Masters of reality (TV)

The names behind the biggest reality TV shows today—Aneesha Baig, Manu Maharishi and Naomi Datta—tell us what is it about fabulous lives that makes them good watching

Karan—that’s the one-word answer,” the three reply in unison. The context is that Karan Johar is the industry powerbroker with amorphous powers of persuasion—charm, a direct connection to every legacy family in the film industry, every Bolly-matriarch’s favourite son, and a producer with a finger in every entertainment pie.

The question was: Why would Riddhima Kapoor Sahni choose a reality show to make her screen debut? Why would eternal Delhi IT girl and business person Kalyani Saha Chawla? Or artist-philanthropist Shalini Passi?

Pic/iStock

Those being questioned are Aneesha Baig, Manu Maharishi and Naomi Datta, social alchemists behind some of the most watched reality shows. They have worked alone, and together, on Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives (FLBW), The Tribe and Follow Kar Lo Yaar (FKLY). 

Datta was Creative Director for FKLY which follows influencer Uorfi Javed and was produced by SOL productions for Amazon Prime. For FLBW, Datta serves as Creative Producer while Maharishi is show runner. Baig heads Non Fiction at Dharmatic Entertainment, the stable churning these shows out. We meet them at their Veera Desai Road office between the mastication of The Tribe (Maharishi, Creative Director; Datta, Creative Producer) and launch of season three of FLBW, Fabulous Lives vs Bollywood Wives. 

While the Bollywood wives are real life friends, Delhi society mavens only know each other socially, which is where the masala of Season 3 lies

This is momentous because it has lured Riddhima, who has steadfastly avoided the family business; and two other society mavens who do not need a boost in profile. They are not digital content creators taking their lives global from LA, like the Gen Z of The Tribe; nor do they need to lubricate the filmy ecosystem for the benefit of offspring or spouses. 

What is the draw of such intimacy with the camera, for both the participants and the audience, is what we are hoping these alchemists will tell us. “Shalini is a seeker of experiences,” Maharishi tells us. She grew up in Delhi and knew of art connoisseur Passi, and had told her team, even five years ago, that if they were to work on any project involving Delhi’s social scene, they must get Passi. “She’s one of a kind. You have to watch her. Just see her Insta feed. Just see it,” Maharishi and Baig, a former journalist, urges us and stop us there.

The Tribe’s appeal is in the gumption of desi content creators punching above their weight, trying to make a career out of a Reel-inspiring lifestyle in LA

Riddhima is straight and unapologetic in the vein of Maheep, the same chutzpah that draws us to Uorfi, Alanna Panday, Alaviaa Jaaferi, [angel investor] Hardik Zaveri. “Alaviaa says ‘Ya I could have done movies, but I didn’t want to’…” Datta tells us. Alfia Jafry starts off sweet and shaky at Alanna’s wedding brunch but surprises everyone with how she holds her ground in the infamous “room” fight in the mansion on Mulholland Drive. Hardik legitimately lives the Entourage life (while shooting on location in California, he pointed at a hill in Joshua Tree National Park and casually remarked how he owned it) and believes that the lives of global desis such as him are aspirational to become a business model. 

If there is a formula, it’s this: A mix of personalities unapologetic about rarified existence, living in an exotic habitat like LA, or somewhere untouched by natural elements like south Delhi/Mumbai or Bandra/Juhu; a shared net, friendship in the case of Wives, family in the case of Uorfi, creative hustle in the case of CollabTribe and Uorfi; and a few landmark events to steer these narratives. 

A still from Follow Kar Lo Yaar 

“That’s when the flavour comes out,” says Datta. “We spend a lot of time getting people comfortable to have the camera rolling at them all the time,” says Baig, “and have hours and hours of footage.” 

The choicest of minutes from hundreds of hours of footage make five hours of a season’s eight to 10 episodes. And this is Maharishi’s spell—to catch a change of expression, a gesture, a dip in voice and carry it across episodes to tie a narrative about the ebbs and flows of a relationship. And so Maheep talks about her husband, actor Sanjay’s infidelity early in their marriage and following episodes show the tone and strength of their marriage since. Seema starts the series drifting off but still a satellite in the [Salim-Salma] Khan clan, then transforming into a Sajdeh, and the latest rushes show her asking her son whether he resents her. 

Bhavana’s star is rising on a different horizon, but in tandem with her daughter Ananya’s. Maharishi spends days and weeks picking and threading these small sparks into a story of an episode. And in the coming season, they tell us Bhavana, who is usually the fence-sitter, will surprise us all. No spilling of wine goes unnoticed.

“We are constantly texting each other while shooting, ‘pan into this’, ‘did you catch that’, ‘are we getting our first fight’?” says Maharishi. At the end of each shoot, they ask each other “Kuch mila?”
 
Datta and Baig’s training as journalists gives them the agility to pivot as the story changes, to just set the stage and trust the drama to play out. To know that facts are stranger than fiction. “I would loathe put words into anyone’s mouth,” says Baig. “We get tired of telling people that the show is absolutely unscripted.” So the friendships imploding, face-lifts and fights about rooms and within families are totally real.

“We show them, I think for the first time on Indian TV, talking about menopause,” says Datta. “We often joke…” “That if this was a fiction show,” intercepts Baig. “We would win awards for social responsibility…” and they all laugh.

When we ask why anyone would want their lives splayed such, “because it’s fun; Because they really are friends. And because Karan asked,” are the answers. It’s an experience, and some, like Passi, are “collectors of experiences”. What they may not be saying, and what every journalist knows, is the human need to be seen. An actor is happy to be seen as a character, but reality TV feeds hubris. 

And is the viewer experience only voyeuristic? Yes and no. There is great curiosity about universes of privilege and seeing human trials play out there. 
The economic research paper ‘The Rise of the Billionaire Raj’ outlines the current wealth and income inequality in India—the top 1 per cent holds 40 per cent of the wealth. And that the income share of th top one per cent is among the very highest in the world, higher than even the US. 

But there is also something resembling an anthropological expedition when looking into the lives of Gen Z trying to make a living of having fun. Alanna’s hard-nosed attention to the spreadsheet, the meticulous detail to the importance of an “aesthetic feed”, how they always know how to behave in front of a camera. How an important life event such as a wedding and baby shower can exist in two realms simultaneously: Online as a business opportunity with paid partnerships; and privately with loved ones.

“We’re sociologists, guys!” says Datta. 

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