Geeta Kapur and Remo D’Souza on the sets of the first season of Dance India Dance

A pothole on Chowringhee tripped two judges of the popular Zee TV show Dance India Dance and landed them in hospital on Monday.

Remo D’Souza and Geeta Kapur arrived in the city to screen participants for the second season of the dance reality show, which has Mithun Chakraborty as the Grandmaster. After the mishap, Tuesday’s auditions have been cancelled.

This is the second major accident involving a visiting cast and crew in Calcutta after Vivek Oberoi broke his leg while shooting for Yuva on Vidyasagar Setu in 2003.

Monday’s accident happened around 3pm when the crew was filming the two judges going around the city. “Remo was riding a bike with Geeta in the sidecar. They were driving up the lane opposite the Oberoi Grand when the bike hit a pothole beside the divider, throwing both out of their seats,” said Sanjeev Bhende, the producer of the show who was directing the sequence. The two choreographers were rushed to Belle Vue Clinic.

“Remo has multiple fractures on his right leg while Geeta is suffering from severe pain in her back,” said Ashish Golwalkar, the non-fiction content head of Zee TV.

Shooting for the second season is scheduled to start from the first week of December with the show slated to go on air on December 18. Preliminary auditions have been held over Sunday and Monday at Swabhumi.

The judges had come down on Monday morning for the regional screening scheduled for Tuesday. The third judge, Terrence Lewis, who is recovering from malaria and got discharged from a Mumbai hospital on Monday, was supposed to join them on Tuesday but has been advised a day’s rest.

Remo, who started out in Bollywood as assistant to Ahmed Khan, has made strides since the hit dance number Ishq Samundar in Kaante, choreographing films like Bhoothnath, Rock On!, Kidnap and the recent release, London Dreams. Geeta has assisted Farah Khan in Om Shanti Om and Dostana.

The Calcutta auditions have seen close to 3,000 aspirants shake a leg at Swabhumi. About 90 shortlisted participants, including those selected in the preliminary rounds held in Guwahati and Bhubaneswar, were to have appeared for the regional selections before the three judges on Tuesday.

“We will try to hold the auditions on Wednesday if they are better,” said Golwalkar.