Maachis Of Hum Tv

A successful modeling career alone isn't creatively fulfilling enough. Or, so Zainab Qayyum aka ZQ would like to think. Hence, her sporadic acting stints, a small-time celebrity column in a leading daily, and now a full-fledged TV talk show called 'Maachis'. Interestingly, 'Maachis' is formatted on the lines of America's most popular, 'Jerry Springer Show', which brings real-life cases of betrayal, cheating, et al, in front of a live audience, and allow them space to make public confessions, vent out their venom and even hit each other physically.

Spilling the beans on her first full-time assignment as TV show presenter, a lively ZQ said that 'Maachis' was "different from the 'Jerry Springer Show' in that we are dealing with real people, as opposed to the reportedly paid people in JS show." She was talking to The Nation Plus, Tuesday. "Ours is an entirely unscripted show," she added, "It's spontaneous and not contrived. Besides, I keep inviting the audience in the hall to interact with the guests seated on the stage." A project of Shahbaz Siddiqui's Nucleus Entertainment, a company which boasts over 1000 hours of production, 'Maachis' is a 50-minute show, planned over 13 episodes for Hum TV.

According to ZQ, "It's a lot of fun. Though my role in the show doesn't much go beyond what I am doing on screen, and I don't know where and how Shahbaz and his group collect these people. But, I enjoy its format all right, the way for instance we put together a bahu and her belligerant saas for an episode." While in Jerry Springer, the stage often becomes a heated arena for dogfight and, almost always, a fist-fight, ZQ said that the 'Maachis' staff always discouraged any such behaviour.

Besides, ZQ said that she enjoyed warming-up with the guests backstage. However, unlike in Jerry Springer, 'Maachis' does not draw any conclusions. "That's the beauty of the show," said ZQ, "It's all to do with how my guests, the audience and I are feeling. I've been given that liberty. In fact, since there's no script, the entire discussion takes its own twists and turns.

"At 'Maachis', we don't promise a concrete solution. We're a form of catharsis. We are the medium that helps unclog the inner systems of the people by letting them vent their anger, hostility, grudges and resentment that they might be having and which can grow dangerously. The audience is the outsider and a second opinion, while I'm the catalyst."