DEAL DOC--MADHAVAN--INTERVIEW

He is set to paint the town yellow in a couple of weeks but during a daylong visit to the city on Monday, he chose to go red. Awaiting the release of Rang De Basanti, R. Madhavan came to strike another deal with Calcutta, promoting his popular game show on Sony and announcing specials for the next few weeks.

"It's a great feeling that ever since the show started one-and-a-half months back, people, especially kids and their parents, recognise me as the Deal Ya No Deal man," smiles Madhavan. "It's quite an experience watching these participants playing for the money and seeing their whole lives in front of their eyes. All the crying that you see on the show is real — we don't use glycerine."

The Sony game show, where people have to keep opening boxes randomly to win lakhs of rupees, started out on a promising note raking in the TRPs. Presence of celebrities like Anu Malik increased viewership and that is what prompted the channel to come up with more specials. So in coming weeks, you can catch everyone from Indian Idol Abhijeet Sawant and Fame Gurukul finalist Rex D'Souza to Mukesh Shaktiman Khanna and Nausheen Kkusum Sardar coming to strike deals on the show.

Deal Ya No Deal marked a return to TV for Madhavan who earlier won many hearts in serials like Banegi Aapni Baat and Saaya. A big cinestar in the South, Madhavan's attempts at Hindi cinema hasn't found favour. Even his last release Ramji Londonwaley sank without a trace. "The timing of the release was very bad," he admits. "But I am not going to give up in a hurry."

Madhavan's role in Rang De Basanti is a "special appearance", he insists. "It was amazing to work with someone like Aamir Khan," he says. "I am really lucky to have worked with the best of people — from Mani Ratnam to A.R. Rahman to Amitabh Bachchan."

But he doesn't figure in Ratnam's next film even though he's played the leading man in three of the director's movies. "It's in Hindi. So Mani Sir's gone with Abhishek Bachchan." reveals Madhavan.

So what next for the man who was born and brought up in Jamshedpur and who still looks out from his aeroplane window to spot his hometown on his way to Calcutta? "I want to have Amitji playing Deal Ya No Deal with me. If the TRPs of his channel and mine combine, we can create television history," winks Madhavan.