I thought I was bold when I confidently quit watching Bigg Boss 19. My decision was filled with drama, which is to be expected. Almost like a contestant in a reality show announcing, “I don’t need this game!” and then five minutes later crying in the confession room.
People who know me, know that I have been a die-hard Bigg Boss loyalist.
I defended the show in public. Wrote glowing articles appreciating it. I even argued at family dinners, “This is not mindless TV, it is a mirror of society!” A mirror where people fight over tea, cry over beds, and form alliances that break faster than WhatsApp forwards. But still… a mirror.
In the past, till my friend Raj Nayak was there, every season, like a ritual, I visited the sets, sat in the audience and watched the weekend shoot. I even auditioned, and thank God, I was never selected. I would not have lasted long. But today, I don’t have that access.
Before you get ideas, there were multiple reasons for me to quit.
The truth is, the show was getting into my head.
I’d wake up humming the title track. At work, I’d analyse work politics as if it were a nomination task. Someone took my chair at the dining table? I would wonder what was happening and whether it was a good enough reason to take a stand. My wife, when she disagreed with me, looked straight at the ceiling fan, waiting for Bigg Boss’s voice to intervene.
That’s when I panicked. Was I becoming one of them? Loud, paranoid, always ready for a fight?
The contestants’ behaviour was rubbing off on me, and worse, the show was becoming predictable. Fights and tears, the shout of “Bigg Boss, yeh galat hai!” goes on a loop. Even the “shocking twists” were as shocking as cold tea.
So I staged and planned an intervention for myself.
I shut the door. Wore earplugs. Took sleeping pills like immunity masks. I avoided the premium subscription like it was a nomination. I took extra assignments, thinking deadlines were the cure for addiction.
And for two glorious weeks, I was clean of Bigg Boss 19.
And then my family sabotaged my plans. They watched the new season. Gasped loudly. And then declared: “Bigg Boss 19- It is the BEST season ever!” BEST season! After I quit! That’s like unfollowing your ex, only to see the Instagram images floor the universe.
I tried to resist. Damnit. I tried my best. But two weeks down the track, the itch won.
“Just one episode,” I told myself. Classic addict talk.
And now, I’m back, glued to the screen, yelling at strangers I don’t know, and pretending it’s “cultural research.”
I know I have faulted. Bigg Boss, I have sinned. And to atone for my relapse, I, the compulsive doodler, am making a doodle of the Bigg Boss Eye. It’s my punishment, my prayashchit. I wish I could hand it personally to the host on stage.
So here I am again. Watching strangers scream about pooris as if national security depends on it. Suddenly playing the victim card when they are reminded it’s national TV.
I am going to save my sanity by losing it. And, I tell myself, I’ll quit next year. Maybe that will last longer than 14 days.
Because let’s face it-there’s nothing quite like Bigg Boss. And there is a different DNA that operates within the RSA tribe -the Reality Show Audience. It’s tough when it comes to stopping watching Bigg Boss 19.
BLOG/66/623/1125/ to connect email or follow S_kotnala on X.
To subscribe to the weekly updates click here.
