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Reality Check
(India Today Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)At a press conference in Mumbai last week, TV actor Aashka Goradia (better known as Kumud from Kkusum) talked about her new role as the hostess of StarOne's show Jet Set Go to hit TV screens on March 10. "No saris, no mangalsutras, no sindoor and no bindi; for once I will get to be myself." The hostesses of the show-Goradia, Tasneem Shaikh, Kiran Dubey and Gurdip Kohli-are breathing a sigh of relief. They are finally free from the identities their soap characters have imposed on them.Television is soon going to see a new kind of reality programming. At least four new shows are featuring TV stars, as themselves. No more Tulsis and Parvatis and Gangas (SS 😆😆😆). The same faces who shed crocodile tears to woo audiences and TRPs are readying for crazy feats and adrenaline-pumping games.In Jet Set Go, four hostesses will each pick a person randomly from the streets and offer him/her a fully paid trip abroad. The only catch: the chosen ones have to leave immediately. Whichever hostess can get her contestant to the airport earliest (within four hours), wins.
Of late, TV stars are shedding their onscreen personas and saying hello to couch potatoes as themselves. While they made the odd appearance on game shows such as Bluffmaster and Super Sale (both on StarOne), these were more exceptions than the rule. The new Page 3 stars are now feted, written about, interviewed for talk shows, asked to display their new homes and even newer wheels and encouraged to offer tidbits of their personal life to the voyeuristic world. "TV stars are more popular because they become part of the viewers' daily routine. To see what makes them tick is always more interesting," says Anupama Mandloi, senior vice-president, head on-air, programming, Sony Entertainment Television.
The show that sparked off the trend was a spinoff from Sony's Fame Gurukul called Celebrity Fame Gurukul, intended as a short-duration programme for charity. Featuring TV stars such as Smita Bansal, Bobby Darling, Tanaaz Currim and Bakhtiyar Irani, it didn't excite viewers much but triggered a real-life relationship between Currim and Irani. But what really got this new kind of reality TV going was StarOne's dance show Nach Baliye, which had TV's hip and hot married couples shaking their booty for a Rs 50 lakh prize.
Now, the trend is on fire. Coming up on March 4 on Star Plus is Jodee Kamaal Ki, a show hosted by Rakshanda Khan which replaces Kaun Banega Crorepati 2 and tests couple compatibility through fun games in a studio. The first season is full of the usual suspects: Delnaz and Rajiv Paul, Manish and Poonam Goel, Rohit and Manasi Roy, Mihir and Maninee Mishra, as well as Archana and Parmeet. On why the channel decided to go with TV stars, Deepak Segal, executive vice-president, content, Star India, says, "TV stars have become reference points, whether it's their clothes or their homes. The potential of being a TV star rather than a TV actor is immense."
Sony's new adventure daredevil reality shows, Fear Factor India and Paisa Bhari Padega, are going further, removing their stars from the confines of the studios, sans makeup, sans image. Fear Factor, produced in India by Endemol and hosted by Mukul Dev, flew 36 TV stars to Malaysia, including Chetan Hansraj, Akashdeep Sehgal, Vikas Bhalla, Manav Gohil, Mandira Bedi and Shweta Kawaatra. Starting March 10, the stars will battle for the Rs 10 lakh prize offered at the end of each episode. Interspersed with the celeb episodes will be those with regular contestants, "The celebrity episodes are great fun to watch because you never imagined a Tina Parekh or Shweta Salve getting into a glass case filled with real snakes. They do, and you marvel at their courage," says Mandloi. And the stars were so excited about doing the show that they did it for free.
Bedi, who won the Rs 10-lakh prize, says she prefers to be on TV as herself. She hosts Deal Ya No Deal on Sony and had burst onto the small screen as Shanti in 1995 but tasted stardom only with the cricket World Cup in 2003. "I enjoy this, there's no script and people like you for what you say and for your personality." Archana Puran Singh, another TV celebrity, feels, "You need to have something more that makes you bigger than your character, makes you rise above your role."
The other reality show is Sony's Paisa Bhari Padega, a format created by FBC India (who produced Lakme Fashion House). Hosted by Sandhya Mridul and Purab Kohli, the show has contestants competing in a hurdle race with a backpack of money, reducing their load by giving away cash during the race (literally paisa bhari padega). Whoever finishes with the maximum money wins. The show features some 30 TV stars such as Achint Kaur, Shraddha Nigam and Gaurav Gera competing in Rishikesh, where it was shot with regular contestants as well.
Rajesh Kamat, MD, Endemol India, feels this new celeb reality "makeup off, you want to see them as they are" will become popular. "These stars work with the same set of audiences who watch them as characters on shows. It could be a housewife hooked to X character, so to expose her to the 'reality' of this person is a novelty," he says.
The reality TV horizon is getting broader. No more will it be only about aspiring talent from small towns making it big in Mumbai or about sob stories and village backgrounds. Instead, it's TV stars, up close and personal, unveiled and unleashed. Come as you are, as Nirvana would say.
Pati Patni Aur Panga
