Confessions of a Reality Show Participant

Ninety per cent of the questions the judges asked us were scripted

When we come here, the channel gives every contestant a story so that people connect. In my show, one contestant was handicapped. But he wasn’t as poor as they made him out to be. He would say he had no money to buy a cycle for his son. They gave him a script, and that’s what he had to say. But he had an N72 phone! And when he lost it, he was about to buy another N72. And he couldn’t buy a cycle for his son?

Ninety per cent of the questions the judges asked us were scripted.  Proof of SMS support remained with the channel. They only came and told us how many votes we had each week. We were bound to follow them. If they told us we were eliminated, we were eliminated. ‘Just agree with us, just agree.’ 

They keep analysing whose story is more effective. The people with the smallest stories were eliminated first. The guy we thought would win for sure was out right at the start. There were only stories, no talent. 

Backstage, the judges were often complimentary. We wondered why they didn’t say this in front of the camera. A good comment has an effect on the audience. But on set, they would tell us things that had nothing to do with our performances, and that felt weird. Later,  we realised it was scripted. If we were given a script for everything, surely they were too. 

The creative team is the worst. Cribbing, shouting, treating us like animals. If something went wrong with the show, we were blamed for it, and if something went well, they were given the credit. If TRPs fell, they would have meetings to tell us, ‘Children, focus. You really need to buck up. Don’t just sing, perform.’ They thought it was because the children sang badly. If that was the case, why did they take us in? 

At the 11th hour they would change your song. They would change songs like clothes. Songs we could sing well didn’t matter. They wanted songs that the public liked. Whether we accepted it or not, we had to sing it. We would fight with them. They would change it then, but it was always a hit number. The public doesn’t know that we don’t pick these songs ourselves.

(This teenage girl was a contestant for Voice of India, a reality show on singing that comes on Star Plus)

As told to Rahul Bhatia

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