Jacqueline Fernandes, Tum Jhalak Par Kya Karta?

What’s It About: Dancing dancing and more dancing…The glamorous razzmatazz is meant to unfold the dancing skills of non-dancers, amateurs and those who feel they are too clumsy/old/inhibited to dance. This season the contestants are motley congregation of television actors, and one Sardarji chef Harpal Singh who thought Surveen Chawla was Juhi Chawla’s sister and who promises to be most entertaining contestant on the show.

What’s Hot: This season the glamour and glitz is pumped up to an unbearable degree.Host Manish Paul who apparently got paid Rs 7 lakhs per episode justified his paycheck by  hurling energetic flirty salvos at judges Jacqueline Fernandez and Karan Johar. The third judge Ganesh Hegde(it was rumoured he would be replaced by Farah Khan) is mercifully spared Paul’s prickly peccadilloes. But for those who think flirting is as important and dancing on the show there more of that.Comic actor Gaurav Gera in drag making passes at ‘celebrity contestant’ Salman Yusuff Khan is, I uspect, a gag, that will drag.

What’s Not: This brings us to the many critical problems that seem to be lying ahead for Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa this season. Much as one enjoys Salman Yusuff Khan’s dancing—and he is a wizard on his toes—his presence among the wannabe dancers is shockingly inappropriate and unfair to the other contestants.Also Gaurav Gera as his patented popular female persona ‘Chutki’ threatens to be as unsavoury as Kiku Sharda’s ‘Palak’ act onJhalak.  You really can’t mix the business of cross dressing with the art of dancing.

But the worst disaster this season—and there is no milder more polite way of putting it—is the new judge Jacqueline Fernandez.

There are two actors that determine  a judge’s place in a  distinguished dance show.Knowledge of  dance forms(not to be confused with the  ability to rotate one’s hips and pout one’s lips) and articulatory skills. Jacqueline is near-zero on both counts. In the first episode she grinned vacuously at all the contestants , some of  whom had been pointedly instructed to flirt with and gush over Jacqueline as though she was a Dancing Diva Madhuri Dixit Part 2. All one can say is Madhuri  is sorely missed on the show.

What To Do: We can only hope that the show sheds its plumes of anxiety, stops focusing  on superficialities  and concentrates on basics, namely dancing . Let’s also hope that Ms Fernandez improves over the coming weeks. A Hindi coach would really help.