Losing My Virginity and Other Dumb Ideas (19 page)

She smiled, nodded her head and said, ‘I understand. We’ve all been in similar situations.’ She took a deep pause and frowned. ‘Are you willing to have a new man in your life?’

It came out of the blue. I hadn’t thought of that. A new man? I was barely over the old man. But I
had
said ‘anything’ to her. So I shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘I suppose. But it might be too soon to get into a relationship. I thought I was discussing work here …’ I trailed off.

She shook her head while waving her hand majestically, ‘No, no, darling, it’s not like that. I’m talking about a reality show.’

I looked puzzled and she continued, ‘I’m casting for a reality show where there is one man and there will be ten women vying for him!’

‘Oh?’ I said, a little puzzled and unsure.

Then the director became a little strict with me, ‘Look, Kaveri. This is the only thing I have on board right now. The markets are bad and there are no shows getting commissioned. There are hundreds of women out there who want to be one of those ten women. TV gives them instant fame and they make money for every week they are on the show.’

My ears perked up. ‘There is money?’ I asked.

‘Of course, otherwise how can people survive in this world? Women are coming in droves to give the screen test. I’m giving you a slot. Become one of those women if you want! Just come and give your screen test and I’ll make sure you’re on board.’

It was a tempting offer but I didn’t want to get involved with another man. My heart had already broken once. I could not be vulnerable again. ‘How long is the show?’ I asked.

‘Well it’s ideally for seven weeks. But don’t worry about details. My producers will get in touch with you and tell you all that stuff. You just decide if you want to do that.’

I didn’t know. I was still angry and hurting from my relationship. If I went on national television, it would show Arjun that I was moving on and that I was truly independent without him, which is what I wanted him to believe. It might actually make him jealous and come running back to me. Either ways it looked like a win–win situation at that moment.

And so I took another dumb decision. I decided to take the role.

‘Okay. I’ll do it!’ I said, needing to break out of my comfort mould.

She smiled and said, ‘Great. But we still need your audition tape for the people on the board. So come in at two and give the audition. The producer will tell you all about the show, the money, whatever you need to know and we’ll take it from there, okay?’

I nodded, ‘Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity and meeting me. I’m truly grateful,’ I blabbered. And then a thought came to me, so I asked, ‘Um … ma’am … why are you being so nice to me?’

She looked keenly at me for a bit and then said, ‘I liked your freshness when I had met you some months ago. You had a wonderful face that said you’re willing to try anything. Now, of course, you have a sad face but that spark is still there. I want to see that. It’s genuine. It’s real. And unlike the women who are here only for the fame and money, you want to prove something. I get that.’

‘Thank you,’ I said quietly.

‘Don’t thank me yet,’ she said on a happier note, ‘when you become famous, then we’ll talk,’ she laughed, stood up and walked me to the door.

My new life had begun!

The shooting started a few weeks later. It was the first week of December. By now, my hand had completely healed, even though my heart had not. I barely had enough time to grieve over Arjun before I was put away in a house with nine other women. I had spoken to Aditi just once and she was recuperating at home with her parents. I really didn’t want to go meet her to give her a sob break-up story. So I just mentioned I was going to do this reality show for six weeks in a secluded house with no external communication.

She laughed her head off and told me I had made her day and that she would be glued to the TV when it was aired. That’s where I left my best friend, advice expert and soulmate to go meet nine of the most different women I would ever meet. Apparently, I was the oldest in the group, but thankfully, not the fattest, the shortest or the tallest. But I was still a statistic that set me apart. We were all supposed to be vying for one man. Now for me, that was a near impossibility since I had decided that The Great Love of my life had come and gone. And nobody else could take his place. But since this show was paying me money and distracting my thoughts from Arjun, I decided to act like the man who would be the protagonist of our show was worth all my attention.

