DelhiPlanet Weekends : The Perfect 10
July 6, 2008 by krisdhingra
Filed under Specials
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, 10 digits which when put together can form infinite other numbers and quantities. Each of these digits have some special characteristics and qualities associated with them both mathematically and numerologically as well as historically. The Number 9 is regarded as the King Of all numbers as it is the only number which when multiplied by any either natural number would always have the sum of the digits as 9. The Number 7 on the other hand is also quite significant as it occurs very frequently in our nature and life (7 Colors of the Rainbow, 7 Days Of the Week, 7 Chakras in the Human Body, 7 Deadly Sins etc. ).
And then there is something special about the number 10 as well - it is a sign and symbol of perfection. 10 on 10 is the sign of a perfect score, All the great sportsmen in history have been associated with the number 10. So much so that if you are watching a football match and wish to know who the best player in the team is, then all you need to do is to find out who wears the Number 10 jersey.
This week DelhiPlanet delves back into history to re-capture some amazing moments and re-live the magic of the Perfect 10.
When The Aussies Were Lakered
It’s not very often that you see the Aussies humbled in cricket and that too by one man. However in 1956 during the fourth Ashes Test at Old Trafford, one man single handedly destroyed the Aussies with figures of 19/90 for the entire test. Jim Laker took 9 wickets for 37 runs in the first innings of the test match and 10 wickets for 53 runs in the second innings. Laker who was married to an Austrian national at the time and she didn’t happen to know much about cricket. On the day of his achievement when he arrived home, his wife asked him, “Jim, did you do something good today?” after she had taken hundreds of congratulatory telephone calls. Remarkably, Laker had also taken all ten wickets in an innings for Surrey against the same Australians earlier in the season, the first time a bowler had taken all ten against the Australians since Ted Barratt did so in 1878.
Jim Laker’s record of 19/90 was something that happens only once in the lifetime of a sport and it is very unlikely that it would ever happen again. Surely a great example of a Perfect 10.
The Perfect 10 X 7
At the tender age of 14, Romanian Gymnast Nadia Elena Comaneci became one of the stars of the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. During the team portion of the competition, her routine on the uneven bars was scored at a 10.0. It was the first time in modern Olympic gymnastics history that the score had ever been awarded. In those days the scoreboards were not even equipped to display scores of 10.0—so Nadia’s perfect marks were reported on the boards as 1.00 instead. Over the course of the Olympics, Comaneci would earn six additional 10s, en route to capturing the all-around, beam and bars titles and a bronze medal on the floor exercise. The Romanian team also placed second in the team competition.
After Nadia there have been very few other gymnasts who have managed to get the perfect score of 10. America’s Mary Lou Retton is another name that comes to mind. Mary had perfect 10s on floor exercise and vault in the 1984 Summer Olympics. These days however it’s not possible to score a perfect 10, not because the gymnasts are not upto it but because the new perfect score is now 17.
Just like Laker, Nadia’s performance was also something that is most unlikely to be ever repeated by anyone. Yet another instance of a Perfect 10.
When Pakistan Were Kumbled
Well, for this one we’ll just let the images and the video do the talking. Anil Kumble’s feat of 10 wickets in a innings was surely a great achievement which happened right here in Delhi and it just goes to show that even Indian sportsmen are capable of achieving the perfect score.
10 Ka Dum - Sallu Bhai Joins The Gang
June 9, 2008 by krisdhingra
Filed under Reviews
Year: 2008
Producer: Sony Television India
Length: 60 min
Media: On TV
Distributor: Sony TV India
“10 Ka Dum” or “The Power Of 10” when translated into English. Now wait a minute, is that just a simple translation or is 10 Ka Dum actually a copy of an already existing show which has been successful in other countries. Hmm, it would be great if it were just a translation but unfortunately it’s not.
The famous Bad Boy of Bollywood, Salman Khan lovingly called Sallu Bhai kicks of his debut into Television with the Indianized version of the Drew Carey hosted US show “The Power Of 10“. Ever since the introduction of Kaun Banega Crorepati hosted by Amitabh Bachchan in the year 2000 a number of bollywood stars have stepped into television. The prominent ones being Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan with KBC, Shah Rukh again with Paanchvi Paas, Govinda with Jeeto Chappar Phaad Ke, Anupam Kher/Manisha Koirala with Sawaal Dus Crore Ka and Madhuri Dixit with Shubh Vivah. With the exception of the Big B and SRK most of the other shows failed miserably and were not able to complete even one season. While the shows hosted by Govinda and Anupam Kher were spin-offs of KBC, Shubh Vivah was a unique show designed for the Indian Masses but it was not able to sustain viewer interest.
Unlike KBC and Paanchvi Pass, 10 Ka Dum is not a quiz-based show although Siddhartha Basu owned Synergy Communications is the content producer and organizer for both these shows. 10 Ka Dum is a poll based show, where the contestants have to guess percentage values of questions that have been posed to common people from all over the country. The novelty factor of this show is that the prize money is a whopping Rs.10 crore and one needs to answer just 5 questions to reach there. The first question starts with Rs 10,000 and with each subsequent question the prize money becomes 10 times the previous amount. For Ex, this question was posed to a contestant in the second episode of the show for a prize money of Rs.1 Crore (Rs 10,000,000).
What % of Indian men would let their wives participate in Beauty Pageants ?
The contestant had to give the 10% range in which the answer would be. She had already won Rs 10 Lakh and the right range would win her 1 Crore while the wrong answer would elminate her from the show and she would leave with a prize money of Rs. 1 Lakh. While it may seem that the game-show is all about guessing, it takes a lot of thinking to decide the correct percentage ranges as their are many aspects that one needs to consider. Since India is a diverse, multi-cultural country with people from all backgrounds one needs to be able to decide a value that takes all such factors into consideration to able to give the correct response. Nevertheless the format of the show is quite mounth-watering for the contestants and we might just see a few people win the magical Rs.1 Crore figure, something which has happened only on KBC, 2 times before. Btw the answer to the above question is 51%, which the lady got wrong as her range was 17 - 27 %.
Coming back to the host of the show, Salman is definetly not as good as the Big B or SRK who seems to have learnt the art of hosting shows. Salman doesn’t make the participants feel too comfortable and gets on with things right from the beginning, his fan-base is certainly smaller than that of SRK and the first 2 episodes of his show have opened with him just dance-walking in. The feel of the show is also not that great and is no way close to how SRK’s KBC-3 or Paanchvi Paas.
Sony TV India has a lot of hopes from this show as they expect to retain the audeinces that they managed to grab during the IPL. Star TV on the other hand has not been too successful with Paanchvi Paas, which explains why SRK played with his friends Karan Johar and Rani Mukherjee on the show recently.
So that’s 2 out of the 3 Big Khans on TV for us to watch 3 days a week. It’ll be interesting to see if any channel decides on grabbing up Aamir, who’s one of the most intelligent actors around and could surely come up with an original game-show that would do well.
