In the land of Snow White

I have a confession to make – I have become addicted to Big Boss 3 (“tritiya” as the original Big B says).
I can see the pseudo intellectuals covering their nose as my addiction stinks of the gutters of Mumbai but I care two hoots for their reactions.

The concept of the show is brilliant and I have great kudos for the person who would think of such a reality game show.
People from diverse background holed up together in a house under constant surveillance with no connection to the outside world. Their aim is to earn a living by doing tasks as told by Big Boss, manage the weeks livestock supply with the points earned, and finally to emerge as a winner among the housemates by being the ultimate survivor in the game of elimination.

This is group dynamics at its best. People go to management institutes to learn the strategy for survival in corporate world, conflict management, team building, and situational behavior.
The show proves that people are born innate with all the instincts. The inmates of the show are not men/women of letters, most of them are from the entertainment world, but still the way they reprise their roles in the situations given to them are laudable.

I think it is not new, we have done it in our lives and are still doing it. When we were in school we had a group of “close” friends both in school and outside school. We never realised that we were playing in the hands of group dynamics. The others were friends but not as special as the ‘our” group. The same followed through the college and now into office.
We had our favourite relatives from all the relatives we had. We did a mental selection of people around us and we never asked the reason for that. It was the way of the world we thought.

In workplace it is more vicious. The situation is quite different here. Unlike schools or colleges we do not have the privy to written examinations to stamp our superiority. The workplace is a dog eat dog world – anything is fair for the next higher position. Spreading rumour about the contender, sabotaging his work, oiling the boss for a better review in the “confidential file” – haven’t we seen it all in the Satyajit Ray movie “Seemabadhya”.

Those you had the opportunity of being in a joint family, the show is a reflection of their lifestyle – the family eats together, enjoys together but there are infightings, gossips, favourism, and adhocism, all inside the closed walls of the house. The only difference is that the family is not under constant surveillance.

People hate the show as it is a mirror, you see your reflection and it bites your conscience. No one likes to be told the truth let alone see the truth. We are happy in our shopping spree, dinner parties, and discussions about sex, money and Camus over a glass of wine.
We go to sleep thinking that the next day we need to run faster that the fastest of the comradriees to reach the goal or to find out a way of reaching the finish line without even running.

Enlarge the canvas, stretch it a bit to encompass the full society. No one would be ready to be under 24X7 surveillance. No one will like the whole world to see the way we conspire everyday to survive in this convoluted world.
We will all cry foul. It is a democratic country, we have our rights. We may take out candle light processions with fancy T shirts.
Yes, we do have our freedom of expression. The show is a big reminder to the fact that we, who shed crocodile tears over trivial issues, never ever realised the value of “freedom”.

We hate such shows just like we hate asking,” Mirror, mirror on the wall, tell me who is the meanest of the all” – least it shows our own reflection.