The man in question here was all of twenty-five years. I was a full five and a half years older than him. But that didn’t matter. I didn’t have to try too hard to like him. He was a pretty package for sore eyes—six feet tall, wheatish skin, dark brown eyes, short cropped hair, clean shaven and a body that was totally ripped under his red shirt and baggy blue jeans. I couldn’t take my eyes off him when he entered the ‘house’. And neither could the nine other women. The cameras were all over the place. The producers had made us sign a contract earlier that made them superlords of our privacy while we lived in that house. They could have cameras in innocuous places, like the kitchen and closets and more apparent ones that would have cameramen zooming into our zits. We were supposed to behave ‘naturally’, but were encouraged to be backbiting, ruthless bitches!

A known male TV celebrity who was hosting the show had been organizing us since morning. We had already picked out our rooms, unpacked our clothes and made small talk with the other girls before we were introduced to ‘the man’. The girls ranged from eighteen years to the oldest being me. They were mostly in their twenties, looking for fame and a man to settle down with.

‘Hi, girls,’ said the man, with an impish smile, and the host Aniruddh introduced us to Karan.

‘Karan is a doctor. He is an NRI looking for the perfect Indian “bahu” who should be a mixture of the traditional and contemporary and … he thinks that one of you … might be her!’ Here the producers, who were standing away from the cameras that were pointed individually at our faces, motioned for us to smile. So we did.

Aniruddh continued, ‘He is looking for the girl of his dreams, and we have decided to help him. We brought you girls here because we thought you were the most suited amongst the thousands who auditioned. But it won’t be so easy to win his love,’ the host paused and we all were suppose to look interested at this point. ‘All of you will be assigned hard tasks every day and given points. The person with the maximum points gets to go on a date with Karan and the person with the minimum points gets … eliminated!’ At this statement, the girls nodded their heads and looked around checking out the competition. Suddenly the camaraderie had turned into rivalry.

Aniruddh’s finals words were, ‘So the more he gets to know you, the better he can make a decision.’

Some of the girls were smiling seductively at him thinking they might not have to do the task if they showed ample cleavage and a seductive smile. I was not in their league. I didn’t want to show cleavage or want fame or his love. I just needed to be there to distract myself.

Karan then left and Aniruddh announced to us, ‘Today’s challenge is easy. You all will be given fifteen minutes to make a romantic dinner for Karan. All of you will go to the kitchen and prepare dinner for him. The person who has made the best meal and the best presentation will win the chance to spend time with him tonight.’

After this, the producers broke us up into groups and took us to the kitchen. Most of the things there seemed too bright and inadequate to cook with. Like they had no pressure cooker or wooden spoons for stirring. We were given specific ingredients and asked what we would be making.

The Gujju woman immediately replied that she wanted to make an elaborate vegetarian thali for her man. The eighteen-year-old replied, ‘Ya.’ Pause, ‘I can’t cook.’ One of the producers immediately said, ‘Oh, that’s great!’ we all looked towards him, ‘I’ll assign making Maggi to her then,’ he clarified.

So we started off making our respective dishes. We picked out our five ingredients from the list that we could choose from and started cooking in batches of two, with two stoves each and half of a kitchen sideboard to chop anything extra. I decided to make pasta. Arjun had taught me that really well.

And since I already got chopped onions, all I needed to do was throw everything into a pan and stir till everything looked just about done. My dish was done in fifteen minutes. Seeing that I had finished my task, my cooking partner turned to me and said, ‘Are you done? Can I use your side of the kitchen?’

‘Sure, be my guest,’ I responded. She introduced herself as Anjana and promised to chat up once her food was cooked. I took my bowl of pasta to the dining table in the adjoining room. The dining table I saw was being decorated by the producers of the show. My God, how many people were working on this serial, I thought suddenly.

‘Kaveri, put it next to your name there,’ said a short plump girl with spectacles. I saw that there were names around the table with a dish coaster next to each.

Then I was asked to go to my room and dress up for the judgement in the evening. Since I had a few hours to kill, I decided to go for a walk instead, around the property. I sneaked out of the house and started walking.

