Interview of KARAN GROVER

Do the viewers of Nach Baliye 3 real- ly go by your performance or is pop- ularity the main factor? Look, the viewers either like you or they don't. If they love Raj of Meri Awaz ko Mil Gayi Roshni, they will vote for me, irre- spective of the fact whether I can dance or not. Your latest performance was a spoof on the infamous Rakhi and Mika kiss episode. How did she react? Rakhi took it pretty well.. she is a sport. But I think the media has given her too much importance. At the end of the day, she's just a contestant like the rest of us. Did you have doubts about taking up Nach Baliye 3, considering you're a self-confessed bad dancer? You bet! When Star first approached Kavita and me, I told them it was a bad idea. But they promised me sufficient time to rehearse. Were the producers right in letting Shakti Kapoor do a solo perform- ance? Sure. It's okay to relax the rules once in a while. Kavita and you are experimenting with your look and steps in every per- formance. Isn't that too risky? Experimentation is a must, to hold the audience's interest. Agreed, things can go wrong. And they have.. our Round Two per- formance, in which I played an eld- erly koli failed miserably. But we can't let fear of failure deter us. Amongst the three judges, whom do you fear the most? (Laughs) Considering we've got bad feedback from all three, I should dread the entire panel, right? Seriously, we don't fear any judge but respect all three of them. Don't you have disagreements during rehearsals? (Laughs) When you are a bad dancer like I am, fights are unavoidable. Kavita's good but it takes me a lot of time to pick up the steps. I was so bad initially that the choreographer told me, "Do your own thing but please don't freeze on stage." Aren't you worried the other con- testants might try to create friction between the two of you? A third party can intrude into our space only if we let them. Are you happy with the way your career's going? Yeah, it's going great guns. This year has been especially good. I'm part of two big shows - Meri Awaz ko Mil Gayi Roshni and Nach Baliye 3. And though my track has ended in Saarthi, I was glad to be a part of that show. Do male actors really matter in the female-dominated television scene? Of course they do. Can you ever have a love story without a man? Also, if you've noticed, most of the talked-about instances on television are relat- ed to the male characters. Take the reactions to Mihir Virani's death in Kyunkii Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi or Rishab Bajaj's disappearance in Kasauti Zindagi Kay. The viewership is largely female. So they don't identify with men's problems. I guess that's why most soaps are women-oriented.