Janaki Viswanathan meets India's burgeoning breed of contest junkies who stay stuck to TV all day long, trawl websites, send mass SMSes, hold the phone for hours...all to win IT'S midnight, but the Gulati household in Ghaziabad is buzzing. The television drones and cell phones are on standby as the Gulatis wait for the Gold Safe contest of the day to unfold. God of night games Anuj Gulati, 32 Has been playing Gold Safe on Imagine TV for six months <table style="width: 105px; height: 292px" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="105" border="1"> <tbody> <tr> <td><img alt="" src="/imagedata/2010/apr/contests.jpg" border="0" /></td></tr> <tr> <td> Anuj and Preeti Gulati put the world on hold every night between midnight and 2 am while trying their luck on Gold Safe. Pic/Rajeev Tyagi</td></tr></tbody></table> The puzzle is ridiculously simple. A section of an actress' face (either eyes or nose or lips) appears on screen, the rest of the face is blanked out. Viewers call in, hold the line for anything from two minutes to two hours -- their calls may or may not be taken on the show. Call taken and right answer: bam, you just won Rs 20,000. "The first time I called in September last year, I had to hold the line for so long, my mobile balance ran out. I tried again two weeks later, but was unlucky," recalls Anuj. In December 2009, when he lost all hope, Anuj's call was taken. "I won Rs 20,000," he says. And he never stopped playing. At midnight, this engineering college canteen owner plants himself in front of the TV, and doesn't move till 2 am. He calls every night, holds the line for two hours, and pays a bill of Rs 6,800 without complaining. "Luck ki baat hai," is his justification and lament. Anuj is confident he has the right answer 99 times out of 100. u00a0 "If my call was taken in every show, I'd have bought my own flat by now." Social life, friends and relatives are on hold for those two hours as husband and wife stay glued to the tube. Now, that's loyalty. Or addiction? Or something else? Maximum money risk: Rs 1,440 over two hours A very long addiction Saahil Kalvani, 27 Has 15 years' experience as a contestphile Nearly 1,000 km away in Mumbai, Kalvani needs a little fix before bedtime. He checks into Chennai-based Daniel Mangalraj's blog to look for contest commentary, or logs on to Twitter and searches for 'contests India' to check if he has missed anything. Unlikely Kalvani, who works with social media company Wind Chimes, has been a contestphile for 15 years. He took off in style, winning passes to a Bryan Adams' concert on a radio show. Till date, he has won more than 200 prizes -- movie tickets, concert passes, mugs ("I get that a lot"), pen drives, Blackberry phones, touch-screen iPods and clothes. Money? No. Just winning gives him a high. He's always ready to fill out a form, write a slogan, complete a sentence, scratch a voucher, send an SMS (or multiple), make a call, log on to a website and call into a radio show. "A lot of people are cynical. They think they won't win anything. They don't want to put any effort into contests. But I enjoy it. I like winning stuff," he says. His parents were opposed to his addiction as studies were suffering. They've come around. "My dad took the Blackberry I won, so I guess we are all winners," he says. Friends ask him to list their names for contests, which give out free clubbing nights or movie previews. "I recently won passes for the opening of the Manchester United Bar at the Palladium, and took some of my friends along," he says. Maximum money risk: Varies but rewards make up for that Luck for some Rashmi Athalkar, 27 Plays online games to win T-shirts and movie tickets Saahil got his friend Rashmi Athalkar involved in his addiction. "He's unbelievably lucky, he participates in everything," exclaims Rashmi, assistant manager for content at HMV Saregama. Saahil often pings her with information of latest contests either online or anywhere possible. But Rashmi, who has been at it for the last five years, still hasn't won. She tries her hand only on the Internet. "That way, I have nothing to lose. I don't like entering contests in which the telecom companies mint money," she says. The last contest she entered was Pepsi The Game campaign. She plays to win T-shirts, movie tickets and vouchers. "I'm not giving up," she says. Maximum money risk: none Will play, will win Raman Kumar Malhotra, 55 Three years and a Rs 9-lakh win haven't made him a dull man... Or a satisfied man, for that matter. The Delhiite still continues to buy four to five 'Myplaywin.com cards' that cost Rs 500 each. These help gamers who use their mobiles to play the lottery. He sends up to 12 messages every day.u00a0 "I didn't win anything in the last three years, but I kept trying. I never lost hope," he says. After his Rs 9 lakh win, Raman is hoping to hit more