Youth seduced by ‘reality’

Famous names like Ranvijay Singh, Palak, Sambhavna Seth and Ashutosh Kaushik are all products of reality shows. And their success has seduced several students, struggling models and actors to give reality shows a shot.

Samrat Chibba from Chandigarh, who was part of Dadagiri, has been modelling in Mumbai for the past two-and-a-half years. But it’s the reality show that has given him more instant recall value. “It feels good when kids and random people come and say I’ve seen you on TV,” he says. It’s this 15 minutes of fame that drives most to participate. “It’s become a craze in the North. Almost everyone in Chandigarh is trying to be in reality shows. There are some who want to go for the more glamorous shows. But I wanted to go for something that would test my mental and physical strength,” adds Samrat.

Sumisha Shankar, an ex-army girl, participated in Sarkar Ki Duniya as she’s trying to make it in the entertainment industry and thinks these kinds of shows are great stepping stones. “I wanted to break the ice with the camera. Reality shows offer a good break to newcomers and I needed that visibility.”

Deepak, who recently spent sleepless nights on Channel V’s extreme reality show Exhausted, accepts that he is ready to go to any lengths to win the show. “I am a model and being on the show will obviously help my career,” he states. 21-year-old Feroza Khan, another Dadagiri participant, is a catalogue model looking for a big break. “It is for the limelight but it is also for the adventure,” she says.

And it seems parents are only too thrilled to see their kids on television, with some even pushing their kids to go for it. “My parents feel proud when they see me on television,” says Samrat, adding, “though they did feel bad when gobar was thrown on my face.”