Reality bytes

The television show Sach Ka Saamna, based on the international Moment Of Truth, has run into some hot water. The contestants on Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao, the Indian version of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, have run into more creepy-crawlies and yucky gunk than they are used to dealing with and want more hot water (among other things), or else they will get out of there. And all other reality shows have a strangely déjà vu flavour, like you have seen them before on other reality shows. Which is not a huge problem, except that the “other reality shows” are actually any other reality show, since there are so many of them being beamed – some not too happily – into homes all over this great and glorious country. Some have been stopped because of woefully low viewership, others have legal blocks, some never found participants and a few faded gently out into the sunset by themselves, gracefully knowing when to stop, usually before TRPs sank so low that they needed to be revived to exit.

I rarely watch reality shows unless they involve some degree of song and, more relevant for me, dance. My favourites are American Idol and Jhalak Dikhla Jaa – the latter I had to learn to like, since I was working on a project based on the show and needed to be semi-intelligent about what was going on each week. I also sat through episodes of Saas vs Bahu (dreadful dance! Though the judges were occasionally fun), Zara Nachke Dikha (where everyone behaved badly, Malaika wore little and most of the significant cast from a funny hospital drama currently on seemed to be there in some form), Dance India Dance and more that I cannot possibly remember the names of. I did watch some of Saroj Khan’s Nachle Ve, mainly because I had just met her and found her fabulous. And I tried to peep into Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega, more because I had spoken to Farah Khan only a few days earlier and liked her blunt matter-of-factness and professionalism. I was fascinated by the people who contorted their bodies into strange configurations, but was so put off by the burping contest that two wannabe entertainers had that I never had the nerve to switch to that particular channel again. Horrors!

But somehow I never could watch anything with bugs. As in, real live insects, creeping and crawling all over some poor misguided individuals who would do almost anything to be in the limelight and win some shekels. So Khatron Ke Khiladi never made it to my must-see list, neither has Iss Jungle… I could never watch people being made to squirm or cry or otherwise feel like they should never have agreed to do that show. And so things like Moment Of Truth and its Indian equivalent – which the audiences are said to like, but the courts object to – are no-nos. I did sit through a bit of the celebrity shows, from the Amitabh Bachchan-helmed Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Shah Rukh Khan avatar of the same game and his Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain?, Govinda’s Chappar Phaad Ke, something really awful with Manisha Koirala - and was it Anupam Kher? - and, of course, Salman Khan’s Dus Ka Dum which, frankly, is the best of the lot, his strange grin and his even stranger accent notwithstanding. But they are classic time-pass, that wonderful typically Mumbaiyya descriptor that covers anything without much sense and some entertainment value.

So what is a good reality show? Who knows! One that people watch right through, would be a good answer to that one. Like American Idol, like even Indian Idol, like who knows what else makes viewers want to eat super-fast or delay dinner to sit on the sofa and become glued to the small screen, bug-eyed, open-mouthed and rivetted. For me, I know what works. And I will stick with that, thank you very much!