Of Fearless Women & Coy Brides

I wrote this post & saved it as a draft (I thought) but couldn't trace it later! You know how irritating THAT can be! So I re-wrote the entire thing, only to realize later that I had mailed it to myself the first time around instead of saving it as a draft. Oh well, c'est la vie of a blogger :)

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I am completely addicted to 'Khatron Ke Khiladi' - Fear Factor Level2, and for good reason. The show is all about performance & having nerves of steel, and the stunts get cooler by the day. There is no bitching among contestants (at least nothing is shown on TV), and AK's wit & sense of humor - not to mention the funny English he speaks - are the cherry on the cake.

Oh yeah, the man speaks son-of-the-soil kind of English, which is quite funny, if you know what I mean ;)

Seriously though, if you're the stay-away-from-reality-shows types, I strongly recommend watching this show. It's a very cool show and Khiladi Kumar is THE DUDE.

I have an incredible amount of respect for the women who're competing on the show. Whether they're doing those death-defying stunts b/c they really want to push themselves and test their strength of mind &body, or b/c they're on national TV and their reputations are at stake, it takes tremendous amounts of bravery and courage to perform those stunts. Hats off to them!

My money is on Jesse Randhawa or Rosa (IF her wannabe model she's paired with stops being a show-off & gets his act together. Delhiites, I tell you ;)

Okay, don't lynch me now!! I love Delhi. Really, I do.

Both women (Jesse & Rosa) are extremely brave & cool-headed. I've never seen them freak out or cry over any stunt. Irrespective of how difficult the stunt is, they do it brilliantly!

On the other hand, there's another reality show called Perfect Bride on Star Plus. I watched the first episode out of sheer curiosity and trust me, it is BEYOND HILARIOUS.

The show capitalizes on the biggest Indian obsession & pre-occupation - marriages. The raison d'etre of all Indians. Smart cookies, those folks over at Star! I can see the show becoming a huge hit already.

The premise is something like this - a bunch of twenty-something girls (early twenties, mind you, the ripe marriageable age for Indian women. Once you cross 25, you're dangerously teetering on the "Is something wrong with you? If you don't get married now, no one will marry you ever!" territory, and if you're over 30, no one will touch you with a barge pole!!), mostly from small towns (I think Chandigarh must have separate institutes to train its young men & women to contest in reality shows), are locked in a house with their prospective mothers-in-law, while the prospective grooms stay in another house. The young women have to obviously patao (get in the good books of) the aunties, who are obsessed with their sons and want the most obedient, docile & servile wife for them (so what's new?)

Competition, manipulation & bitching at their brutal best?

They've got the moronic Amrita Rao as a judge. Apparently she qualifies b/c she did a super regressive movie called 'Vivah', which I clearly remember had a song which went 'Mujhe Haq Hai...' in which the guy is essentially saying (not even implying) that he has the right to have sex with the girl now b/c she's his wife! God, save me from such monstrosities!

Along with the extremely irritating Amrita Rao, there's Shekhar Suman, who should honestly just pack his bags & go back to Patna now!!

Jokes apart, I do not believe in the censorship of the media (except when they fabricate news and sensationalize things in order to boost TRPs ), and I'm pro the people-should-have-the-discretion-to-know-tell-right-from-wrong-and-not-blindly-follow-whatever-is-shown-in-the-media argument, but I also feel that in a country where the audience is not yet as mature as Western audiences, and is therefore still quite easily influenced, the media does have certain social responsibilities. Regressiveness is NOT the way to go in our country. Neither is feeding into our biggest collective insecurity - that relating to marriage.

You agree?