Oh hell! This reality cuts well

Two new international reality shows look beyond the usual song-and-dance fare and tap the lifestyle genre.

On Wednesday, I got my first taste of Hell's Kitchen, a new reality show that premiered this week on Discovery Travel & Living.

The show features London's most famous, famously tantrum-throwing chef Gordon Ramsay in a Donald Trump-like role and, at least in the episode I watched, Ramsay lived up to his fierce, flamboyant reputation; first taking a winning group of proteges out to a happening pub (even as the other group that had flunked that particular test cleaned toilets and the like), and then going on to swear at nervous, scurrying (and one rebellious) contestants in a manner more suited to a rowdy game of soccer than to elite fine-dining.

But the chef's histrionics comprised only half the fun. The real dramatic tension, instead, came from the blundering bunch of aspiring restaurateurs put to test by Ramsay. (In the Apprentice-like format, 12 contestants compete for the big chance to open their own restaurant).

The particularly nail-biting finale of the day's episode comprised two teams cooking for real guests from Hollywood, including two influential food critics whose identities were kept secret.

They put up a particularly pathetic showing "" "the worst two hours I have been on the hot-plate", according to Ramsay "" including overdoing the salt in the risotto so that one guest had to puke it out. At the end, only a fraction of the guests were fed "" but the viewers retired full. Compulsive telly viewing is made of stuff such as this.

Move over sitcoms, move over also reality shows based on music and dance. While these may as yet be big TRP grossers at least for "general" viewers, newer entertainment formats taking into account changing lifestyles and tastes of urban, hip Indians and dealing with subjects closer to their hearts than joint families "" read food, fashion, travel "" are also finding their place under the sun.

Says Rajiv Bakshi, associate director, marketing and communications, Discovery Networks India, "Viewers are now shifting from soaps to alternate entertainment and the market for such formats that build in glamour is growing exponentially."

Bakshi stresses the fact that these new formats have to build in "a lot of components" to engage the viewer. "There used to be recipe shows earlier, but, today, it is no longer sufficient for someone to tell you how to add dhania to tamatar!" Bakshi says. Ramsay, for one, would do that.

Food apart, fashion is another "lifestyle" theme that finds many takers, and not just on late night FTV. Last year, Lakme Fashion House, that replicated international formats, had aspiring (Indian) designers compete for an internship with Versace in Milan.

The show was aired on Star One and had top desi designers like Abu Jaani and Sandeep Khosla judging the skills of the contestants. Now, Zee Cafe has just premiered an international show built around almost the same premise.

Only, it seems to be much more high-profile, frentic and fun. In The Cut, international style icon Tommy Hilfiger tests the mettle of 16 aspiring designers who will compete with each other for the ultimate prize of designing their own collection under the Hilfiger label "" with a $250,000 salary. If the prize is bigger (than the Indian one), the pressure is more intense too.

In fact, both Hell's Kitchen and The Cut (as also most foreign shows as opposed to their Indian versions, think American Idol) follow a similar brutal format "" unkind mentors, unbearable pressure, ambition, tears and cold-blooded scheming. For viewers, the formula couldn't get more entertaining.

For those who would follow into such "lifestyle professions", albeit in an armchair, what these shows also do is bring home a few truths about the underside of glamour.

While people increasingly look upon cooking as a glamorous profession "" Saif Ali Khan in Salaam Namaste exemplifies this "" ask any chef in the industry and he will tell you that the kind of pressures that come along with the job are not very different from what you see contestants being subjected to. Chef Manjit Gill, corporate chef, ITC Hotels, for instance, agrees that reality is not very different from reality shows.

"The kitchen is a chef's kingdom and chefs are known to be short-tempered and abusive there. That is why so many chefs are regarded as creative but eccentric people."

However, Gill cautions, once out of their uniform, the chefs change and many kitchen histrionics are just ways to "motivate the boys... the chef is not angry in his mind. If you are in an angry mood and cooking, your food won't taste right," Chef Gill maintains.

In the world of fashion, it is much the same. Designer Namrata Joshipura who is based in New York but is making her presence felt in New Delhi, compares the pressure felt by designers in India and abroad: "In the show, there is pressure to outdo each other but in India, the main pressure comes from having to do everything yourself. Since the fashion industry is still young here, not many designers have separate business partners or financial backers. They have to do all this by themselves to survive."

More established designers abroad have other stresses even when creative and business roles are clearly demarcated. "When Tom Ford was at Gucci he would get sales figures from every store in the world every day," Joshipura points out.

And then since the market is so competitive, there is the pressure to reinvent yourself constantly. "I have a one-and-a-half year old daughter and I haven't been home in three months," Joshipura trails off. TV and the real world aren't so different then.