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3 reasons I hate Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC)

By Vipin Khandelwal on 13 Comments / 6145 views

Kaun Banega Crorepati or KBC is one of the most watched prime time show on indian television. The Indian version of “Who wants to be a millionaire” has raked in much popularity and moolah not just for itself but its participants on the hot seat as well.

This weekend, for the first time I watched the show this season. At the risk of hurting popular sentiment, I have to tell you that I felt completely against this show. Stronger! I hated it.

And there are 3 main reasons for that:

  1. It is not the GyanKumbh as it is being touted as 

KBC is all about your ability to parrot out rote, memorised facts. It is not a test of Gyan, it is not a test of your life skills but a just a test of your memory.

Kaun Banega Crorepati is the complete antithesis of gyan (learning). What it is telling people is that memorising trivial insignificant facts is what is going to help you make your life significant.

Learning (gyan) is your ability to distinguish, to think critically, to be able to handle challenges of real life and not sit in a comfortable hotseat, chit chat with a super star and take some lacs home, if you are lucky. KBC woefully falls flat on its face on this.

It is not “GyanKumbh” but “MemoryKumbh”.

 

  1. It is just entertainment and a serious waste of time

The show is high on entertainment value and in bringing to light the real life plight of its hot seat participants. And while some of them are able to carry a few lacs home – not sure how much since the axe from the Income Tax department will reduce their prize money. And how many people in any case?

Let’s do some calculations:

Based on the current season, it is televised 3 days of the weekend. With 4 weeks in a month over 4 months, about 50 episodes get televised. I assume that on an average about 2 people make it to the hot seat every episode. So, in this season, just about 100 people got to take a shot on their luck with the hotseat.

A very insignificant number to the 1.2 billion population of India. And by my conservative estimates crores of people must be fighting for their chance on the hotseat. And they do it for years.

As one of the participants declared proudly that she waited for 12 years to be on the show. What a royal waste of time?

 

  1. On top of that, there is no real value add to participants

All that the participants expect to take from the show is cash (and sometimes popularity). Taking the example of the same lady who got in after 12 years, if she had spent that time learning a useful skill she would have earned far more money in all those years and would continue to for many more.

There are no life skills, no real learning, only trivial facts in this program. How does a question like “what is name of the instrument which converts AC into DC” add any kind of value to someone’s life.


Is this the education we want?
I am afraid that KBC is corrupting the minds of several people, young and old alike.
When we are fighting and working towards making education free of the uselessness that it has been for ages, a show like KBC is perpetuating the problem.

I shudder to think the parents in a small town village telling their child to start mugging up facts because that could be her ticket to the hot seat. And not so far away, the school teacher scolding the child who has not memorised the lesson and yelling at her “you have no chance at KBC”.

And I do not want this education system to continue? In this age of Google, memorising such silly facts has little use. Teaching life skills has many.

What’s your view? Let me know in the comments.

This article originally appeared on the Learning Infinite Blog.

Image courtesy: Wikipedia

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13 Comments

  1. Loved the Approach Vipin!! Never thought from this Angle!!

    Each point is Relevant………. 

  2. 3 reasons why I Love this post.

    1.good insight.

    2. Point to point logic.

    3. Futuristic .

    But fact is KBC is targetting middle class and lower middle class people, which contribute max population in india.

  3. I dont like ghar bethi jito jackpot too,  coz it is a jackpot for KBC team. They might be getting a crore of messages daily with premium charges an  1 Rs. in KBC kitty getting 1 crore per episode and awarding just 1 lakh. 

    Desh sab kuch bikta hain banane wala chaihye.

  4. Seriously never saw the show with this angle. Most of things mentioned are quite true..

  5. And so are all the TV shows which are aired.. what can a 18 yr old learn from Big Boss??!! That is why I have left watching TV.. Internet is the only medium which I access… 🙂

  6. hi, sorry vipin but i think you’re being cynical abt this..

    the show is an entertainment show aired on an entertainment channel and thats exactly what it does for all of its loyal viewers for years.. entertain..

    and yes it does increase your general knowledge.. doesn’t mean that each question has a relevance with your life but its always ‘good to know’

    you say you ‘hate’ kbc.. i think thts an incredibly strong term / emotion.. i think we all rather hate ‘hating’ or at-least hate something worthwhile like rape, murders, terror..

    tk it easy n enjoy the show.. else there are many channels n hopefully something will entertain u

    cheers!

    dj

  7. Vipin, you are completely Right.. Not only is it Misguiding, Misleading and a royal waste of Time, it is also propagating the ideology that Knowledge (in this case Facts) should be acquired for earning Money..

    In fact, the most valuable Knowledge is the one that is acquired to Share..

  8. I strongly disagree… There are several things one needs to be aware of. What are you watching in which lens ? Wrong lens for wrong things will blur your vision and see different objects. I see that happening with your analysis of KBC.

    KBC is a fine blend of Knowledge + Entertainment. Thats why they chose Amitabh Bachan, SRK and other celebrities worldwide rather than professional Quizmasters.

    I also disagree with your view of what is the need to memorize… It is like debate between Processor Versus Memory. Both are important. If memorizing is not required, then our entire education system should be banned. There should be no exams. It is like asking School children not to memorize tables and spend more time doing manual multiplication when you have Calculators. Not to learn grammar because you have MS Grammar / Spellcheck for it…… Not to study and memorize poems, theorems, formulae, concepts, etc., because you have google for everything…..

    If your views about KBC are such, then I wonder what is your view about other TV programs – Saas Bahu serials, Big Boss, etc., How about movies like Dabbang, Student of the Year, etc., ? What value would they provide ? Lastly, KBC has highest viewership and the concept has been a mega hit worldwide. Millions of Viewers are not fools to watch. If your thesis on Value was right, then Herbal drinks would have sold the most worldwide than Coke / Pepsi,……….

  9. Hi Vipin, 

    As a Rodinhood, you are also expected to look at the following figures:-

    1) Just 58 episodes and an expected revenues of 240 crores, these numbers do not happen over night. 

    2) KBC currently is the biggest GEC (general entertainment channel) property.

    3) The success of the show is not built on cheap comedies or cultural degradation as it sometimes happens on other leading reality shows.

    4) It is among top five shows in terms of TRPs.

    Hope these facts make sense to you

    Regards

    Kamaljit 

  10. From business point of view its the Most successful FORMAT from Americans

    It’s simple to understand

    Blends reward with GK ..so in a way it’s a lottery, deals with luck too

    can you come up with any thing more simple yet intriguing than this?

  11. Even I do not agree with your point of view.

    You seem to believe that those who aspire to come to KBC have only that pursuit in mind. Thats not the case! Yes some people do put their entire lives into getting to do the hot seat but then there are people who put their entire lives even for Roadies!!!!

    There always are some crazy folks..But to each their own…

    KBC tries to inspire and provide good entertainment as A “Game Quiz show”.. Being cynical about it will not help..What will help is changing the channel! Btw there is much more crap on other channels and KBC is a somewhat good show to watch 🙂

  12. Thank you everyone for the comments! I learn from you all. 

  13. As always the contrarian view,

    All General Knowledge quizzes are test of trivia.

    It has been same when I was in college and it is the same now.

    Question have to be kept simple as the audience can say – “Oh I know the answer!!!”

    And TV is entertainment, and it is much cleaner entertainment than “Fevicol Se” or Bigg Boss.

    There is no sexist or cheap element about this.  It is a family entertainer.

    Expecting anything else on Prime Time television is absurd.

    IF you want to learn – go to a college, don’t watch TV.

    Devesh

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