PeepingMoon.com’s ‘BenchMARK Conversations’ last week by Mark Manuel, powered by Reliance Digital and featuring the shy, charming Abhishek Bachchan, went viral and set fire to the Internet. It was liked, picked up, and shared by almost every Indian media organisation. Major newspapers, from Times of India, Statesman and Deccan Chronicle to Hindustan Times, Mathrubhoomi and Indian Express, made their own stories out of the 1 hour and 12 minutes long podcast. Some like the Times Group broke it up into five and six stories. All the leading TV channels including Times Now, ET Now, India Today, Republic World, NDTV, India TV News, News 24, and ABP Live English, grabbed segments from the podcast and ran tickers in their news bulletins. And our contemporary dotcoms engaged in covering Bollywood, like Pinkvilla, BollywoodShaadis, MensXP, Moneycontrol, Hungama Express, Filmfare, iDiva, Bollywood Life, Movie Talkies, and India.com, used the podcast’s content to their own advantage.
The thing is, Abhishek Bachchan who is otherwise always reticent, opened up to Mark Manuel whom he knows since his “school days in half-pants” and spoke his heart out on the ugly divorce rumours that have been hounding Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and him in the media over the years. He also revealed private details of daughter Aradhya Bachchan (“She is 14 but doesn’t have a mobile”), Pa Amitabh Bachchan (“He never watches the TV when India is playing a cricket final”) and Mother Jaya Bachchan (“She held us kids together when Pa was clinically dead after the Coolie accident in 1982”) that were never made public before.
Watch the podcast on:
