Indian comedian Bharti Singh has a bone to pick with all those game shows flooding the Indian entertainment scene.
They are painfully cerebral and reward all those smart cookies whose intelligent quotient are remarkably high.
Her brainchild ‘The Great Indian Show’, which will premiere on her YouTube channel Bharti TV, is “by the back-benchers and for the back-benchers.” A game show for the common man is how she dubs it.
“I am not going to ask my participants to name the gold medallist from Olympics who was decorated by the Indian Prime Minister on so and so year. I may just ask Norah Fatehi [Bollywood actress and dancer] the cost of a diaper pack,” said Singh in an interview with Gulf News earlier this week.
The popular TV host and comedian was in Dubai, along with her husband and the show’s producer Haarsh Limbachiyaa and TP Global, on Thursday to unveil her YouTube channel at the Forex Expo 2021. She shot to fame with the immensely popular ‘The Kapil Sharma Show’ and is recently worked on ‘Dance Deewane (season 3)’.
“To be a part of my show, you don’t have to answer any tough questions to qualify. ‘The Great Indian Show’ is all about having ‘masti’ [fun]. I know many people who feel that they don’t have a chance to win a game show in India because you need to know a lot but my show is inclusive and it’s all about having fun,” said Singh in Hindi.
She believes that her middle-class upbringing in Amritsar has left her secretly intimidated by some game shows in India. But her format, which will be proudly pedestrian according to her, will re-define the rules of all those hit games. She even intends to film the second season of the show in Dubai.
“Even in my own life, I was the perfect underdog in school. During my exams, we needed 30 marks to pass and I scored 33 marks. I was that under-achiever kid and so it makes me incredibly happy to pay it forward to my ilk,” said Singh.
Plus, her new avatar as a show host is a part of her mission to re-invent the wheel when it comes to her career. Launching such a show on her own You Tube channel as opposed to a traditional TV channel was an orchestrated move.
“Our game show will be very high in terms of production value and that’s a first for a game show to premiere on YouTube channel. This is a show that does not entertain stress. It’s a show that will appeal to your grandmother, mother, sister, children and every member of your household and doesn’t favour the brainy ones alone. There’s no entrance exam to quality,” said Singh with a laugh.
For the first season, she hopes to invite a mix of Bollywood stars, influencers, reality show winners and ordinary folks. But it’s not just her game show that’s creating ripples in her life.
Singh, who is known for her jolly personality and her witty turn in reality shows such as ‘Jhalak Dikhla Jaa’, ‘Nach Baliye 8’, and ‘Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi 9’, famously lost more than 15 kilos this year through intermittent fasting.
“Honestly, my show producers said that I can’t host the show if I don’t lose 15 kgs! I am kidding,” said Singh with a laughter that’s undoubtedly infectious. During the interview, she kept nudging her husband playfully and talking about her new-found hotness.
“Earlier, he was never worried about men flirting with me because I made all of them laugh. I was the quintessential joker, but now that I am lean and so hot, he should ideally be worried,” said Singh with a laugh.
Ask her why she felt the need to lose weight to be taken seriously, Singh put things in perspective. “Nobody cares about a person’s size if you are truly talented … Making people laugh is my talent and there’s no school that will teach you to make people laugh. I have come up in my life through my talent to make people laugh and that won’t change. I didn’t become thin or lose weight to be taken seriously, I just felt like it and I did it. In life, I believe in winning some and losing some … weight,” said Singh.
