What a coincidence- the other day I wrote about Bachelorette and was soon surprised by our own Indian version of the show- 'Rakhi ka Swayamvar'
Obviously, if I were asked to imagine a celebrity that could pull it off and get the maximum number of eyeballs in the process- I hate to admit I would have said Rakhi Sawant coz this is a woman who has made her living out of slapping her boyfriend on TV, breaking up with him on TV, admittng to a boob job on TV,protesting against being kissed by Mika on TV which offended her 'Bharatiya Naari' sensibilities, and to top it all ,lived her life on TV during the BIG BOSS (Indian version of Big Brother and I would say a lot more entertaining) Season 1. Rahul Roy might have survived till the end and got some moolah (which I bet he needed badly), but the winner of that show was unarguably Rakhi Sawant.
'Rakhi ka Swayamvar' has all the usual 'masala ' of a potboiler- there is Rakhi as the shy bride, hoping to fall in love with one in a bunch of really insipid men (yes, we do see an element of India vs Bharat, the resurgence of 'small town India ' here, given the profile of these gentlemen), there is Ram (Ram Kapoor who would have to be the best fed version of the Lord Shri Ram ever to have graced the small screen), Ravi Kisan (the ever entertaining- superb branding exercise there, Ravi ji, as the straight forward , traditional, Hindi speaking man from small town India who has had a meteoric rise in the Bhojpuri film industry and secretly dreams of foot massages by beautiful English speaking nymphets from Mumbai such as a Ms....) , and a bunch of other small screen stars playing Bhabhi, behen, Ba and chchoti behen. I don't quite have a name for Gautami's Gadgil/ Kapoor's character but she could be the modern friend from a different milieu,who has an insight into the changing expectations of the new-Indian woman, that is played by Rakhi...
Oh, and in a masterstroke this Ramayan inspired epic drama gives you Ram and Luv (as in Luv Kush)together- Ram is the presenter and Luv is a promising contender.
Anyway, I do not want this post to be a sociological analysis of the show or the swayamvar. I write this for one reason alone and that is the fact that at a certain level, I find this show deeply disturbing.
Let me say to begin with that I like Rakhi Sawant- I admire her guts and gumption for being a self made woman in an industry where people mostly make a living out of inheriting genes of famous people who bred them, I like it that she has astutely constructed a clever on and off -screen persona of the 'woman victimised by society who's not going to take it lying down anymore'and will play the game by her own rules. A refreshing , endearing change for someone to speak Hindi and broken English ,given that most of our leading men and women are always adding a Latin, Spanish or 'I dont know what exactly' twang to their half baked English and limited expressions in their quest to be hip.
When I saw or heard of Rakhi Sawant before, I thought of her as a loud mouthed brazen woman, with a difficult past and a bitter family history of being duped for money by those closest to her,who spoke her mind perhaps a little too much too often and annoyingly always on camera, maybe suffered verbal diaorrhea, but as a woman who would take no shit.
I was even kind of thrilled that the format of the show gave a woman the right to choose her life partner and not the other way round.
Here's the disappointng shocker though- this Rakhi is not THE Rakhi Swaant that we know, in order to find a husband (even when that seems likea line up for 'Biggest loser jeetega'), she has had to transform herself into the shy, demure, sari clad, non cleavage baring(her trademark before this) Bharatiya naari who looks at her feet when the suitors court her, who mouths dialogues like 'mujhe party nahi, pati chahiye', and repeats 'Main ek Bharatiya naari hoon', mujhe apni maryada maloom hai' half a dozen times in very episode. (and for the record, I would love someone to decode that expression for me)
As if we din't have enough unrealistic role models to live up to as women, as wives, as mothers(sorry, supermoms) and as those who dare to be both those things and still want to work, now we have a celebrity of sorts posing (even if it is only for a show) that she would be happy to give it all up to lead a ghoonghat clad life with some stranger she hardly knows, along the banks of the river Ganga. Sigh!!
On a more optmistic note, this is probably the best performance of her career till date- I hope she gets lots of movies after this one- I suspect the Bhatts and Indra Kumars of the world may already be working at it. Let any leading actress of the day beat Rakhi's stupendous performance as the coy, Indian bride in waiting, blushing when the men compliment her using badly scripted lines(you are like a flower, aapne banaaya hai to chai meethi hi hogi), batting her eyelids coquettishly like a love sick teenager.
Oh, and this show has some pretty good set design, costumes and to use that favourite word in Bollywood(guess, guess)- a 'mindblowing' make up artist for Rakhi Sawant.
Im putting my money on Manas and his 'achche dil waala Dilli ka ladka mannerisms'..and Im sure to follow this up with another post if I lose that bet.
For the uninitiated, here's a little snippet from a recent episode-
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