Pushed to the limit

As reality shows go, MTV Roadies is as nasty as nasty can be, says Radhieka Pandeya. So why do youngsters love it and fall over themselves to be part of it?

A couple of thrilled Roadies are busy clapping for themselves when, suddenly, the voice that has just praised them bellows, "What the hell are you clapping for? You call yourselves Roadies? You can't perform tasks, you don't know how to ride a bike and your bike accidents have scraped off the country's roads. You put all the previous Roadies to shame!"

And much to the dismay of the six Roadies present, five ousted colleagues are brought back into the challenge. Another hurdle to cross before heading to Bangkok.

It's the two-minute torture drill on television... the heartfelt slander that viewers have grown to enjoy. Famous for its infamous judges "" one bald and the other a bejewelled veejay "" MTV's Roadies is as nasty as nasty can be... and not without reason.

Time and again, MTV's reality show, Roadies, has stunned viewers with its growing aggressiveness "" with the auditions showcasing hostility, rebellion, sarcasm and, more recently, even violence. The overt aggression, to say the least, is intended... though not scripted.

However, this wasn't how it started. The very first MTV Roadies was a calmer lot, with less internal politics and milder behaviour. In fact, the basic Roadies concept wasn't entirely the brainchild of the nasty bald judge and executive producer "" Raghu Ram "" who moved to the channel from BBC in 2003.

"Hero Honda was launching Karizma in 2003 and they wanted a unique publicity campaign around travel and the youth. MTV contacted me with the idea and that is how I came into the picture."

Ram's takeover of the project meant pushing the envelope and creating new boundaries each season. And the fact that Roadies is not an adaptation of any international reality show only helped in removing all copyright issues right from the start.

The Roadies reality has been hard-hitting... in some cases, literally so! During an audition this season, the audition room, or torture chamber as some call it, witnessed its first slap with judge and veejay Nikhil Chinappa losing his cool with one of the contestants who, incidentally, is now part of the troupe headed for Bangkok "" Nihaal Nikam.

"It just so happens that sometimes you get a hunch on a contestant and I had this hunch on Nihaal that he could make it in. I kept pushing him to come out of his shell and do something crazy. But he'd almost get there and then not cross the line. Eventually, I just got frustrated and it happened spontaneously. But that is something I would never repeat," says Chinappa. Luckily for Chinappa, Ram's hesitation over taking Nihaal in evaporated completely when he was chosen to go international.

"When Nihaal won against Vikrant, Raghu called me to say that my kid had done it."

With MTV villain Raghu, the story is different. "We are looking for passionate people on Roadies. Those who never give up and who have the courage to be themselves on the show. So there is no script to the show. I am nasty and aggressive because that is the way I am. I really don't care a flying f*** what people think about me. We can't make this show any other way and this is who we are. I am just going to continue doing my job."

Taboo is probably the one word that is taboo in the Roadies audition room where girls and guys have spoken of their sexuality, sexual escapades, sleeping around and even coming out of the closet.

Raghu argues, though, that even though Roadies may be touching new levels of challenge with each season, the people being chosen are not. "It's not like they become more aggressive every year. The aggression and passion to survive and succeed is always there... we just try and bring it out in a better way each time."

His attempts have won him a lot of attention. From death threats to marriage proposals, Raghu's got them all, with some people even challenging him to walk around without security. His answer to all those who watch the show and yet love to hate him is simple. "I did not start off to win a popularity contest. My existence is not dependent on people acknowledging me."

If you thought the tasks handed out are difficult or even unconquerable, you may want to sit through a task-creating session. Raghu, a self-confessed adrenalin junkie, makes sure he completes every task himself before throwing it at the Roadies.

"Once during Roadies 4, we were testing a task in which the Roadies had to be set on fire. Something went wrong and I got engulfed in flames for two minutes. But that helped us in pushing the safety of the task further."

Insanely enough, the difficulty of the tasks is directly proportional to the progression of the show, which is why the emphasis is on choosing people with a passion to succeed.

As Chinappa puts it, "This is not a fitness challenge or beauty contest. It's a reality show to entertain viewers. So, Raghu and I look for 13 characters who bring a specific personality trait with them."

But the catch is that the judges themselves don't know what trait they are looking for. "People come to auditions telling us that they have what it takes to be a Roadie. Our question to them is, please tell us also what it takes because we need to know that ourselves," he laughs.

Imagine this "" the torture time you witness on television is only a tenth of the real length. Even the auditions last almost 45 minutes per person, while what comes on screen is a two-minute clip.

The motive of the two judges is to simply put extreme pressure on the contestants and watch their reaction. While fame and money are the prize for the winner, it is the renewed confidence of the Roadies that is the reward for the two judges who handpicked them.