MTV Reality Stars

MTV Reality Stars is India’s first youth sitcom. It is a season-based fiction TV dramedy (Drama-Comedy) and satire created by Nikhil Taneja ^[1] that captures the comedy and chaos in the Showbiz industry.^[2] The series also featured cameos by top Bollywood filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and famous Bollywood actors Arshad Warsi and Anand Tiwari.^[3][4] The 12-episode first season of the show was aired every Saturday on MTV India at 6.30 pm from 16 March 2013 to 1 June 2013. The humour and the look and feel of the show were in the space of Bollywood movies Delhi Belly and Pyaar Ka Punchnama.

Plot

MTV Reality Stars follows the travails of four friends and roommates, Kuldeep Sodhi, Zamir Akhtar, Krish Batra and Tania Sharma as they try to "make it" in the industry.^[5] Krish writes reality shows, Kuldeep wants to be on a reality show, Tania is a reality show reject and Zameer hates reality shows.

The show features a reality show within it called "MTV Rejects", a show that tries to find the country’s biggest reject. The script of this show has been written by Krish and Tanya is in the production team. Kuldeep wants to be a part of the show so desperately that he stages a mock fight with Zameer to grab the attention of the show-makers. The show makers also select Zameer (the Reality-hater) along with Kuldeep. Krish and Tania try to get Zameer out in the first episode. As luck might have it, Kuldeep is ousted instead and Zameer (the Reality hater) stays on the reality show. As the show progresses, unexpected things keep on happening, as the reality of reality TV is revealed.^[6] Things go so wrong that these four, who had come to Mumbai to be superstars, end up being reality stars. Nikhil Taneja, the creator of the show says, "It took us almost a year and a half to conceptualize the show. We have treated it like a feature film. Anyone who enjoys reality and friendship will love it."^[7]

This show is a huge shift of genre for MTV which has made famous reality shows like MTV Roadies and MTV Splitsvilla. Aditya Swamy, EVP and Business Head, MTV India, says, "In this show, we take healthy digs at our biggest shows. Unlike daily soaps, this is a finite series that is built around a tight script, a truly delightful cast and film level production standards. This is the future of Indian television and this is a genre we are committed to building."^[8]

Characters

This group of 4 friends are the main characters in this show. Each of these 4 characters are stereotype friends observed in any college friend group.

Kuldeep Sodhi is a 25-year-old jatt from Gurdaaspur. He is the dumb body-builder in the group who is always looking for a reason to start a fight for the group. He is tall, hunky and over friendly. He is pure hearted, lovable, a bit daft and a relatively bad actor, but one who has no clue about this. He hits on every moving creature but only 1 out of 10 girls give in to his raw "charm", and he’s happy with that. He has come to Mumbai to become a reality star.

Zamir Akhtar is a 26-year-old Muslim boy from Chandni Chowk, Delhi who was once an engineer. He is good looking, lean, intense, and reserved. He’s an engineer from IIT and left it to act. He is the smart, boring and philosophical friend who believes in giving his advice in every other situation. He doesn’t like talking much, is boring at times but doesn’t know it, and is very well read and interested in arts and literature. He has come to Mumbai to become a serious actor and is he’s a pretty good actor at that. He’s secretly in love with Tania.

Krish Batra is a 24-year-old guy from Mumbai. He is the typical rich spoilt brat, and the whole group lives off his father’s money. He is decent looking but doesn’t care about his appearance, sarcastic, wiseass, oversmart, and completely "Bombay". He is a writer for reality shows but his dream in life is to make a "good movie"… the sort that Ayan Mukherjee and Farhan Akhtar debuted with. But he is preoccupied alternately so he never gets to writing it.

Tania Sharma is a 25-year-old girl from Kolkata. She is pretty, cute but slightly blonde and doesn’t know it. She can be hot when she needs to be. She is dating Krish since around a year now and lives in with him. She came to Bombay to become a reality star and even got a show but after that she’s never got any work. So she thinks she has moved on, and is now doing production on reality shows… but somewhere, she still has ambitions to be a reality

Promotion

MTV Reality Stars is being promoted as the "Reality behind reality". As a part of the promotional campaign, MTV India are also giving a chance to college students to be a part of an episode of this show.^[9]

References