Psst... KBC Comes to You Thanks to China
Surprise, surprise! While Haryana and China dominated our headlines over the last week, coincidentally the new season of the popular game show Kaun Banega Crorepati made its debut with a decent mix of both elements.
Kaun Banega Crorepati 9 comes to you thanks to sponsors that range from Jio and Vivo to Ching’s Secret - each of which have some amount of Chinese DNA in varying degrees, not that it bothers me, I’m just putting it out there.
Eyeballs From Small Town India
Amitabh Bachchan’s promos for the new season of Kaun Banega Crorepati challenged viewers to fight those questions asked by society that doubt their capability. “The sly taunt of those questions have one bitter message - don’t dream big,” declares Bachchan, and to answer every such question, Big B acts as a messiah and brings you Kaun Banega Crorepati’s latest season 9.
As the few previous seasons have demonstrated, the target audience of Kaun Banega Crorepati is now small town India. It’s aimed at those good-hearted souls we see struggling to make ends meet and live it up in films like Lipstick Under My Burkha, Anarkali of Aarah and Bareilly Ki Barfi.
Harshwardhan Nawathe who first won the big prize money of Rs 1 crore was from Mumbai, by season 6 we had a winner from Udaipur. Monday’s mix of 10 participants gives you the story - they were from places like Nalanda, Thanjavur, Bhojawas, Nagpur, Hisar and so on.
Bachchan’s the Best
The big prize money on KBC is now Rs 7 crore, but the main attraction of the show for the viewers continues to be its iconic host. It’s amazing how Amitabh Bachchan has retained his joie de vivre as an anchor on the show for so many years. On Monday night, Big B kicked off the show with the same unmatched energy, inimitable charisma and enviable style.
Haryana Has the Fastest Fingers
The show saw two contestants make it to the hot seat after the ‘fastest finger first’ round and both of them were from Haryana - what are the odds?
First, we had the very serious Saroj Verma, a teacher from Hisar, Haryana. Her introductory AV shows viewers how she’s a trendsetter of sorts. Saroj changed her mother-in-law’s views on wearing the ghungat, she advises women to send their daughters to school, and it ends with kids from her school wishing their teacher, “all the best!”
KBC Backs ‘Digital India’
Well, Saroj surely needed more luck that she got, because the lady used up all her lifelines in the first 4 questions thrown at her. Saroj left the show with Rs 10,000 but not before the audience was alerted about the dawn of ‘digital India’.
So now we have, the phone-a-friend lifeline option modified to a video call, thanks to Jio and Bachchan digitally transfers the prize money into the contestant’s bank. They haven’t done away with the act of Bachchan signing cheques and handing them over to the winner though, but it’s just a symbolic gesture now, ‘digital India’ is the real deal.
Mooche Ho Toh Shri Kishan Yadav Jaise
The second contestant of the night, the heavy moustached Shri Kishan Yadav, was also from Haryana. Yadav, who comes from a family that has served in the army for generations, let his mooch do the talking in his AV. In between some friendly banter about his handlebar-esque moustache, Yadav raced to end the episode with a prize money of Rs 12.5 lakhs.
Yadav looks like he’ll last for another couple of questions on Tuesday when his participation continues. The promo of a probable winner for a Rs 50 lakh question is already doing the rounds on YouTube, so we can safely assume that Yadav and his moustache won’t make it to the Rs 25 lakh level.
We’ll see Yadav exiting early on 29 August, but not before he gets Bachchan to click a selfie with him on that Chinese mobile phone. After all, with a Rs 7 crore as prize money up for grabs, the show must go on.
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