Rupa Ganguly, Suchitra Krishnamurthy and Mohan Agashe at RCGC on Sunday. Picture by Aranya Sen

After two days of mass auditions in Salt Lake, the action for the Calcutta leg of India’s Best Cinestars Ki Khoj, Zee TV’s talent hunt, shifted to the Royal Calcutta Golf Club greens on Sunday. Here are glimpses of the highs and the lows of the evening:

Time trauma: The first khoj of the evening — and while it lasted, the toughest one — was for the starting time. The correct answer was nowhere to be found. The invitation card read 6.30 pm, participants said they were told the show would roll from 7 pm, while the lights and sound team were clued into a 7.30 pm call. The wait finally ended at 8 pm.

Supporter salute: The majority of the audience comprised doting parents, friends and relatives who had come to cheer their candidate to a ticket to stardom. Of them, a party of five that had planted itself in the front row took the trophy. News of Durgapur girl Swati Ghosh making it to the finals reached her hometown late in the evening. Family and friends boarded the first available train — Toofan Express — at 1 am, reaching Howrah at 4 am. Not having a resting place in Calcutta, the rest of the day was spent in the hall of a hotel where the finalists were being groomed. They were the first to arrive at RCGC and stood at the gate for an hour before they were let in. Their girl did make it to the last eight.

Wild-card entry: The last in line to take the stage, with tag number 35, was model-artist-actor (in whichever order) Piu Sarkar. All the participants had to put up a cameo devised by themselves. Some fell on the stage with a big thud to act dead, some had coy cellphone conversations with a Hrithik or a Vivek… But for Piu, just walking in and introducing herself was enough to take her through to the round of 16, which featured a choreographed dance test. The choreographer first showed the audience what he had taught his wards and then left the stage to the contestants. While all the others knew their steps and executed them to varying degrees of competence, ‘impromptu’ Piu drew sniggers from the crowd.

Bad forecast: The second participant to take the stage played a newsreader. With a pair of spectacles placed on the tip of her nose, in dead earnest she read out a weather report that spelt rain in “registaan” and draught in Cherrapunjee. The skies revolted and down came a drizzle that made the organisers rush for umbrellas (just for the judges).

Booooo: To anchor Varun Vadola on two counts. For tripping twice on the Bengali names of participants and then blaming it on the language. And for trying to do the judging himself and getting it all wrong with the verdict quite a few times.

Numbers game: Sharad Malhotra, a B.Com student of St Xavier’s, wore tag number one. And emerged numero uno as well. The winner among the girls, Gangotri Bajpayee, a Class XII student of Army Public School, was not far behind with tag number four. Both, along with runners-up Anangsha Biwas and Akhlaque Khan, will be travelling to Mumbai for acting classes with Kishore Namit Kapoor. In September, the finale will see them face the best from 24 other cities before the Yash Chopras and David Dhawans. The carrot: sharing screen space with Salman Khan, Sunny Deol and Preity Zinta in a Zee film.

Bottomline: “If all the actors in Bollywood had to take such a test before landing a role, 50 per cent of them wouldn’t make it” — Mohan Agashe, one of the judges.