Family Time With Kapil Sharma
Rating: 0.5/5
Rewind to 2016 and to a time when The Kapil Sharma Show was still on air. He was still making his viewers laugh, still fighting with Manju, still insulting Bumper, still ridiculing Chandan, still laughing at Dr Mashoor Gulati and still getting irritated at his Dadi. But even then, one thing still stuck out like a sore thumb, him flirting with random ‘hot’ models/teachers/nurses. Those were the most mundane, uninteresting few minutes of each episode that one had no other option than to sit and suffer through.
Fast forward to present day and here we are, dragging ourselves through Family Time With Kapil Sharma and almost an hour and half of incessant, unfunny and pathetic attempts at flirting. Kapil is at his co-host’s tail throughout the episode as she blushes, is lost for words and tries to brush him off, unsuccessfully.
Neha Pendse was introduced on Sunday’s episode as simply ‘the glamour’. “Glamour ko bulao,” demands HRH Navjot Singh Sidhu from his rexine throne and in she walks, dressed in a yet another blinding, bright colour. Her job is to introduce the next game, act shy whenever Kapil decides to flirt ‘at’ her and just simply be the object of his desire. Replace her with a sexy lamp and you wouldn’t even notice the difference.
Kapil says this is the first time he has worked with a ‘real woman’, making fun of Kiku Sharda, Ali Asgar or Sunil Grover who played women in drag on his earlier shows. However, if I remember correctly, he has worked with Upasana Singh, Sugandha Mishra and Sumona Chakravarti in his last two shows. Except he never desired any of them because they were either his aunt, were too loud or had a big mouth. So by the extension of this logic, is a woman real only if she can be a potential object of desire?
I blame the longer-than-usual flirt session on not having a celebrity guest to take the show forward. Kapil reportedly stood up Rani Mukerji last week for an episode and as a result, when the shoot was rescheduled, he had to make do with the regular cast, same gags and games that have already started repeating. You can laugh only so much at men and women falling hard on their buttocks. Unless you are Sidhu, who can break into a fit even at a half-eaten toast.
However, there are indeed a few silver linings in the episode. First, the Golmaal theme song has finally been banished from the show. Unfortunately, for us, that it has been replaced by ‘Pallu Ke Neeche Chupa Ke Rakha Hai.’ Second, the women participants have learnt to introduce themselves and their men are not doing it for them anymore. So kudos to that monumental step in gender equality on Hindi television. Next target: not doling out ‘unisex’ washing machines to winners.
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