As Salman Khan is ready to roll with the 12th edition of Bigg Boss, which premieres tonight, a group of journalists were taken to experience for a day the life of a contestant trapped inside the house. With this season’s theme being ‘vichitra jodis’, a few of us were even told to get a family member along. So, I had my mother joining me for the stay.
We reached the sets at around 10.30 am, where the team frisked us and briefed us about the show. There were a few known faces — some friends and acquaintances — and a few whom we met for the first time. We were taken inside the house in pairs and the first thing that one noticed was the beach setting. Once all of us were in, we were served lunch — although the housemates have to cook their own food, the team made sure we didn’t have to make rounds of the kitchen.
Just when we started bonding with each other, they announced the ‘nomination process’. Individual contestants had an upper hand — they got two votes each and could nominate either two jodis, one single contestant and a couple, or two single contestants, whereas jodis got two votes only. After the process, Bigg Boss announced the names of the four contestants who got the maximum number of votes and were up for eviction.
Soon after, they announced a task — News Bulletin — where they divided the ‘safe’ contestants into two teams. Each team had to bring about juicy and entertaining gossip about the other team members and were judged by the ‘nominated’ contestants. The targets were set — Sonup Sahadevan and Bilal Jaleel from the other team and me from our team. After a fun round of questions and gossip, the judges decided that our team performed better. We were then given a Bigg Bomb to save one of the nominated contestants from going to jail. Post that, it was clear that the house was divided into groups. Discussions and chats followed, which continued for hours post dinnertime. But just before we hit the bed, there was a huge argument between Sonup and me. He hadn’t liked the ‘news’ we read out and although it was meant in fun and jest, it seemed he took it to heart. Nevertheless, we called a truce.
In the morning, we were all woken up to Salman’s song Baby Ko Bass Pasand Hai (Sultan) and after getting ready, Bigg Boss announced that it was time for evictions. The ‘safe’ contestants had to pick one ‘nominated’ person they wanted to eliminate. That done, in the next one hour, the final announcement was made. We sang, we danced and finally bid adieu to the house. Until next year...
