Look what you've done, Mr. Anurag Kashyap?? While I hailed you for the fantastic effort that is DevD, I cannot help but blame you in part for inspiring the cheapest form of reality television (also, I am pretty sure the entertainment media will stoop lower...and lower in the future)
As if the horror of prospective brides violently blushing at the sleazy advances of the very unemployed and totally unmarriageable Rahul Mahajan and lost celebrities regressing into their past lives to find their lost fame on prime time television was not enough, here's another addition to the reality TV bandwagon...EMOTIONAL ATYACHAAR...
Claiming to be of extreme social value, this television show aims at helping young married/committed men and women to discover the status of their relationships through loyalty tests conducted on their partners with hidden spy cameras and undercover agents. The show is, of course, not about the sex and the sleaze but to rescue people from cheating partners and meaningless relationships!! The fact that the show is aired post-dinner on a channel called BINDAAS is also a mere co-incidence.
The format is simple....the formula...tried and tested....sex sells!!
Allegedly, the emotionally tormented/ tortured (atyacharit) partner approaches the EA team, like a NGO, counsellor or even the police, and seek their assistance in establishing the loyalty of their better or battered half, as the case may be. A loyalty test is thus, conducted, with full consent of the tortured party against the accused party and the proverbial linen is washed dirty in public. There is some serious cheating, buckets of tears, shot of abuses followed by some hardcore slapping, punching and beating, if you are lucky.
The tortured party orders the loyalty test on their partners with the disclaimer that they love and trust them, despite the test. The accused party, invariably, picks up the undercover agent (almost always, struggling models and actors) at the very first meeting at a coffee shop. Things move quickly and soon (by soon...I mean a day or two..tops), they are a couple. Nothing is hidden from the hidden cameras...and all unedited footage is shown to the tortured party with them bawling and screaming beeped unmentionables at the camera and the hapless host mumbling...'we can stop the footage if you want' or 'this is all live feed ..they are in this building now' but the tortured party, being iron-willed, tough individuals, continue to watch the misdeeds of their loyal partners despite the tears and the heartache.
It all ends with a confrontation, often violent, drawing the curtains on the relationship, at least on camera, with the tortured party thanking the show for saving their so-called lives and the makers and undercover agents shouting LONG LIVE INFIDELITY!! But mind you, this is all a sociological experiment not merely entertainment!!
