'I'd rather watch Paanchvi Paas'

SRK believes the IPL matches won't affect his new show that premieres tomorrow night on Star Plus

On the eve of yet another of his small screen outings, Shah Rukh Khan speaks about his new show, Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hai?...

The opening of Paanchvi Pass clashes with the IPL matches. Aren’t you worried about the TRPs being low, since the matches have been huge hits?
No. I don’t want to be pompous but people will watch Shah Rukh Khan. To be honest, I’d rather watch Paanchvi Pass.

Why? What’s so special about it?
It’s an awesome concept. There is no stopping Paanchvi Paas. I never make claims like these. It’s really endearing, witty and sweet. It’s a quiz show of class one to class five. If I sit down with you for two minutes and start playing it, I’m sure you’ll end up playing for at least half an hour. How many legs does a butterfly have? Answer that for Rs 5 lakh. Then I’ll you other simple questions like who started the Gregorian calendar and which is the planet closest to Earth? If I tell you the answers, you’ll say, “Arre, I knew the answer to this yaar.” It’s an amazing show that you can sit with kids and watch.

What aspects of it are you particularly charmed by?
The lifelines. Like we had a phone-a-friend in KBC. I am the school teacher, and in my classroom, there are five kids, whose help the contestants can take. I ask a question and you can use three helplines — just like in KBC. The helpline is: You ask the kids, “Can I cheat from you, please?” We’ve had contestants who are MBBS students, IIM graduates and gold medallists. And then we ask them this class one question. It is so simple and they know the answers but there are no multiple choices so they ask these nine-year-olds, “Milindji, Siddharthji, please maano yaar, ae answer bataoge?” And as the teacher, I say, “Okay, you can cheat now.” The beauty of it is that this cheat can go right or wrong. Kids can give a wrong answer too. Like in KBC, you phone a friend, and he or she doesn’t necessarily know the answer.

Are the kids going to be the same on all the shows?
Yes, these five kids have been signed on for one season you cannot keep training new kids.

Was it a deliberate move to not do KBC anymore, and opt for this show instead?
Yes. You know, both my films fell through Robot and the Rajkumar Hirani film, and I had free time on hand. So I called the channel and said, “Let’s shoot KBC,” as I was under contract to do one more season with them. Then, I saw Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? while in America and I asked them: why don’t we do this instead? And luckily, we found someone in India Airtel who had the rights. So everything fell into place and it just required us to work a little harder for a month before it was all set.

You seem to be enjoying this show more than KBC.
To be very honest, this is more up my alley. I’ve actually exhausted all the quips and jokes I’ve done on KBC. Had this show been done with me first, it would’ve been even more original.

When is your son Aryan coming on the show?
Aryan has just gone to the fifth grade. He’s right for the show but you have to be already in it to come on it. The kids have been chosen from all over India but till the time we selected them, Aryan and his friends used to play with me. I did a lot more rehearsals for this than I did for KBC.

Sarita Tanwar