India’s Most Desirable Recap: Ranveer Singh

You would think that celebrities would know exactly which TV show they were appearing on. Ranveer Singh, however, seemed to think he was a guest on Simi Garewal’s old show, Rendezvous and thus felt it mandatory to shed a few tears for the TV audience. It was Singh’s parent’s video appearance (hardly a surprise considering it’s part of the IMD format) that brought on the waterworks, which seemed a tad disingenous given how okay he was with the idea of dropping his family name for the screen. His full name is Ranveer Singh Bhavnani, Garewal infomed us. “It’s too long,” Singh told Garewal when she asked him why he dropped his surname. What he meant to say was: “It’s not filmi enough.” Ranveer however is excessively so, and he might also be a masochist for actually asking Garewal to turn into Kiki. Was Singh’s appearance one long performance or is he truly just a born actor? In our weekly recap of IMD, we rate Simi and her B’wood bud on the cringe scale, with 10 being run-for-cover and 1 being safe-to-watch.

Simi the Private Eye
Simi seemed to have prepared the same set of questions for Anushka Sharma and Ranveer Singh. She probably thought that, unlike the show-that-dare-not-be-named where rumoured lovers appeared together and could therefore rehearse their answers, she could take advantage of the fact that they make solo appearances on IMD. Presuming, rather naively, that she could catch out Singh contradicting Sharma’s line of denial, she launched into an interrogation about their alleged romance. When Singh said he “didn’t have space” in his life for a girlfriend, Garewal, acting as though she was hard of hearing, asked him “Why aren’t you dating Anushka?” Singh echoed Sharma’s reasons when he said that they had different natures, could kill each other, that they can’t stand each other, blah blah.

Singh then shrewdly took the self-deprecation route and told Simi that he’s “not good enough” and that Sharma deserves better because he is “self-obsessed” and doesn’t have “the mental and physical energy to devote to a relationship”. However, knowing very well that his link-up with Sharma is largely what keeps him in the news, Singh also said that he found his co-star beautiful, desirable and that he is totally “awestruck” by her. In the “Truth Bucket” segment, the only honest answer (when he chose to answer) he gave was when asked which co-star he would like to share an on screen kiss with. He picked Sharma because “intimate scenes can be very stressful and Anuskha made it painless” when they were shooting for Band Baaja Baaraat.

Enter Doting Parents, Cue Tears
In the “Meet the (Guest’s) Parents” segment, Singh’s father Jasjit Bhavnani was honest enough to admit that Ranveer has always been a “performer”, which is pretty much parentspeak for a) the chap has an unhealthy obsession with his own reflection, and b) he has a never-ending need for attention. As if to prove his father right, Singh teared up when his mom spoke about his “struggle”. Treating his appearance on IMD like one long audition, he used the different segments of the show to demonstrate different aspects of his acting skills. Hence he busted out “emotional” Ranveer for the parents segment and “romantic” Ranveer for the audience Q&A.

If Simi Ain’t Kiki For You, She’s Just Not That Into You
So far, Simi has reserved Kiki for her younger male guests. So while John Abraham was spared from making her acquaintance, Ranbir Kapoor and Abhay Deol were not. Perhaps Ranveer Singh felt a tad insecure nearing the end of the episode when Garewal still hadn’t brought out her baby-voiced alter-ego. And thus, he did what no sane man/human would ever do: he asked for her. Garewal, never one to fob off flattery, was only too happy to oblige. Kiki repeatedly asked Singh why he was angry with her. Singh tried his best to look unperturbed but after the eighth time Kiki posed the same question to him, he had unequivocally earned our wrath for resurrecting her.

When You Say “Penalty”, I Hear “Action”
Singh’s “Truth Bucket” segment was probably the longest for any episode so far this season, simply because he chose a penalty for almost every question. He refused to “name an actor or director who is a closet gay”, “name an over-hyped director” or even rate his “sex appeal on a scale of one to 10”. When asked to carry a girl back to her seat or slow dance with another, Singh once again switched into performance mode. He not only looked dreamily into his teenaged fan’s eyes, but even planted a peck on her cheek. The only time we actually didn’t feel like cringing was in the last segment, when Singh performed an obviously rehearsed rap song. His rhymes though cheesy, acknowledged that he is seen as a one hit wonder, and in a episode that felt more like a screen test, it seemed, strangely enough, like the one honest moment in a hour full of fakery.

CRINGE FACTOR
Ranveer Singh: 9/10
Simi Garewal: 8/10

SEE ALSO
• Recaps of previous episodes of Simi Selects India’s Most Desirable