Road Rogues

Girls with black nail varnish,boys with eyebrow piercing,black graphic print tees,low slung denims screaming urban cool — if it’s not a scene straight out of a college rock fest,it has to be the waiting lounge for a MTV Roadies audition. The scene at a city hotel was no different when the MTV team came down for a round of screening for the seventh edition of the Roadies. Only this time,informs the team,you wouldn’t have Raghu grilling you with that steely glare or making a Spanish omlette of your attitude. While eyebrows arch up inquisitively,Ashish Patil,general manager and senior vice-president,content,MTV,declares that the journey this time will be nothing like what we have seen before. “People seem to have gotten used the concept now. Contestants come with a game plan as to how to deal with the intimidation and viewers too,despite liking us,are familiar with the grilling bit. We wanted to surprise both this time,” says Patil. And thus,the griller was handed over to Cyrus Broacha and Cyrus Sahukar,with Nikhil Chinapa for company. “While people come with an idea that the funny duo will make them feel at ease,wit can be more unnerving than direct intimidation,” says Patil,adding that their intention was not to ‘intimidate and insult the contestants’.

While Raghu’s exit might leave a legion of Roadies fans disappointed,the channel hopes to make up for it with the inclusion of actor Irrfan Khan. “Khan will be an integral part of the journey and will bring in an interesting element of menace into the show,” says Patil. “We are not looking for people who think Roadies is their gateway to K serials. I am trying to make sure,that the person we see at the interview is the real person,” says Chinapa,who will probe into the contestants’ Facebook,Orkut profile in a bid to find out inconsistencies if any. Broacha,in his elements as usual,says he hopes to find out psychopaths and hand them over to police. “I wonder what kind of maniacs want to go through this torture willingly,” he crackles.

Though the show,which travels to Africa this time,is already creating ripples,its last edition did leave some with a bad taste in their mouths. Besides allegations of partiality for Splitsvilla 2,Palak,last year’s finalist had claimed that doing Roadies was a mistake. She even went on to claim that the show was scripted,winners pre-decided and she was not given the Karizma bike she had won during the show. Asked how they planned to deal with the monsters of their own making this time,Patil says that it’s difficult to say if someone’s going to do a volte face in future. “Some people cannot handle defeat. And youngsters today don’t understand the difference between being famous and being infamous. There’s little we can do about it,” says Patil.