When Bigg Boss was watching me!

What could possibly be the equivalent of a quasi lifethreatening valiant warreporting for entertainment journalism And no watchingreviewing a bunch of really bad movies doesnt even come close to volunteering oneself for 24 hours of physical confinement with no access to a cellphone or a clock while 90 closecircuit cameras and a microphone slung across your chest record your every move along with 13 people you barely know besides that theyre all fine entertainment fieldreporters in their own rightSalman Khan as the host on Bigg BossIm obviously talking about getting into the Bigg Boss house permanently located in Lonavala that has been churning out selfinvented celebrities much before social media in Indian households for a decadeThe show is in its 11th season already It inevitably unites Indian TV voyeurs each yearThe concept is pretty simple You lock up a dozenplus people from different backgrounds temperaments a carefully curated set of oddballquirky characters into a house for 15 weeks You deny them any sort of contact with the real world But for the booming voice of the Bigg Boss who sets the rules of the house and instructs them to do as he pleasesThe living roomThe TV screen in our living rooms literally becomes an open window into their lives inside the house The inmates compete against each other for both survival cooking cleaning performing weird tasks and popularity making sure they dont get kicked outEvery week a contestant gets voted out of the houseWhat does it take to live in such a wilfullydesigned competitive hellhole Besides the lure of money of course the longer you stay in the house the fatter your pay chequeFrankly organisers of this surreal trip were themselves surprised that I really wanted to check the Bigg Boss house out Ive my own socioanthropological reasons Kyunki har ghar kuch kehta hai Every house says something this one as I step in screamed Im gonna to screw your brains The house is essentially a riot of jarring colours fake apples paintings of green jungles massive motifs of horses in glassysilver and multicoloured shirtbuttons mounted on the wall alongside unrelated popart in deepred all overCommon sleeping arrangements are made for contestants in the houseAs for the inherent vibe without getting into specifics artdirector Omung Kumar told us later about having turned the basic rules of vaastu shastra on its head for where a kitchen should be or the doors and the likeIts hard to find a quiet corner in this 19400 square feet 1 BHK Bedroom Hall Kitchen Unless you step into the frontyard with fake grass and a babypool Or simply seek solace in human company As 14 of us did naturally gravitating towards the large circular dining table first trying to break the ice introducing ourselves what we specifically do for a living where we come from etcThere was much initial thrill and consequent bonhomie Ive to say But this isnt a picnic Was never meant to be At some point weve all similarly been on trains for 24 hours or soThe confession roomBut a journey even if in a small compartment with strangers for all its anticipation and promise is different from the eventual destination which is what the Bigg Boss house in itself is It doesnt take too long for the novelty to wear off or even get to youPatience is the key we were told by the production crew while being briefed before entering I agreeCouple of hours in three inmates among us had already been kicked out of the mansion based on a secret ballot held inside the Bigg Bosss confession room None of us took this eviction seriously Therere guys in the group whod participated in this social experiment held only twice before when the muchguarded Bigg Boss house has been thrown open for a journalistic experience But those stays had lasted only few hours Ones ousted had instantly returned No such signs here God knows what the Bigg Boss had in mind This inherent unpredictability equally true for how contestants might react is partly the reason for the shows successAs a pall of gloom and guilt naturally set into the otherwise excited group I asked some inmates why they believed those three had to leave One of the social outcasts hadnt spoken much or at all in fact The second seemed too farout which may actually work for TV audiencesThe kalkothri aka jail to imprison rulebreakersThe third perhaps a regular Bigg Boss viewer appeared excessively selfaware of how one should be inside the house with cameras and contestants around Im not sure if any of these reasons were true At least in my mind at no point did I feel particularly conscious of the cameras following every step Maybe this comfort automatically flowed from a preknowledge that none of this was really being televised So what if a 70minute episode edited from the 24 hours we spent in the Bigg Boss house would eventually show up online Who besides the said tenants themselves might really care for a day in the lives of 14 relatively unknown scribes thrust on a screen with no context at allI wondered if others would behave the same being terribly shy or exceedingly exuberant without the cameras prying eyes Meeting them separately after this experience is the only way for me to find outAt least one other fellowinmate who Id known a little from before seemed no different to me I asked if hed change if there were a competition and the possibility of a prize thrown into the mix Of course Id apply my mind form groups plan my move he saidBut the lens that inevitably turns us into posers isnt all there is to it Theres also the inexplicably instinctive comfort one finds in revealing deepest secrets when placed among strangers This became clear as I witnessed five inmates narrating the most trying moments from their professionalpersonal lives as a task handed to them by Bigg BossYou could sense a smiley public face seamlessly peeling off to reveal men and women