Bollywood director Farah Khan hosts a show called ‘Backbenchers’ on the newly launched OTT platform, Flipkart Video. But even before the show or the platform could achieve significant eyeballs or positive feedback from online viewers, it has gone and done just the opposite. It has garnered huge amounts of negative publicity for a recent faux pas by a couple of celeb guests on the show, namely Raveena Tandon and Bharti Singh.
In fact, three police cases have been filed against Farah, Raveena and Bharti, for hurting Christian sentiments on the OTT platform.
Backbenchers, of which Farah Khan is host, is a non-fiction show on Flipkart Video. It calls eminent Bollywood personalities on the show, and quizzes them on general knowledge and sundry trivia. They get points on basis of their knowledge, and are subjected to good-natured ribbing of they fail to answer simple questions.
All of it is done in a humourous, light-hearted manner, which is why the controversy is even more surprising. Apparently, Farah Khan, Raveena Tandon and Bharti Singh mocked the word “Hallelujah”, in an attempt to pronounce it correctly. But Christian communities didn’t take too kindly to their feeble jokes on the word.
“Hallelujah” is a Hebrew word meaning “Praise ye, Yah”, referring to the Lord.
Miffed with the apparently irresponsible behaviour of the trio, cases have been filed against them in Punjab and Maharashtra. Let’s see what the courts decide.
Come to think of it, if one were to go by the adage that any publicity is good publicity, whether negative or positive, then the episode could be considered as a good thing for Backbenchers and Flipkart Video. For, now everyone knows about the show and the platform. Good way to get eyeballs, what say?
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