17 October,2010 07:31 AM IST | | Team SMD
Despite being a rip-off of the Late Show With David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, actor's Shekhar Suman's stand-up act in Movers & Shakers broke new ground for Indian television when it aired in 2006.
Sumeet Raghavan on Jay Hind!
Now, an Internet-only show inspired by Suman's series, is taking the web by storm. Touted as India's first full format TV show to air exclusively on the Internet, Jay Hind! is a bi-weekly that has garnered rave reviews in the USA and Uganda as well, and garnered over 50 million hits.
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"It's also the first High Definition (HD) and 16:9 format show in India," says Abhigyan Jha, the show's director and co-founder of Undercover Productions.
Jay Hind! completed 100 episodes this August. The show gives you a sideways view on India. In under five minutes, it covers a stand-up routine by actor Sumeet Raghavan, followed by quick one-liners on current events and brief comedy sketches, impromptu street interviews, fake celebrity interviews and performances.
Comedy Circus actor Rajeev Nigam plays multiple characters, including the now iconic aam aadmi. We liked Savita Bhabhi Ke Sexy Solutions -- a spoof on Savita Bhabhi, the character from banned portal Savitabhabhi.com. Bhojpuri star Divya Dwivedi plays Savita Bhabhi who dishes out inane solutions on global warming and world peace.
"My fan following has quadrupled through Jay Hind!" Dwivedi told Sunday Mid Day in an interview.
Boothnath, another segment, is to the street what the couch is to the shrink's patient. The producers have installed booths with surveillance cameras across the country, so people can enter, and vent their anger on anything or anyone.