Imagine a continuous stream of foam balls bombarding you left, right and centre. If can't go so imaginative, tune in to Firoz’s banter. The ‘kidilam’ RJ — a self-given moniker meaning ‘superb’ on his early radio days — who had gone off the radar for sometime is back and all the more, he dons the hat of a VJ with equal panache in this second coming, reviving an old-school telephile favourite phone-in format through Telephone Maniphone.
He extends an invite for the viewers to have a 30-minute fun-loaded snack-time over a cup of steaming coffee and freebies they can take home at the end.
Heading a private FM channel in Thiruvananthapuram, this Limca Record holder takes credit on his “unpolished” nature that puts him at ease to strike a rapport with the speaker on the other end. “I assure that people who start speaking to me with a heavy-heart never go back in the same way. For happy souls, I assure their happiness is not even down by a whisker. In both TV and radio, interaction has a decisive role to play.
Things lie beyond a one-on-one communication. I like to have a chat with someone in the same way I speak sitting inside the living room in my home,” he clarifies.
In a lighter vein, Firoz compares his style to the way we chomp down a plate of hot and sweet mixture with tea. So what was he in absentia? Firoz was roaming around in the Middle East in a journey from Kidilam Firoz to Firoz Azeez.
Working with a radio in Dubai, he shifted base to Qatar with an intention to open his own radio, where things slipped out of his hand. Facing hardships of sorts sans materialising his dream, he flew back to the home ground. “Media world came enticing me for no reason when I was in eighth standard. There was no purging it after that. I have not mapped out anything. But I know that I’ll do something or the other.
The producer of my show has left with me the freedom to present the programme in my way. I was told to get Kidilam Firoz seated on a chair, chat coolly and make others happy,” he says.
Alternatively, the show is hosted by another presenter in his slot. Outside the fun and frolic, Firoz says, each and every encounter with a new person enriches his knowledge about people and places. The half-an-hour show goes on air for five days a week.
