Where I hang out with the guy who's been subtly manipulating 15 odd brains for 15 weeks, every year, for over a decade on TV
The Bigg Boss confession room
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It's just the whole razzmatazz, the fact that it's on TV, which gives Bigg Boss the veneer of an entertainment programmme. It's essentially a social experiment," says the severely soft-spoken, salt-and-pepper haired, middle-aged gent I'm huddled up with in a corner of the Bigg Boss House green-room in Lonavla.
He bears a rather understated demeanour. The outsiders in the room have no clue who he is. And while a lot of our conversation remains "off-the-record", upon his insistence, I'm still not allowed to name him. So what should do I call him? By his designation, obviously. He is Bigg Boss. Not the booming voice that instructs/reads from a script on the TV show. Not Salman Khan, who hosts the show over weekends. But Bigg Boss - as in the hyperactive brain behind a massive creative team glued to multiple monitors, observing 19 inmates (in the case of Season 11) around the clock, devising tasks, farming out television stories, for 105 days flat, as ratings relentlessly soar.
"Everyone in the team holds an editorial position, not a 'creative' one," the Boss tells me, likening his show to a news daily, without an editorial/op-ed page. "We have no point of view, we report as we see it - only deciding on how long a certain story (depending on its context, relevance, and interest value) should play out in an episode - not very different from how newspapers have page one, lead, second lead, and so on." The other analogy the Boss uses often is cricket, wherein a day's play is reduced to its highlights, without affecting the natural sequence of events, or actual timeline - from the first contestant in the house waking up, to the last one going off to sleep. The reason I'm with the Bigg Boss for about an hour - having already spent 24 hours inside his house with journalists as, again, a "social experiment" - is to pick his brains on what the show tells us, about us. And whether any set of people, living together for weeks, under a spotlight, wholly segregated from the outside world, would produce the same result as Bigg Boss.
The contestants, he says, are very carefully curated - from varied socio-economic backgrounds, and mental temperaments. They have an eye on the prize. It's a game. The only time, the Boss admits, he got it wrong, was Season 9, when everyone appeared so passive about the whole thing, "feeling superior and tolerant" that it seemed like they didn't care. It was only Priya Malik's appearance in the house that changed the game for the dysfunctional group. Otherwise, two things are clear. You get eliminated, because the housemates nominate you first. You're then in the list of homies that the audience can vote you out from. The one with the least votes from the list leaves - every week. How do you play this? One, by having enough folk on your side, so you don't get nominated at all. And if you are, then by being seen sufficiently through the nomination week on the show that summarises 24 hours into 45 minutes daily - so the audience notices you enough to want you to stay.
"You could form a strong coterie. Or just not care a damn (like Gautam Gulati in Season 8, or Urvashi Dholakia in Season 6). Both work. Either way, it's impossible that your real personality won't show, even without you quite realising it. Bigg Boss isn't a skill/talent-based reality show. You win or lose on the basis of your personality (that simply attracts the public, sometimes unbeknownst to us)."
There are, of course, some obvious strategies, he says. When Aijaz Khan entered Bigg Boss Season 7, "Gauahar Khan was already the heroine of the house. Armaan Kohli was the dude. So he smartly flirted with the heroine, and took on the hero." As for inherent headship where, in any interaction (let alone a group), there is a natural leader and a follower, the Boss insists, depends on circumstances, and the quality of peers. Kamya Punjabi (in Season 7), he recalls, would've been the chief of any other house, but she couldn't form a group, because of those she had to contend with (Tanishaa Mukerji, etc). And it's got to do with the choices you make (action), rather than repute, as well: "Once the door shuts behind you, so does the awe, and respect you generate (in the long run). (Popular actor) Rahul Dev was Rahul Sir to everyone in Bigg Boss (Season 10). But when he didn't speak up when he had to, they (natural followers) 'katoed' (backed off)."
The show eventually boils down to public voting. Hina Khan and Shilpa Shinde were the last two contestants left on Bigg Boss Season 11 last night. By their self estimation, Khan had made it thus far because she was "confident and competitive," while Shinde had "been herself." Shinde eventually won. My aunt, who's watched every episode of every season of Bigg Boss, told me Shinde had swung the Marathi vote. Sounds like Indian elections to me!
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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