Season 18 of Bigg Boss isn’t fit for even a donkey.
Ask Gadhraj or Max the gadha: He cantered off the show after the first week because the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals felt the contestants weren’t fit company for a donkey. Joking.
The poor animal had been caged outside the Bigg Boss premises here he brayed and prayed to be released. And so it came to pass: Host Salman Khan eliminated Max from the show within a week–he was the first one to go.
Truth be told, he hasn’t been missed much: The humans in the reality show frequently behave in an asinine manner.
Their constant bickering reminds you of the contestants — sorry, the guests — on TV news debates who yell at and interrupt each other and have been known to even physically assault one another. It’s much ado about nothing — a perfect description of the proceedings on Bigg Boss.
That probably explains why the reality TV show has welcomed a politician this time: Tajinder Bagga of the Bharatiya Janata Party is very much a part of the antics. Just caught him snoozing happily on a sofa.
More seriously, watch Bigg Boss if you don’t have enough squabbling and bickering in your own home, if you are forced to watch it, be jailed, and denied food. And, if you can’t get enough of Salman Khan with his hands jammed inside his jeans’ pockets.
Also read: Slaps, sex & saas-bahu—what Hindi TV serials say about ‘traditional family values’
Khan, the Bigg Boss God
Why does Khan strut about with his hands hidden from us? Haven’t you wondered about this for the longest time? Perhaps it should be a question on the next season of Kaun Banega Crorepati?
Anyway, there he was, as he is every season, jamming away, questioning and scolding the contestants on ‘Times Ka Tandav’. Each year, he grows older (obviously) and wearier – so would you if you had to host Bigg Boss.
In the opening episode, we peeped into the future and saw what Salman Khan will look like 15 years from now—well, he looked 15 years older, what did you expect?
Ah, but wait: This season, the all-knowing voiceover promises us that we can look into the past and future and change the present—or some such. Hence ‘Time ka Tandav’. So there is a Time God appointed inside the house: It’s contestant Afreen who is a life counsellor. Appropriate, right?
Khan is not governed by any Time God – he plays God. He is beginning to fray, though, at the edges: He seems to get angrier than before. When he ticked off Avinash Mishra for the “character assassination’’ of Chhahat Pandey on “national television’’, he sounded almost bitter: “Are you the god of this house? It seems you want to become the villain …Naam aapka Avinash hai par aap khud apna vinash kar doge. Vinash. Khatam.’’
He’s pretty much like this all the time. Is it perhaps time for Salman to, er, eliminate himself from the show?
Eat, sleep, fight, gossip
Bigg Boss certainly needs a makeover. It’s become sillier and sillier by the season.
This year, the contestants do nothing but sleep, eat, and fight. Gossip. Actually, they don’t even eat: The most critical controversy right now is that Avinash, who was in charge of the ‘rations’, doesn’t give others enough to eat – or give it when they ask for it.
This leads to a hungry Chhahat getting up in the middle of the night to throw water at him in his ‘jail’ – yes, he’s been jailed in the store with all the rations. Whereupon a drenched Avinash insults her by calling her ‘gavaar’ (uncouth). He claims she loves him and it’s because she wanted to see his manly chest that she threw water on him….
That brings their respective mothers into Bigg Boss: Sangeeta ji and Bhavna ji are seated on purple thrones, fit for queens and kings, while they join the battle…. It’s Parivar vs Parivar…
Inside the Bigg Boss house, there are factions and groups and bedside buddies…
Honestly, let’s not even go there.
War breaks about over who will wash the dishes—and who won’t clean someone else’s teapot (Avinash won’t). The tu- tu main-main continues from morning to night – it’s what they do, right? That’s the Bigg Boss mojo.
A typical fight goes something like this:
I didn’t like the tone you used with me…
I spoke in masti wali tone
That was not a masti wali tone
I don’t want to be spoken to like that by anybody
Sorry….
What a house
And so it goes on – between Salman Khan, his Bollywood guests who come to promote their latest films, the Time God, and the contestants who will exit one by one – life in the Bigg Boss house flits by.
And what a house it is. In fact, `house’ is too simple a word for it. More like a prehistoric cave from another planet. It’s all up down and around in nooks and corners. The beds look awfully uncomfortable, too.
Any moment you expect to encounter an ape, a UFO or even perhaps a donkey….
The author tweets @shailajabajpai. Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)