The place was really lovely. It was close to the beach and I could see the blue sea once I climbed up the hillock surrounding the property. I would have loved to come here with Arjun for a day. Oh God! Here I was, supposed to be getting him out of my mind and his name kept cropping up wherever I looked. I took a deep breath. ‘It’ll take time, Kaveri,’ I thought to myself. ‘Take it easy. Just enjoy the moment and give yourself time.’

Soon I headed back to my room to change and prepare for the night. I didn’t know that there were hidden cameras all over the property, taping me even when I thought I was alone. I would learn of it the hard way when my walk as well as other antics would be on national television!

That night, we were called downstairs and had to make a grand entry with cameras showing our walk and body language to a connected TV (that we did not know about), where Karan was watching and commenting on each one of us.

Karan entered the room where all of us were standing and Aniruddh announced, ‘Well, girls, you’ve all prepared your best dishes and now the time has come for Karan to select which is his favourite.’

Then the producer told Karan to go around the table tasting each dish. So a camera followed him and the producer prompted him to talk about each dish as he wrote down a number on the respective nametag.

Aniruddh read out his lines from the teleprompter a few times and got them wrong. He was told to do a few more takes before he got it right.

‘Now the time has come for Karan to decide whose dish he liked best. This person will be the first lucky girl to go on a date with Karan. And remember, you don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression. So Karan,’ Aniruddh turned to the man and asked, ‘whose cooking impressed you the most?’

Karan stood there and said with élan, as if he had rehearsed his lines, ‘Well, I’m a real foodie, Aniruddh. I love all types of cuisine. I could have eaten everything.’

But Aniruddh insisted that he make a decision, so Karan continued to make it seem longer, ‘Well, I really liked the thepla that was made by Anjana and the mutton curry that was made by Perizaad.’

The girls smiled at him and there were a few claps all around.

Then Karan began with great flourish, ‘My favourite dish, however, was …’ Then he paused for effect. The cameras were glued to our faces. ‘Shalini’s biryani.’

Shalini squealed with delight and walked up to Karan. They hugged. Aniruddh then said, ‘Okay Karan, but now you have to take another decision.’

And Karan looked at him, surprised. He was directed to act likewise for the audience who would be watching later. I could almost hear the percussions of a dramatic moment as if in an Ekta Kapoor serial.

‘You need to eliminate someone.’ There was another dramatic pause before he continued, ‘And I have the result of the lowest score here.’

All the girls were now most worried. I was sure I would be eliminated for the awful pasta I had made. Why had I been in such a hurry? Oh god, I thought, please don’t let it be me. I want to stay here for a few more weeks. And then a thought rushed to my head, which even surprised me—I wanted to please this man! I wanted him to at least have one date with me!

But Karan said, ‘You know what, I have a surprise for all of you.’ And we waited with bated breath. ‘There will be no elimination tonight!’ he said cheerfully. ‘I will have a twenty-minute meeting with all of you before your next task, so there will be no elimination for this one.’

And we all had to cheer a few times because we didn’t ‘get it right’ the first time according to the short plump woman who had become a sourpuss by now.

Aniruddh announced that the winner and Karan would go off on their date now and the rest of us could go back to bed. But the date didn’t happen immediately. By the time the final shot of the day was taken, it was already three in the morning and we were all drained, including Karan, who was in no mood to go on a date or even talk to anyone. He walked off to his bungalow next door and we all went to our rooms to crash.

My first day with reality TV had left me completely exhausted and most satisfied.

Yes, the fun had begun.

Over the next few days, we all got to meet Karan and spend more than twenty minutes with him. All this was taped and recorded, to be edited later for the show, but the girls being new to this, were trying to behave as unaffectedly as possible given the circumstances. The producers helped us choose our best outfits for the meetings and the ‘naturalness’ of the entire show became more staged, more scripted, more planned. What we were supposed to say and do was left to us, but ‘how’ was made very specific.

My meeting with Karan was fixed for the evening of the third day of our stay. By this time, he had met six of the women and gone on his official date with Shalini, which she had been talking about most high handedly to the rest of us. I wasn’t too sure if she was actually a snob or was ‘told’ to be so.