By Jenish Shah
VP International, Primetime India
When I get back from work in the evening, I like to kick back my shoes and relax. I put on the TV, catch up with the day’s events and switch to something entertaining. That’s when I came across the new season of Big Boss on Colors. After watching it for a few days, I began to ponder over two things – one, whether I should watch this show at home with my parents around and two, whether the programme should actually be used as study material for psychologists! Fifteen contestants and 90-plus days inside a house, and all the contestants from varied backgrounds and different fields - if I was one of the 15, I would have run out of that house in a week. But hats off to the so-called celebrities who are staying there (though I do wonder why they would agree to be confined in a house, cut off from all the pleasantries of the world). I wouldn’t have done it, for sure, even knowing the hefty reward involved. But if I had to guess the mindset behind it, it’s probably because it has become a place to gain instant fame.
Lets’ take the example of Imam Sidiqque. Except for his two-week antics, who would have known him? Now he has become a household name. His strip act has drawn more than 36,000 views in less than two weeks. Impressive, I must say. Fifteen different minds in a confined space for so many days would be a veritable paradise for any psychologist to begin a case study.
Another factor I find infinitely fascinating is that everyone who watches the show starts predicting what the contestants’ next move would be. I was recently on a train, when I heard my co-passengers discussing who would do what, who was up to what and what was someone else’s motivation behind something he or she did. I am not a psychologist, but the sales profession too requires me to study and predict the minds of customers and what they are going to say, or how they are going to react to my product or pitch.
The Bigg Boss house is a good place to study various minds and how they think. Love stories happen, and people who have separated come together under one roof. At the same time, the best of friends turn into the worst of enemies. All of this happens under the close watch of Bigg Boss.
In fact, each house member can be a good case study for a psychology student, who can analyse the workings of the complex human brain in detail. Each task given to a house member is a challenge and each one has a viewpoint to explain why they didn’t perform and what should have been done. Their opinions largely revolve around what another person has done, or not done, why something happened and how it actually should have happened.
I love the show not only for its entertainment value, but also because it gives me an understanding of how people’s minds work.
Feedback: jenish@primetimeindia.com
