How crucial are celebrity tears, a weepy background score and an outraged audience to the success of social chat shows that claim to move governments? Anuradha Varma breaks down the brouhaha surrounding Satyamev Jayate and others like itEver since Satyamev Jayate (SMJ) aired on Star Plus and Doordarshan three Sundays ago, both, host Aamir Khan and the show have captured the public imagination. The inaugural episode received an all-India 4.1 television rating across the channels and cable networks on which the show is aired. It also appears as though somnolent state governments and an indifferent janta have suddenly woken up to female foeticide and child sex abuse — the first two issues that were covered. Three days after the first episode was aired, the Madhya Pradesh health department suspended the licenses of 65 Medical Termination of Pregnancy centres, while Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot announced a fast track court to expedite cases related to the issue. Newscasters are calling Khan a journalist, and perhaps, for the first time, a case can be made for a talk show that has become more popular than its celebrity host — a recent exercise in trend spotting by Google Insights for search, a data comparison tool, revealed that by the second week, netizens were searching more for the show than for Aamir Khan. To put that into perspective, consider this: 12 years after Kaun Banega Crorepati first aired, Amitabh Bachchan still remains more searched for than his show, online.Will social talk shows replace reality TV as the new form of entertainment? If, as SMJ’s tagline goes, dil pe lagegi, tabhi baat banegi, then let’s put our mind to what’s making it so popular.While experts and viewers agree on the good intentions behind Khan’s television debut, it is interesting to note the pitch-perfect reactions of the studio audience and the host during the show. Depending on what is said, the audience looks teary-eyed, shocked, angered and sometimes, just plain disgusted. Other immensely popular talk shows — in Hindi and on regional television channels — also use background music to great effect. For instance, in a recent episode of Zindagi Live, the award-winning talk show on IBN 7, the topic of discussion was lesbianism. Every time the guest spoke of the prejudice she has faced, sad music would play in the backdrop.In SMJ, music plays several roles — it is emotional, inspirational and often, cathartic. According to media critic Sevanti Ninan, “The live performance at the end of each episode is intended to create an emotional bond between audience and show.”Panning to an audience member looking shocked, and using sad music add to the dramatic effect of what is being said. What it also does is introduce fictional tropes in a non-fictional show. Heightened emotion makes for great television viewing (we don’t need another Emotional Atyachar to prove it to us). But such power of suggestion almost always works in generating similar viewer response, says Ninan. Little wonder then that the tone of the comments left on the YouTube videos of SMJ and Zindagi Live either decry the social wrong, sympathise with the guest, or express anger towards an indifferent state.Zindagi Live anchor Richa Anirudh agrees that the audience on SMJ looks a little too perfect, but insists that talk show hosts don’t put studio audiences through mock sessions on how to react. In fact, she says, the hosts are often susceptible to bouts of emotional response. Kanchan Adhikari, who anchored 250 episodes of the Marathi show Dil Khulas on Mi Marathi, which ended two years ago, would agree. She began crying while interviewing a sex worker once. “I asked her how many customers she took in a night. ‘Between six and eight men,’ she replied. I multiplied that number for a week, a month, a year and her whole life, and I was reduced to tears.”Khan does that too, often wiping away a tear, covering his mouth, or shaking his head in disbelief, when guests like Cindrella Prakash, a survivor of child sex abuse, speak of what they have been through.According to Shohini Ghosh, professor at the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia University, the depiction of such emotion, by host and audience, serves an important purpose. In an article for Kafila.org, she refers to the “cathartic revelations, shocking testimonies, interviews with experts, cutaways of shocked or tearful studio audiences and a host who is both, emotive and inspirational” as “affective tropes”. “Shows with such formats usually end on a feel-good note where a ‘solution’ to the problem is proffered,” she writes.In SMJ, Khan lays out a plan of action that concerned citizens can follow, besides asking them to text their political will in yes and no answers to a certain number. In the second episode, he even got actress Sridevi to sign a pledge to support the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Bill, 2011, recently passed by the Rajya Sabha.Anirudh gives us an instance of how a 27-year-old BTech student from Hyderabad, Imran Khan , was publically exonerated after appearing on her show and sharing his story with her viewers. Khan was falsely implicated on charges of terrorism in 2007 and while he was exonerated by the courts, he was socially ostracised. After the show was aired, he landed a job and completed his engineering degree.Dhanya Varma, a well-known face on Rosebowl Channel of Asianet, a cable network in Kerala, hosts a youthoriented show called Talking Point. The two-year-old show has tackled issues such as being single in the city, and even had trans-activist Anil Sadanandan, who was recently murdered, discuss moral policing. The show has received over 25 lakh hits on YouTube so far, informs Sumesh Lal, head – Content, Rosebowl.Despite its popularity, Varma sounds a note of caution. “My show reaches out to a lot of young people, including teenagers. Many of them would come down from Dubai and the US for the holidays and go back and watch it online. Many wrote in with their problems. But television can’t offer hard and fast solutions or an all-purpose medicine,” she says.Is it necessary to have a celebrity host a show on serious social issues? Aamir Khan’s impact is clear. While he charges an estimated 4 crore per episode, he also reportedly asked a watch and electronics brand he endorses, to refrain from advertising on SMJ — a move that would only enhance his credibility and trustworthiness. Yet, the fact that the show is aired across some 15-odd channels, including local cable networks, is indication that it’s riding on more than goodwill generated for Khan. There are advertising coups being effected in the background. The channel charges anywhere between 4 to 5 lakh for a 10-second advertising slot. Companies like Bharti Airtel (the title advertiser) and Aquaguard spent 15 to 18 crore in the first week, according to press reports.By contrast, Anirudh’s show made a celebrity of her. Zindagi Live won the Ladli Media Award for gender sensitivity in 2009. Anirudh has 17,500 followers on Facebook and over 3,000 on Twitter.According to a spokesperson from Aamir Khan Productions, Khan worked on the concept of SMJ for two years before approaching Star CEO Uday Shankar.Anirudh still keeps in touch with some of her guests. “A nine-year-old girl, Manisha, came on the show in 2007, after she lost her parents in the Sarojini Nagar (New Delhi) bomb blasts. She is 14-years-old now, andI am like her guardian. She comes home. So, this is more than a show for me.” Talk show hosts on regional television channels admit to doing the same. “It requires total commitment and involvement. I used to research for a week on some of the issues that we took up, such as the cause of eunuchs and devdasis,” says Dil Khulas’s Adhikari. “It has to be done ‘dil se’.” Actress Kirron Kher, who hosted a talk show on men, Purushkshetra, in the late ’90s, believes it is more important to have a lively and interesting anchorperson. “I used to come on the show and chat with the audience to get them involved with the subject, so that their reactions flew pontaneously. The adrenaline was pumping. There would be fights between members of the audience too and that made it all very lively,” she says.Kher has some advice for Khan. “Aamir is extremely well-intentioned and bright, but he appears studied and pensive. The viewer connect suffers in this case. You can’t talk at people; you have to talk with them.”Ghosh however has no complaints with Khan, and calls him a respectful host. But, she hopes the show would use other means to reach out to viewers that are not inspired by popular cinema.“The first two episodes seemed inspired by Taare Zameen Par. Making people cry is not the only way to make people ‘feel’ for issues. Laughter can be as moving and effective. I hope some of the future episodes of Satyamev explore the subversive power of laughter,” she says.