Paromita Vohra (MID-DAY; May 4, 2014)

Now that everyone in Bombay who did not go to Florida for IIFA has voted and put up their selfinks (yes that's what they're called) and we are not arguing about Modi, Rahul, Kejriwal, let's talk about the really important, life-changing stuff. Yaniki, what I learned from Koffee With Karan Season 4.

1 General knowledge is the new personality. Earlier people who were not good looking were often spoken of thus — s/he is not conventionally pretty but they have a great personality. KwK S4 taught me that the only people who need to know stuff like who is the Prime Minister of India, the difference between Mahatma Gandhi and Robert de Niro, R D Burman and of course acting, are people who are not good-looking and not on the Bollywood A-list. For those who think this only applies to shallow Bollywood, please look around you. Got it? Good. Now go back to reading your general knowledge book like a good ugly duckling, please.

2 Big, and I mean BIG, film directors (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) can make fat jokes. Just because they are hosting a TV show does not mean they actually have to work at being funny. Please! That's like, so pleb, ya.

3 Mahesh Bhatt, Emran Hashmi, Shraddha Kapur, Aditya Roy Kapur were way more chilled out than all the upmarket guests put together. So, Vishesh Films has got something Dharma Productions hasn't. Or put another way, Dharma Productions has got something Vishesh Films hasn't. Maybe it's Chetan Bhagat.

4 Critics are — there, nothing more. So said Farah Khan and others. They don't count because only money can be counted. Maybe this is why Zoya Akhtar likes the term Silver Jubilee but Rohit Shetty is cool with the term 100 crores. No critic objected so, I wondered whether Farah Khan was wrong and actually they aren't even just there or they feel directors don't count (logical, if only money counts).

5 Movie people can decide nothing matters except money, fame and good looks, but the media has to be caring about human feelings of movie people and causing rishton mein daraar.

6 Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. That's why Juhi Chawla rocked and Madhuri Dixit couldn't find her footing, Mahesh Bhatt said he walked out of Rockstar (thank you!) and Emran Hashmi deserved the hamper.

7 If you try to say smart things in a ditzy crowd, you will sound ditzy. Had Sonam Kapoor understood this, she would not have tried to use the term queer accurately, to mean those who don't make conventional, heterosexist gender and life choices — on a show which was convinced that the only way a man would have sex with another man is at gunpoint. On the other hand — oh look! We finally found the plot for Dostana 2!

8 Mahesh Bhatt is more fun than Ranveer and the other fellow who came with him.

9 Once upon a time, KJo used to be fun. I didn't learn that in Season 4. But I remembered it suddenly in the episode with Anurag Kashyap. Where the love and admiration between the two created a conversational chemistry and Anurag blushed and Karan sparkled and there was candour, self-deprecating humour, thoda emotion and a frothy intimacy. Like the old episodes with SRK.

10 If you come back like that in Season 5 KJo, then (and only then) will all be forgiven. We bore the kabhi gham, for old time's sake. Next time kabhi khushi, or no vote from us.

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction.

Reach her at www.parodevi.com.

The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.