28 July, 2007

On Mini Mathur

Reader Shradha Revankar writes in regarding Indian Idol:

Amit Paul is easily my favorite but if there was one person I could vote for it would be Mini Mathur. I have never seen any anchor on Indian television with so much panache as Mini. She speaks best only next to Javed Akhtar. She was the only one to speak in Deepali’s defence when Anu made unnecessarily rude comments about romances and crushes. She even makes the ‘acts’ they are supposed to do watchable. My only complaint is that she totally outshines Hussain but then given the kind of clothes he has been wearing in the show, I don’t really mind. Here is a lady who does her job well, yet the Mandiras of the world get more attention. You should write about her.

Indeed I should. Mini’s actually been my colleague twice in my career. When I joined HTA Delhi as a trainee copywriter in 1994, Mini had just joined in client servicing. If I remember correctly, the first brief she gave was the first brief I received. Years later, when I worked in MTV, she applied to be a VJ. Whatever TV work she had done till then was unimpressive: I remember telling my boss, who thankfully over-ruled me, that Mini was too squeaky and over-enthusiastic.

Needless to say, she has come a long way since, and is a fantastic anchor. She’s comfortable in her own skin, never puts on an act for the camera, and show enormous empathy for the Indian Idol contestants, who are all basically just young kids in a stressful situation. Also, Mini’s TV persona is an extension of what she is in real life—at least what I remember of her from many years ago—and it’s apparent that even when she is anchoring a show, what you see is what you get. We don’t see much of that on television, even in reality shows, and I think it’s tremendous.

That first brief, by the way, was for the back-panel copy of a Chito Chat packet. Even I’ve come a long way, no?