whod been through a lot to get to where they are A womans teenaged story on fighting off goons every day in her Uttar Pradesh hometown almost drove us to tears So did the other slightly tragic but inspiring talesSimilarly I didnt hold myself back later in the night being interviewed on my personal relationships during what was simply a fun groupchat I never thought this was ever possible with me without some alcohol involved The hourlong Bigg Boss dare on the other hand was moreserious partly physical mostly outlandish The five inmates who were made to go through these tasks including recalling their darkest memories had been chosen by the three people who had been initially removed from the houseThey held these five chiefly responsible for their exit Bigg Boss allowed them to wreak vengeance upon any two of them whose performances they didnt like very much They were thrown into a makebelieve but a rather realistic jail in the frontyardCollectively outraged by this injustice the entire group sat before the cage chatting with the two social animals who had been put behind bars The rest of the mansion is anyway a human zoo created for public entertainment This is when the Bigg Boss called me over to the confession room to discuss at length what I really thought of his house and the showI told him roughly about how I felt the world looking simultaneously for survival and approval was itself a Bigg Boss house on a grander scale Or perhaps the Bigg Boss house was simply a microcosm of many human realities politics rivalries power and the Orwellian dystopia Big Brother is watching you condensed into the temporary lives and times of a few guinea pigs who we could all watch and learn about ourselves from There were some trustissues involved when I got back from the confession room Itd been long Nobody knew exactly what had gone on between Bigg Boss and I all this while Some didnt believe when I told them what wed spoken about Also I sensed soon enough the fear of authority percolated into the human mind rather easily for Bigg Boss to stop being a game but a seemingly frightening realityThe three ousted inmates who had been moved to the Padosi Ghar nextdoor did eventually return to the original Bigg Boss house Its impossible to tell what time of the night that wasI was then the jailor given charge of the prisons key The returnees had been told to get me to unlock the cell and free the two prisonersFearing some silly punishment or the other I said I wouldnt until the Bigg Boss instructed me to do so himself He eventually didThe public policy of divide and rule had been mildly attempted with this group quite early on anyway with everyone having been asked to point out two things they didnt like about the person sitting next to them Its hard to take such things seriously fromabout people you hardly knowBut what about a person who has been collectively proclaimed a social pariah by the same group that had shown her the door in the afternoon and to which she had rejoined at nightSo what if this is just a game She had apparently watched a live footage sitting in the Padosi Ghar where one of the inmates had allegedly called her unimpressive Im sure that was a joke too Maybe not to her At dinner quite out of the blue she began pouring out her pain The tutu meinmein lasted over a couple of hours past midnight for sureIf I were watching this episode on TV Id automatically assume this altercation is scripted This was unimaginably for real and possibly how humans might behave when theyre hurt and let alone contact with the outside world there are no means to distract the mind indoors either no books TV cellphone or real friends I still think her public reaction was rather silly But thats another matterWhat else did I learn about myself or 13 others in a laboratory condition that is pretty much the opposite of vipasna given that social isolation had instead forced each to interact with the other Its hard to immediately distil a pretty overwhelming experience Or look in so instantly as an outsiderBut some of my basic observations did confirm what Ive often assumed about groups of desi unknowns Foremost that they often organically split themselves between genders first the men intuitively huddle up towards the men likewise the women This segregation although transient in this case began while we were still at the waiting room seeking entry to the houseLanguage is another barrier that naturally splits a group In the Indian scenario where the HindiEnglish divide denotes more than language alone it wasnt surprising to even sense subtle resentment between the sets of inmates comfortable with one language over the other although speaking strictly in Hindi is the Bigg Boss houseruleAbove all my stay possibly proved a personal theory that the most underrated human distinction is whether youre intrinsically a morning or a night person This isnt to suggest ones better than the other only very different depending on the time of the day Having had an exhausting latenight chatting up with a few while a fair portion of the group had slept off I was jolted from my sleep in the morning with loudspeakers blaring the Daler Mehndi Bhangra song Ho Gayi Teri Balle BalleI could literally kill someone for doing this I saw a couple of inmates dancing to the song on their mattresses instead I was glad this was my first and last morning in the house Coming back to how far youd go as a journalist to serve the reader I did eventually step out of the Bigg Boss warfield wounded like a brave soldier with a deep gash in my bleeding arm that the inhouse doctor attended to with six quick stitches You may not be particularly in awe of how I got injured playing pakdam pakdae tag in the living room Bigg Boss bid farewell to the group telling them about how everybody was leaving his house with yaadein memories while I was with a nishaani a mark Scarred for life huh