Article: Sting claims Rakhi Sawant's swayamvar is

Sting claims Rakhi Sawant's swayamvar is fixed

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. This is India. These things happen. And Rakhi Sawant is certainly not the saccharine Yash Raj heroine she is modelling herself on in the new NDTV Imagine show Rakhi Ka Swayamvar. On this show, which promises it will end with Rakhi's marriage, the actress talks super politely to the men who've been handpicked from among 12,000 suitors by NDTV Imagine and Sol Productions. Here's what I wrote in Lounge.

Her strange behaviour, it seems, was enough incentive to attract the paparazzi hounds who began sniffing around in Kashmir after contestant Ather Parvez was kicked out of the show when it turned out that he was a married man who had come on the show with his wife's blessings.

Now, Parvez says in a sting operation on E24 (a channel I never watch; I swear I was just surfing after a hard day's work) that the channel, the production house and Rakhi knew that he was married. He allegedly says the producers met his wife and kids and they said that the channel would tell him when to reveal the truth!

To repeated cries of suna aapne! (what joy tabloid television is), the channel cleverly juxtaposes an unrelated shot of Rakhi slapping her ex on a previous occasion because he pissed her off (see video here) and asks the question: How could the same Rakhi react so calmly to a contestant telling her that he was married?

Who knows what really goes on behind India's so called reality shows? The channel was very guarded publicity and reporters sitting in on the screening process; it only organized one very controlled, group visit for journalists to meet Rakhi on the set.

I'm not picking sides. You guys can decide who's lying, who's not and whether you even care. Meanwhile, The Indian Express even did a short piece on Parvez speaking to his brother and colleague--please note that the country's leading investigative newspaper didn't find out that this policeman from Kashmir was married.

There's no business like Indian show business.