Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

New look Renuka Sahane and Siddharth Kak in Surabhi

“Surabhi” brought not just a record or report but insight and understanding of India in evolution, mirroring the changes of an ancient culture metamorphosing into a modern nation.

But this is the past, says Siddharth Kak, the producer of “Surabhi”. There has been a whole new generation of Indians since “Surabhi” went off the air in the early part of this decade. Kak spoke at length about “Surabhi” and the new show – “Rang De IndiYeah”, a product, with which he hopes to connect to Gen Next.

To be aired on prime time during the weekends on NDTV Imagine from mid-March, “Rang De…” will be the modern contemporary form of “Surabhi”, says Kak. “When ‘Surabhi’ started, we just had Doordarshan. When the show went off air a decade later in 2001, new generation channels were just making their appearance. Today the challenge is to make the mark with more than 200 channels dishing out ‘entertainment’,” he says.

“The sense of identity of an average Indian was under threat when ‘Surabhi’ took off. People took to the programme for they could identify it with their culture and relate to it.” At present, there are no such complex existential issues, he opines. “Youth now are not troubled by the cultural identity issues. They literally rule the world and one can see it in their attitude, which largely reads: ‘I have it. Do you?’”

“With ‘Rang De…’, it will be our effort to reach out to this new generation India driven by its youth, who are passionate about achieving success.” This also means that one can now also see Kak in the modern avatar, sans the kurta and angavastram.“Rang De…” will have people reaching for their cell phones to fire in answers either through SMS or even MMS, Kak adds.

It will be certainly more interactive in nature andthe viewers will also have the choice to keep the e-mails coming in, he says.

So will it be Renuka beside him at “Rang De…”? No, says Kak. “It will be a young girl, not a pretty model of course.

She will be one who has her own identity, alertness, charm and even the ability to write her own scripts,” he adds. The search for this ‘young girl’ is presently underway and you should know about it soon, he says with a mischievous smile.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail