Coffee and conversations with KJo

 Hushed secrets, curious gossips, lots of laugh and the high intensity friendly talk. It is the couch that doesn’t give the A-listers of Bollywood those jittery pangs, it is where they sit and sip a cup of coffee with some good conversation. And the man who makes it all possible is none other than Karan Johar.

A director, movie producer, TV show host and a “good friend” to almost everybody in Bollywood, Karan Johar has managed each of this with equal poise. His movies are as appreciated and talked about as his presentational skills of indulging in a heart-to-heart talk with the most watched faces of our big screen and the small screen.

While his witty rapid fire round became a rage that audiences glued onto, the Koffee Hamper became bigger with every passing season trying to woo the stars on the show to give some very frank answers. The show has had two successful seasons with lots of shared opinions and joyous moments, and this time KJo is back with his coffee conversations and with a promise to “reveal some more secrets”.

Koffee With Karan is back in its third season on Star World and this time it will have celebrities like Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, Imran Khan, Raju Hirani, Farah Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Imitiaz Ali and Deepika Padukone.

Adgully caught up with the man himself and spoke to him about the new season of his chat show.
Talking about the opening episode of the Season 3 with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan as guests on his show, Karan, says, “I think because I have a casual and a really close relation with both of them, it was great. They opened up as much as they could, even though they knew the fact there were television boundaries. You would see them in an avatar that you haven’t seen them in before.”

Besides, when asked if he likes asking controversial questions he says that everybody’s personal life is their own and he would never ask the guests on his show anything that would offend them or make them reveal something that was not right. “I understand the dynamics of privacy,” he adds.

The team contemplated at introducing new features like a live audience and changing the format but they dropped the plans and went ahead with the earlier format of the show. “The show is an intimate conversation based show and I think to take away from that and add new features for no reason will not help. I think adding new feature becomes a crutch when you don’t have much to talk about. But we have a lot of thing to talk about and thus we thought that we should stick to our five rounds format,” Karan says.

Talking about his friendship with nearly everybody in Bollywood, Karan says, “I was the only child. When you are the only child one wants to kind of enjoy the fruits of friendship. So I don’t make a special effort and I don’t get into other people’s life beyond a point.” Besides he adds that his ties have grown only stronger post the show and its conversations.

When asked about the promo-tag that reads “secrets revealed”, he says that it’s just a concept and that the show is about indulging in a normal chat.

Though he seems to be exuding lot of confidence and a quick presence of mind on the show, Karan confesses that he was very nervous during the Season 1 of the show. “In the season 1 you can clearly see that I am not comfortable and I can tell for myself. I was very conscious then. However by the Season 2, I was very open and now by Season 3 I am very well set in and fit for the format,” he adds.

Elaborating more on the goals he has set for himself as a host, Karan says, “Firstly, I should be able to make my guests comfortable. Never offend, never cross the line and yet make it entertaining, fun and perhaps spicy.”
Karan further adds that he doesn’t care about ratings and the fact that the show is a English language show on a English General Entertainment Channel, it cannot really compete with other shows across the Hindi GECs. “I think Koffee With Karan is largely a perception success because there is a certain urban tune in and an equal amount of talk about the show as much as other shows across GECs. We are not in the ratings game at all,” he says.

Talking about the show’s key USP Karan says that it is the comfort with which the stars sit and answer questions. According to him, for an audience it is a voyeuristic feeling because it is almost like over hearing a lounge-chat between friends.

When asked if TV is an integral part of his life, Karan contends, “I do not watch TV at all, I watch a lot of American shows but I don’t watch a lot of television. But my mother is an avid viewer, so everytime I am having dinner with her I am subjected to some of the television.”

It’s not always that the guests feel uncomfortable answering something, but the host might be nervous thinking about the possible reaction too. Karan acknowledges this and says, “I was very nervous when I had Rakhi Sawant coming on the show, because it was the only time when I was doing a show where I did not know the guest at all. I thought that she will just be over-powering but it turned out to be a fun episode.”

While signing off we ask the man with abundance of coffee-table tales that how does he like his coffee? And prompt comes his reply-“milky and sweet”.

The coffee bag will spill soon revealing some wonderfully spirited coffee beans and some secrets along the way too. So to all the coffee conversations, witty replies, and a Koffee hamper that has just got bigger with an iPad and a Blackberry Torch –“Just spill it over!” | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]