Fools Rush in It is the done thing in Bollywood to call Anupam Kher the most versatile actor of his generation. The epithet must have been playing on Kher's mind when he decided to sign up as the main host for Zee TV's Sawaal Dus Crore Ka (SDCK). 'I feel one needs guts to host this show. Guts will work more than luck. Having a solid theatre background has trained me to slog it out...,' he merrily prattled days before the show was to go on air. He was feeling so cocky and upbeat that he was even willing to risk a comparison with Amitabh Bachchan. 'When I am on a particular job, I compete only with myself. Besides, I have great regard for Bachchan. It feels great that there will be comparison between us,' he added for good measure. He didn't stop at that. 'How many people know that Marlon Brando was not the first choice to play Godfather? He had to give a screen test,' he told assorted reporters. Clearly, poor Kher had overestimated his versatility. SDCK has just completed its debut week, and it is more than obvious that the analogy with Brando does not stick. In fact, the programme has been roundly panned by everyone who has had a chance to see it. On Diwali night, Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) seemed to be on overdrive. Aamir Khan and Sonali Bendre trooped in for a feel-good special episode while Bachchan looked luminous in ethnic Indian clothes. A few channels away, Kher was trying to soldier on bravely. With a saffron tilak on his forehead, he looked a pathetic sight. It was almost as if he had sat down to hawk some Diwali sweets at a neighbourhood shop. Kher's cause is not being helped by SDCK's format. Everything seems to be either a straight lift or inspired by KBC. And even Kher knows that most copies can only hope to be second best. Kher seems to be strangely soporific on the show. His answer to Amitabh's trademark 'lock kar diya jaye' is a weak and wan 'freeze it', which has already left television viewers cold. His co-anchor, Manisha Koirala, also seems to be sleep walking through the show. The tension that Bachchan creates as a hopeful waits expectantly for him to come out with the right answer has simply not materialised on Zee's version. Maybe it was the opening week jitters, but Kher faltered once too often for comfort. 'Whether your answer is right or wrong, we will see,' he told one competitor. It almost seemed as if he was taking a relaxed college tutorial. Unless something magical happens, Kher can expect a lot of jibes in the coming weeks. Maybe it is time for Kher to remember what he had learnt from Peter O'Toole when he appeared for a minuscule role in Kim. 'An actor has to be prepared to make an ass of himself,' he had been told. He might not have paid much attention to it then; he will have to now. Around the same time, Kher made his debut in Mahesh Bhatt's Saaransh where he played a 70-year-old. For someone who was in his mid-20s and aspiring to make a mark in the Mumbai movie industry, it was a risky and crazy gamble. The film was to make Kher into a household name in India. 'TV lene nahin aaya hoon. Apne marein hue bete ki asthiyan lene aaya hoon...,' were the lines that made him famous. The National School of Drama student who had given up his job as a teacher of theatre history and speech techniques at Lucknow's Bharatendu Drama Centre to become an actor was on his way. His was a heart warming story of a small-town boy who had come to the big bad city to make a future. No one would have have given this boy from Simla a second look. On top of all this, he was bald. Not something that looks good on the CV of a young actor. He rented a ramshackle room in Khernagar, a slum dominated area in Bandra East and shared it with eight others. Every morning, he would go from door to door and beg for roles. Mahesh Bhatt, on the wrong side of fame then, decided to cast him in Saaransh. The boy with stars in his eyes had become a star himself. A little later, he proved himself yet again. As Doctor Dang, the sadistic villain, in Subhash Ghai's Karma, he excelled again. The commercial movie world jumped on him rightaway. Very soon, Anupam Kher became a permanent fixture in almost every movie that was being made. Somewhere along the way, the actor that had been noticed in Saaransh retreated into the background. Once in a while, his fans could see glimpses of the old magic in films like Jeevan Sandhya, Pestonjee and Daddy. But he seemed eternally damned to playing the stock Hindi movie bad guy or buffoon. More than 10 years after he made his debut in films, his happiest moment in the movies continued to be Saaransh. And that is still his biggest problem. He has tried again and again to break out of the bad guy/buffoon mould, but it did not seem to be working. In the early 90s he had become a bit of an activist as well. He slapped a Stardust reporter over a story and very soon triggered off a full-fledged battle between the film press and the actors. 'I'm not a good actor because of what they write,' he had announced as the fight reached fever pitch. He took up the cause of Kashmiri Pandits next and spoke out against atrocities on them. More recently, he took on Arundhati Roy and her diatribe against India's nuclear blasts. 'I was so angry when I read her article in The Guardian during my trip to London. She has every right to express her opinion in an Indian magazine about India's nuclear policy... But please do it at home... The only reason why she did it in my view was to get international recognition. I thought it was extremely hypocritical...,' he said. In the last few years, he has dabbled with theatre, launched his own productions, producing Bariwali recently. Kher seems to be in a mad rush to break free of the stranglehold of the Hindi commercial movie world. 'I've exhausted all the tricks of my trade,' he confessed in an interview some years ago. For someone who has constantly embraced new kinds of roles, SDCK must have seemed like just another challenge. And, in any case, he had not come off too badly in the other TV talk show he can be seen in, one where he can be seen talking to children of various shapes and sizes on Sab TV. Zee TV needed someone with 'experience, empathy, maturity and versatility'. Kher who has long cultivated an image of close association with these adjectives fitted the bill. But it was a bit foolhardy to pit himself against Amitabh Bachchan in the first place. Maybe the same madness that led him to accept the role of a 70-year-old in Saaransh was at work again. It worked in Saaransh. It is not likely to work in Sawaal Dus Crore Ka.