is the first celebrity guest judge on the show." The panel of judges consist of Satish Kaushik and Mahima Choudhary. Divyanka Triphati and Ali Asgar will be hosting the show.

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Payal denies romantic links with Rahul Mahajan

New Delhi, Oct 12 (IANS) Only Rahul Mahajan could get close to her, kiss her and scold her in season two of reality show “Bigg Boss”, but actress Payal Rohatgi has denied any romantic involvement with him after her eviction from the show.”Rahul is not my boyfriend, he is my friend,” Payal told IANS over phone from Mumbai.

In August, Rahul, son of the late Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former union minister Pramod Mahajan, formally parted from his wife Shweta after a Gurgaon court passed a decree on their mutual divorce petition. His closeness with Payal was an alleged reason for the break-up.

But Payal, who was evicted from the reality show Friday, maintains that “Rahul is only a good friend”.

Viewers were witness to their intimacy on “Bigg Boss” when they were assigned the task of playing volleyball in a swimming pool.

Commenting upon their physical proximity on the show, she said: “The pool was six feet deep and I’m only five feet six inches tall. I needed someone to shift me around and hold me in the pool. I was more comfortable with Rahul because I know him. We have partied and have had dinners together.

“I couldn’t let others like Debojit (Saha), Ashutosh (Kaushik) and Raja (Chaudhary) come as close. After all they are men,” she said.

Payal was criticised by her inmates for her closeness to Rahul, her cat fights with item girl Sambhavna Seth, wearing a bikini on the show and constantly wearing make-up.

Sambhavna alleged that Payal is “fake” and that she used to backstab people on the show.

But Payal denies her allegations saying: “I was very neutral. I was not there to make friends for life. I just wanted to be cordial and nice to people so that we could live together in peace. So there is no question of having backstabbed anyone. It would have been so had I nominated Rahul, who is a good friend,” Payal said.

As far as being called “fake” is concerned, she said: “I was there to gain visibility for the benefit of my career. If I dabbed on make-up to look good on the show, why are people complaining?

“She (Sambhavna) has said that I used to wake up at six in the morning to touch up and then used to sleep again. But then why was this footage not shown? It would have made for a juicy shot. ‘Bigg Boss’ was not a house, it was a house-like situation and being an actor, I had to take care of the way I looked on screen,” Payal said.

After coming out of the “Bigg Boss” house, the actress says she is dying to pamper herself with “a manicure, pedicure and a good massage” to rejuvenate herself mentally and physically.

“I am very happy to be back in the real world. I was there to gain visibility and show the other side of personality and I have been successful in doing that. People had only seen the glamorous side of Payal Rohtagi, but now they know that I even cry,” said Payal who is now looking forward to getting some “lead roles in good films”.

Payal was seen in films “Dhol” and “Corporate”. In Madhur Bhandarkar’s critically acclaimed “Corporate”, she danced to the popular item song “O Sikander”.

Now she is looking forward to her next film “Dil Kabaddi”, in which she will be seen with Soha Ali Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma and Irrfan Khan, among others.

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Farah Khan The Dancing Queen

Farah Khan confesses that although a big fan of reality shows, she cant stand it being dramatised.

After judging almost four reality shows, Farah has got the title of an experienced and qualified judge.

Excerpts from an interview:

Do you consider yourself a reality show junkie?
I am a big fan of reality shows and that’s the reason why I have judged almost four of them and now this one is going to be my fifth one. Bigg Boss used to be one of my favourite reality shows and I could almost feel my social life getting disturbed ,but now as I see the contestants behaving like normal human beings, I have started getting out of it. Nach Baliye has always been my favourite one.

Unfortunately the entire outlook of the audiences towards reality shows have changed, they feel that everything is made up over there. What do you think about this?
Yes, I agree to what they feel because it really does happen in some of the shows. I won’t say that everything there is made up, but the judges are made to do certain things. Fortunately such things have never happened in my shows and I will see to it that they never happen. It’s not only the drama, but also the background music which I cannot stand. For no reason, there is always background music being played. Even the news channels are practicing it. In the midst of news reports about bomb blasts, there’s background music being played.

There are hardly any known faces in ‘Nach baliye 4’. Dont you think that’s going to affect its popularity?

That’s true, but I guess nothing can be done about it because all the known faces have already participated in it and the ones who are remaining are busy somewhere else. The main hitch about this show is that you need to participate in it as a couple.

So don’t you think that a gap was required, so that the popular faces could have participated in it?

Look, if I talk on the behalf of a viewer, then I would want to watch Nach Baliye every year. If you have become a fan of a particular reality show then you wouldn’t want to miss it for a single year. Just like me, in spite of not liking Bigg Boss, I still sit in front of the television every night to watch it, because it’s more of a habit.

Before signing for the show, did you try to find out whether the contestants whom you are going to judge are up to the mark or not?
Honestly speaking, I never thought about it. During my last show Jo Jeeta Wahi Superstar I had a word with Star TV and that is when they asked me and I was pretty excited about the whole thing. Personally, its one of my favourite shows so I didn’t bother to find out who the other judges or the contestants would be.

Don’t you think that with Arjun Rampal and Karishma Kapoor along with you, the viewers’ expectations would be higher?

I feel that the viewers are going to be really happy on seeing such a mind-blowing panel of judges. This will be the first time that two Bollywood stars would be seen as judges on the show. Normally, they would have a choreographer along with a director as a judge, but with me they’ve got one-on-one free.

In every reality show there’s always a clash between the judges voting and the SMS voting. Keeping this in mind, have you made any changes?

I have always wanted a 50-50 opinion in my show. In Jo Jeeta Wohi Superstar I almost changed the format of the show. But I don’t think we can neglect the SMS voting because that’s the only way in which the viewers are attached to the show and how can we forget that they are the ones who actually help us in making the show popular.

Tell us briefly about ‘Happy new Year’?

Happy New Year would be ready by the end of next year since we haven’t started with the shooting of the film, as I’m waiting for my kids to grow up so that I can take them with me wherever I go.

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