A show down on Jjhoom India

Fighting, squabbling and controversies have become an inevitable part of any reality show and Sahara One's Jjhoom India is no exception. The controversy created by Sachin Tyagi, a participant of the show, of beating his make-up man was just fading away and it was time for a new one. And this time at the receiving end was veteran actress Shabana Azmi and senior music-director Anand ji, judges of the show. Singer Sanjeevani and actor-singer Shekhar Suman were reportedly not happy with the assessment of the judges. Sanjeevani even went to the limit of questioning Shabanaji's integrity as a judge. She was recorded saying in an audio-visual, "Shabana madam toh Australia ghoom phir ke aayi hai, she wasn't even here for two weeks. How will she know the growth in the actors who are trying hard to improve on singing?" Sanjeevani cleared the air saying that the production team is airing distorted truth and they have not shown the entire clipping. She said, "First of all what is shown is distorted reality. The production team after every episode takes our reality bytes. They didn't show the clippings where I have praised the judges. I have said that Maheshji looks for the soul in the song and Shabanaji gives intelligent comments on Shekhar's pronunciation. This was never aired. They just showed the remarks that sounded offensive by cropping up the whole byte." But what about questioning the credentials of the judges? "Shabanaji was not here for almost two weeks and when she returned on the show she said that she is going to be stricter than ever. I was just wondering if at all she is keeping a tab on the growth of each participant. While judging you have to assess two things-mentor's contribution and growth and effort of the non-singer actor, which I was not sure if judges were fully aware of. I come from a family of academicians and so avidly believe in guru-shishya parampara. I would not be irreverently disrespectful towards the judges," cleared Sanjeevani. Sanjeeveni claims that she cleared things with Shabanaji and Mahesh Bhatt but was not happy with the way Jatin Pandit, co-contestant, jumped in. She adds, "Jatinji like an opportunist jumped into the conversation and started vouching for Shabanaji. I believe it was all to flatter the judges. Being in the industry for so long he has learned all the tactics to garner attention." Director Mahesh Bhatt, one of the judges on the show, came up with his version to the story and condemned the manner in which the esteemed judges were questioned. He said, "Everyone has the right to ask and I am not questioning their right to ask. It helps in giving an element of transparency to the show. I just objected to the manner in which they were questioning Shabanaji and Anand bhaiji. There has to be a certain decorum in which you should be voicing your opinions. They are seniors and you can't be humiliating them like this. What I wonder about is why they took so much time to come out and voice their differences." Chavvi Mittal, another unhappy contestant, who was of the same opinion as Sanjeevani said, "There was no controversy as such. I was just not clear about the criteria of giving marks. Though there has to be a proper manner in which you put across your point of view and question judges. Sanjeevani got a bit aggressive which was not acceptable. I voiced my doubt to Shabanaji asking her if she was keeping a tab on the growth of each participant as she was not on the show for a while. She in turn showed me her pad where she had a complete record of each participant and that cleared my confusion and discontentment." With the stiff competition from other reality shows on different channels what remains to be seen is that how much this controversy is going to help the show garner more TRPs.