It could have been an edgy show, an edgy episode — and by edgy I mean uncomfortably menacing, acidically honest, needlessly provocative — this bringing together of Tanmay Bhat, Kusha Kapila, Danish Sait, and Niharika NM on Karan Johar’s couch. Instead, the seventh season of Koffee With Karan (KwK) merely ended the silsila of glittering ennui and even Johar could not pretend otherwise.
He noted how underwhelmed he was by the tepid answers flung without any vigour in the rapid fire rounds this season, like a rigged Russian roulette where the bullet never launches despite a hopeless anticipation that something will burst forth. Something must, noh?
No. Because the ones who could — Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja — just stopped caring, happy in their own sedate worlds; and the ones who want to — Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Ananya Panday, Sidharth Chaturvedi — are not nearly effortless enough to strike a jibe as though it was a natural, incontestable part of their being. It comes with time, maybe, this charisma; or it might just be a symptom of contemporary stardom, where everything, including intuition and spontaneity, feels strategic.
Bhat made a jibe about how the show has been going on for too long for us to not latch onto how all of it is staged — including the questions. Of course he didn’t say it in those many words, but like many things on this show, flat meaning has to be yanked out of airy, veiled comments. The energy is so curated. Too many themes and topics, especially politics (or apolitics) seem out of bounds. Johar has nowhere to go but the guests’ bedrooms to pull something scandalous, resembling edge, resembling shock.
Imagine: There is a roving criticism of the show that Johar is too invested in people’s sex lives, and that it makes people uncomfortable. The only thing worse than a prude is a prude with a mic, and the only thing worse than that is people taking them seriously. If you take out the telescoping into one’s sex and love lives from this show, what differentiates it from a promotional interview anchored by Johar’s confetti aura?
Part of this desire for edge, for wanting to be knocked off my seat in a heaving, stomach-crumpling fit of laughter, is the fact that we have seen Hindi cinema starlets and those-who-make-mincemeat-humour-of-those-starlets interact. The infamous Roast — yes, capital r roast — which we know was once possible is now just a matter of being implausible. The memory of the FIRs, the outraged, mobilised moral brigade is still fresh. So, edge is whacked out of the window.
What remains then?
A breezy collection of sketches from comedians who are embroiled between the world of cinema and the world of comedy, they wouldn’t know how to introduce themselves. Kapila and Sait are pursuing acting, while NM has become the go-to promotional pony for producers. She is able to bring her goofy, wide-eyed, Adyar Tamil-accented personality to clash with otherwise stone-faced stars like Ranbir Kapoor, Vijay Deverakonda, and Mahesh Babu, producing something of a sparkle. She is among those influencers — Kapila included — where the sweaty precision behind every frame is visible. That even as it might feel like a medium of ether, it is one built with relentless effort.