I stopped watching the current season after Ketaki Dave's exit. The dirt-game was a bit too much to watch. Have been catching up with bits through rushes and news once in a while, and was not too pleased. The show, manipulations and back-biting looked so tailor-made to suit Rahul Mahajan's emergence as a winner. He has had his way too, just as most other men on the show.
It was only after his exit and for the finale that we switched to Colors. The finale looked a pretense no doubt, despite the euphoria. That there is a lot of planning and scheming in a reality show, has been debated enough. But I want to concentrate on we the people, as viewers. It showed that there is a voyeur among us TV viewers, lurking and wanting to take pleasure in someone else's angry outbursts, love affair, fight and manipulation. It shows how we are gender biased in our values too.
Sambhavna Seth was too loud with her flare-ups and foul language. She hated Raja and still danced with him sensuously. So she became the `bad' woman. In fact, early on in the show, Sanjay Nirupam raised questions about her character for being the `item girl' that she was. It is true I found her trying to ape Rakhi Sawant too. But I was willing to forgive her on that because everyone else was trying to be someone else from the first season. But loud women are not usually wanted around by men. They would rather have no women at all if they want to win.
The men and some other women in the House made sure she got out. Payal was no less though she tried her best to act more dignified and stuck to her `only friend' Rahul. Eventually she was shown the door too.
As for Monica, the once-upon-a-time gangster flame, she shot to people's hearts with her `I-am-not-so-bad tears early on. But whoever said she was demure! She was very much part of all the scheming by the power-heads in the group. She had to swallow her own words after Rahul, who had no qualms in professing love on the show, dismissed her as `just a friend'.
Ketaki Dave, a genuine one among the lot, was shown the door way too early, by the inmates and by the public, for her` cooking being not so good'. Not one to play games or politics, the public preferred to get her out, swayed enough by a Payal Rohatgi who blamed her for `sporting a bad expression against her' during the Krishna leela task, and by the other inmates who said her cooking was not tasty!
Am not sure if all or any of the inmates were willing to help or take over the kitchen when it was needed. But are we not taught to say Annadaata Sukhibhava as children? It is not right to scheme against someone who is making an effort to feed you. Instead a Raja who tried ordering her around stayed on till the end of the show.
Alina who did all the cleaning and cooking also got treated like a maid, and got accused of gossip, back-stabbing...the same gossip and back-stabbing that the men inmates indulged in.
The group had a few good men. Debojit and Ehsaan who tried best to stay off scheming. They were ousted. No qualms.
Rahul Mahajan, on the other hand played his game to the hilt. If Raja was an instigator whose game got visible, Rahul Mahajan's was a cleverly less visible game. He was someone the inmates accused of being too much of a Krishna, perching himself in the girls' room, cosying up with Payal and Monica (all in the same show) and in spite of all this, emerged a winner who sacrificed his crown for the sake of other inmates. In the end, for all the flirting and courting, he got away with the `just a friends' cliche. This, for a politician's son who has a recorded history of drugs, was accused of wife-battering, is going through a divorce and is even nursing political ambitions. His father belonged to the party that preaches `Hindutva values'.
Raja was the loudest, most temperamental, with a history of domestic violence and even hit a journalist on camera. He got in to Big Boss house to clear his name. But the last three months have seen him at his manipulative best, angry and ordering people around. The only guy he seemed to have a real equation with, was Rahul Mahajan. He got away with calling Sambhavna names, and managed even evade an eviction.
Not sure if it was for posterity's sake, but the two women who threw dirt at each other were made to patch up!
Diana was like a whiff of fresh air in the House and brought in some dignity. But if she got attracted to Ashutosh, us the viewers thought something was `wrong' with her, no matter how much Monica and Rahul indulged in their new found intimacy on the show or when Rahul and Payal had their moments.
And the winner was a guy often accused within the House for using foul language. Yeah he needed the money. He was from the village and was also accused of lack of hygiene (this is a subjective thought) by the inmates. It is not as if he played a completely clean game. If his girlfriend was Sonal, he still got too close to Diana. But we the viewers want winners out of nobodies.
We want to see those who need the money get the money. So that it gives us a semblance of hope for making it big some day, somewhere in the corners of our mind. It does not matter to us of the man in question has a clean image or not. We do fall for his realness. And make fool ourselves into thinking `they are after all human. They wanted to win, for the sake of their family...' Wish such thinking went in favour of women too. Were the women in the show not wanting to make their families proud too?
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