You are trapped in a room, no phone, no sleep, no food. Wouldn&rsquo;t you lose your sanity?
The Society Season 2, hosted by Munawar Faruqui on JioStar, leans hard into the latter.&nbsp;
Contestants are locked into a high-pressure, 250+ hour social game. The show is a capitalist micro-world, centred around class struggles. Contestants are divided into Royals, Regulars, and Rags, and have to fight for economic dominance, power, and, of course, survival.
It&rsquo;s a classic captive reality TV show. But what does it actually feel like to live inside that pressure cooker?
Content creator Ravish Shetty found that the only way to navigate such a show is with less strategy and to focus more on survival. &ldquo;I saw people desperate for fame, but jokes apart, I actually missed food made by my mom and my family,&rdquo; he says, cutting through the usual reality TV bravado.&nbsp;
<img title="Ravish Shetty" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/may/Someon-watching-yo-b_e.jpg" alt="Ravish Shetty" />
Shetty survived the initial eliminations in episode two, but was out by March 25, leaving behind 12 contestants who are still on the show.
The first few days, Shetty says, were about control, or at least, the illusion of it. &ldquo;You have been captive with some [strangers] people in the show. The first few days, I was guarding up just in case I had to throw a fist around.&rdquo;
But as captive formats are designed to break you, pressure soon trickles in. Shetty says that the pressure comes more from the unpredictability of the show than the competition. &ldquo;I was feeling pressured, thinking how unpredictable the game was. The more I tried to analyse the future move, the more I got disappointed. Also after a while, your strategy doesn&rsquo;t work when the game is twisted,&rdquo; he says.
The best move? Let instinct take over.
But if you thought that the dramatic fights would be the hardest part, think again. &ldquo;Less food, people around, less sleep, people constantly poking at you. These reasons are enough for a human to lose their temper,&rdquo; he explains.&nbsp;
Shetty admits the exhaustion was physical as well as emotional. &ldquo;I felt exhausted because of the lack of food in my body and the intuition that I might be cornered by everyone and be put in the elimination position&hellip; which I was.&rdquo;
Besides, the fact that you are constantly being watched on camera could not have been easy either. Does this make being &ldquo;real&rdquo; complicated? Shetty insists he didn&rsquo;t perform. &ldquo;I was being myself, that&rsquo;s how I am &mdash; bit unfiltered and raw,&rdquo; he says, adding that this too eventually became a tactic to survive the show. &ldquo;I had a mask on my face for like 12 episodes&hellip; but I didn&rsquo;t care about being myself and joking around.&rdquo;
And yet, the environment pushed him into versions of himself he did not fully recognise. &ldquo;I am not this aggressive in real life. I think the show puts you in such a spot that you start unleashing your inner demons,&rdquo; he says.
Captive reality shows are hard to be a part of. So, naturally, they do leave you with lessons. For Shetty, if there&rsquo;s one thing he learned, it&rsquo;s this: Trust is temporary.
&ldquo;Most of them [contestants] are strategic&hellip; reality shows are places where you can&rsquo;t expect people to be genuine. I was second-guessing and started trusting as well. But during the elimination, I got to know that no one can be trusted.&rdquo;
In hindsight, he says for him, the show was about understanding the mechanics of human behaviour under pressure. &ldquo;I guess understanding people&rsquo;s behaviour was more interesting than winning,&rdquo; he concludes.
<h2>Reality of reality TV in India</h2>
. &thinsp;India&rsquo;s reality TV segment has seen steady growth, accounting for nearly 40&ndash;45 per cent of primetime programming.
. &thinsp;Streaming platforms have amplified the genre, with youth-driven reality formats seeing higher engagement among ages 18&ndash;34.
. &thinsp;Social survival formats (Bigg Boss-style shows) consistently rank among the most-watched non-fiction properties in India.
. &thinsp;Viewer engagement spikes around conflict-heavy episodes, eliminations, and alliance shifts. This suggests audiences are as invested in psychology as they are in spectacle.

Ravish Shetty is on The Society Season 2, hosted by Munawar Faruqui on JioStar, has contestants who are locked into a high-pressure, over 250 hour social game

The Society Season 2 contestant Ravish Shetty; Someone’s always watching you

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Inside The Society, a 250-hour social experiment, tempers flare, and being authentic is the best strategy. We speak with contestant Ravish Shetty about the challenges of being under 24/7 surveillance

Ravish Shetty: Someone’s always watching you

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