jackpots. He has spent approximately Rs 38,880 in three years at Rs 3 per SMS, and 12 SMSs per day. Card costs extra. Maximum money risk: Rs 3 per SMS Rs 500 per card The contest makers Pradeep Menon, executive vice president, Cellcast, traces interactive media back to opinion polls. "It was a one-way interaction though, and the common man had no way of knowing how his vote influenced the poll." In 2005, Cellcast brought in Bid2Win, their flagship show. It was instant gratification. A caller bidding for prizes would be informed of his win then and there. Bid2Win has clocked 50 million responses and Rs 8 million in revenue. The main players of Cellcast's games are from small towns, mostly from the north. They like hard cash as opposed to goodies. For many, taking part in 'call in' or 'SMS' based games is like a business, especially up north. "One man would buy multiple SIM cards just to play. They make calls or send SMSes from dawn to dusk," says an industry source. But long before Bid2Win made mobiles the new gaming equipment, Zee had introduced Playwin in 2002. Gurpreet Bakshi, vice president, marketing, says the channel took the country's popular money-spinner -- 'lottery' -- to another level. "It was made very transparent and like in the US and the UK, players could choose their own numbers," he says. Super Lotto on Thursdays and Saturdays and Thunderball on Tuesdays give out cash prizes of up to Rs 5.17 lakh. Big game hunting 73 crorepatis Playwin has created since its launch in 2002. 4 crorepatis KBC has produced in three seasons. 1 crorepati 10 ka Dum has produced in two seasons. 3400u00a0lakhpatis Playwin has created since its launch in 2002. 4 lakh tickets sold by Playwin every day across the board. Socially speaking Delhi-based sociologist Aditi Desai agrees that the obsession with contests and game shows is high in India, especially among the youth, because of our fascination with greenbacks, and our laziness. "Despite being educated, youngsters are looking to make a quick buck without working for it. Often, they get duped. We, as a society, need to take a stand against this." The handbook How to increase your chances of winning Be an early bird: Like Gold Safe winner Anuj Gulatiu00a0 (Rs 20,000), call in as soon as the show begins and the puzzle is flashed on screen. Don't wait for the two-minute windows. u00a0 Keep at it: As the recorded message tells you, the trick is to keep holding, and not to disconnect the line. Use multiple channels: Call from multiple lines to increase possibilities of your call being picked up. Others' loss works: If someone who got through gave a wrong answer, your chances just got better. Getting inside the player's mind The obsession with participating in contests is usually seen among men aged 17 to 43, according to Mumbai-based clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Seema Hingorrany. A few months ago, an engineering student's parents consulted her about their son's obsessive-compulsive personality trait. "He had watched a TV ad that offered a huge cash prize. He grew obsessed with winning it. He stopped attending college, would lock himself up in his room and send hundreds of SMSes," says Hingorrany. He won nothing except severe bouts of depression. "The young want quick money. Everyone wants to be a millionaire. The number of such cases I get have gone up from two to eight per cent in the recent past." She puts down the obsession to: Their constant need to prove themselves The thrill of playing, getting easy money Instant gratification The forecast Advent of advergaming Pepsi's The Game campaign involving actors Ranbir Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt is a new mode of marketing using contests, and could be the window to the future of contests. Viewers help Ranbir through a three-level contest for a jackpot of Rs 50 lakh. The contest is played on mobiles or by logging on to the Pepsi Facebook page. Sandeep Singh Arora, executive vice president, marketing, PepsiCo India, calls it advergaming. "We have found that our target audience (18-24) loves demonstrating quick thinking." Within five days, the first level had recorded 10 lakh responses. Telecomm service provider Idea Cellular's Oongli Cricket campaign sees contestants answer one question for every IPL match, and receive Value Added Services as prizes. Big-ticket, celebrity-driven concept game shows like KBC or Dus Ka Dum will continue to rule, say industry insiders. The other trend likely to get bigger is of voice responses -- you are asked a recorded question and if you give the correct answer, you immediately go to the next level.

Janaki Viswanathan meets India's burgeoning breed of contest junkies who stay stuck to TV all day long, trawl websites, send mass SMSes, hold the phone for hours...all to win

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