Watching Bollywood actor Salman Khan go about his business of hosting a show felt like a crash course on the art of winging it.
Let me explain. Gulf News tabloid! was invited to the sets of filming of the season 11 of Bigg Boss in Lonavala near Mumbai on Saturday and witness the madness and magic that goes behind the making of one of India’s hugely popular shows.
The episode that we saw being sculpted, chiselled and polished was the one featuring Bigg Boss ex-contestant Sunny Leone and Khan’s brother Arbaaz Khan as its celebrity guests. They were on call to promote their new film, Tera Intezaar.
Here’s what we gleaned from our day spent on the filming location, which was a world on its own.
The security is watertight
If you thought that the screening and security checks at airports were thorough, wait till you enter the gates of the Bigg Boss production.
A large, foreboding gate with a warning poster greets you. The message was simple: invites to be a part of the audience of Bigg Boss is free of cost and that it’s foolish to encourage touts or agents who scam you off your money by promising invites to the show as an audience member.
There are several reality shows in India that charge the audience to be a part of it and a few even pay the audience for the sake of continuity, but Big Boss isn’t one of them.
Entering the building isn’t easy either. If your name isn’t on the list with the security, there’s no way that you can penetrate the fortress. As you enter the tinned gates, the artificially-erected Big Boss house (the psychedelic home to the melodrama-prone contestants) is covered with blue plastic sheets and can be seen from a distance.
You aren’t allowed to go close to it and the audiences for the day are shepherded to a shaded area before they are ushered into the actual filming sets. There’s so much secrecy here that even finding a rest-room seems like a mystery that was impossible to crack.
Waiting is the name of the game
There’s nothing remotely glamorous about being a part of an audience because it requires you to patiently wait around for more than three hours. Reaching Lonavla, which is a two-hour commute from Mumbai, isn’t the tough part.
An episode might be just an hour long, but filming it goes over three hours. So unless you are a diehard fan of Khan or the reality show Bigg Boss, there’s no legitimate reason to justify spending a day waiting around for the show to get on the road.
We reached the set around noon and after waiting for more than two hours, we were ushered into the actual filming sets. Phones and cameras were asked to be switched off. The world in here — the gleaming stage on which Khan
stands and delivers his monologues and reprimands the contestants on a weekly basis — was vastly different from the rustic outdoors.
Here’s everything is sparkling as there are multiple sweepers shining the surface. As soon as we took seat, a production member instructed us to clap as loudly as we can and laugh with abandon if we find situations on stage funny. Apparently, it perks up the host and adds a dash of drama to the whole proceedings (not that the contestants and their antics aren’t enough). But the actual magic happens when the host, Khan, arrives.
Khan calls the shots
The atmosphere turns electric the moment Khan arrives with his entourage. He has people holding a mirror, his coat, his ashtray... lingering around him. Looking dapper in a bottle green shirt and grey formal suit, Khan has an earpiece along with a delicate microphone strapped to his head. Though the audience is cheering and vying to make eye-contact with him, he exudes a studied indifference and seems to be eager to get the segment wrapped up quickly. He’s given several cues over the earpiece and prompted discreetly to say his lines. Watching Khan in action is a course on how to play it cool. He doesn’t break a sweat and lets his trademark swagger do most of the work. While interacting with the contestants of the Bigg Boss house, he advised them not to play dirty and to retain their grace even in the face of high-voltage drama and tension among contestants. His idea of an ideal candidate he said was former Bigg Boss contestant and Bollywood actress Sunny Leone who conducted herself with great dignity.
The only time he let his guard down was when he was joking around with his brother and celebrity guest for the day, Leone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you are going to meet my brother and your sister [Leone],” said Khan in Hindi with a grin. Judging by the audience reactions, that was the best part about the day.
Did you know?
Bollywood superstar Salman Khan may be an ace at making hosting look like child’s play, but rumour has it that the actor is being paid close to Rs110 million (Dh566,104) per episode.
However, when journalists in Mumbai probed him about his paycheck at the launch of Bigg Boss in October and whether such speculations were true, Khan brushed it off with his signature sardonic style.
“Please make Raj [Nayak, Endemol COO and Bigg Boss producer] pay me that amount,” said Khan with a laugh.
And Nayak’s response: “Salman Khan doesn’t come cheap, you know.”
Don’t miss it!
Season 11 of Bigg Boss airs on Colors television from Monday to Friday at 10.30pm and on Saturday and Sunday at 9pm in the UAE.
