The Natural Selections: Dar-view-nism – 15/11/09

Preface

Well, this web has a lot of reviewers and Darwin doesn’t want to be left behind in this race, so here’s a review from the seat of an 80 year Naturalist!

Here, Darwin gives you his Dar-view-nism.
Darwin continues to brief people about his theories and research of a unique species called ROADIES.

Introduction

After a lethargic outcome of Kolkata auditions, the responsibility of bringing back the charm of Roadies was now in the hands of the Chandigarh auditions.

I switched on my TV and sat on my rocking chair with a cup of tea on one hand and some biscuits (for my doggy) on the other.
Rocking back and forth, I kept my eyes glued on TV, taking a sip now and then and praying for some entertainment this week.

With the change in format, my expectations from the auditions had changed from aggressive, ass-drilling episodes to a passive, less grilling episode filled with concrete humour and right judgment.

Chapter I – The Aura

No wonder, the starting sequence of the show with body-painted actors and beautiful backdrops are a treat to the eye.
It clearly reflects the theme of the journey and has been successful in depicting the 7 sins which completes the Wild Safari.

MTV Roadies has reached Chandigarh and we get to see a lot of different species battling it out in the GDs in a quest for survival.
Moderators were slightly disappointed from this year’s contestants but they manage to send a handful of people to their next test of survival – the PI round.

 

Chapter II – The ‘creative’ pwning

Enters ‘Nisha’, the 1st contestant of the PI round, a typical Punjabi kudi who loves dance, gana, sona, chai peena etc. :|
The judges shock her – Roadies isshtyle by calling Emraan Hashmi whom she had promised to kiss if given a chance

Characteristics: head strong, emotional, short-tempered but confident. A typical tomboy.

Judges call another contestant with whom she had a tiff while she was outside. The girl joins Nisha in the interview but the former easily dominates her.

The Mogambo test:-

Judges call a muscular freak named Mogambo, and gives both Nisha and Saloni a challenge to push him out of a circular boundary drawn around him.
Although Saloni calls herself creative, she fails to use her creativity to push Mr. Mogambo out of the circle.
Nisha proves that she is not all brawns but brains as well by pushing Mogambo out of the boundary pretty easily.

By this time my doggy starts barking at me as I was glued to the TV since the last 10 mins not realizing that he has finished his biscuits :|

Chapter III – The mama’s boy

While I offer more biscuits to my doggy, another contestant Vikramjeet enters the PI room. A smart guy who works in a BPO and hates people who poke him.
For the first time in the history of Roadies a contestant’s mom is called in the PI room so that the judges can know more about him.

Characteristics: Confident, smart and intellectual. His different personality makes him special.

Chapter IV – The Desi Beat

Ravneet, the desi Punjabi girl was next. I reckon these kinds of species are quite rare on this planet and this very quality of being rare went in her favour.
This girl has never been on a plane but wants to be a Pilot – some confidence she has!
Judges gave her a task of doing 50 sit-ups which she did with much ease.

Characteristics: Bubbly, strong and crazy. She has the right mix of qualities which would help in survival.

===

Chapter V – The Legend

Finally my doggy is done with eating his biscuits; I grab my cup of tea and was about to take the next sip when I see a familiar face entering the PI room.

This guy’s name is Devendra and he has been trying for Roadies since the last 5 years but this is the first time that this person has passed the 1st round of survival.

As judges are already acquainted with his face and personality, they didn’t bother asking him about his life. Rather they tested his knowledge about Africa.
“South Africa has mummies” is what they got for an answer

Characteristics: Confident and strong but lacks common sense. Has never say die spirit but a bit boring personality.

===

Chapter VI – Nothin

Well the judges are bored by now and I am half way through my cup of tea (yeah drink real slow :p).
So both Nikhil and Cyrus Sahukar have left the PI room while Cyrus Broacha gets to live his long lost Bakra days with the next subject.

His name is Yatin but all we hardly got to know about him as he was busy narrating his life to Cyrus who left the room before he started his story

Characteristics: Simple guy, didn’t get to know much about him. Looked like just another contestant.

 

Chapter VII – The Chick

Ranjana, the typical blonde. Miss India North 2009.
She performed well when she was given a challenge of hugging 25 people in 5 mins.
Her nursery rhymes were cute.

Characteristics: Who cares? A chick is surely needed in the game

===

Chapter VIII – The flying Warrior

“Here comes our champ!” I said when I saw Mohit entering the PI room. My doggy jumped on my bed thinking that I was calling him :|
Well Cyrus had a pretty good time with him as well, he made him hop, skip and jump everywhere in the PI room

Mohit managed to impress the judges with his energy. Doing push ups in that Bunny suit wasn’t that easy!

Characteristics: A good performer as we all know, was hyper-active at 1:30am in the night. Possesses a true Roadie spirit.

===

Chapter IX – The wish and the Chopra

Enters Rishabh, a self-confessed flirt.
Judges call the girl – Mannat, with whom he was flirting and decide to interview both of them at the same time :p
Both of them fail miserably in performing the head stand, but they were impressive when it came to doing push ups.

Both of them got badly pwned by Nikhil though :p

Characteristics: Rishabh: Mauritius is in Africa. Mannat – She can do more push ups than anyone else. Both of them confident but a bit dumb.

Chapter X – The Survivors

So finally I was done with my cup of tea and we saw 8 people getting selected from the Chandigarh, each of them having a unique characteristic of their own.

The Results were as follows:-

1. Nisha:-

Judges say: Selected!
Darwin says: Selected! She has the strength to survive the race.

2. Vikramjeet:-

Judges say: Selected!
Darwin says: Selected! He would mix well with other people, fits in the unique race.

3. Rishabh and Mannat:-

Judges say: Selected!
Darwin says: Umm… not quite. She Such people are common in every city, lets see how they perform in the Ride with Rannvijay round.

4. Ravneet:-

Judges say: Selected!
Darwin says: Selected! A complex species which I would love to study!

5. Ranjana:-

Judges say: Selected!
Darwin says: Selected! As I said, we need a chick anyway

6. Yatin:-

Judges say: Selected!
Darwin says: Not Selected! Didn’t get to see much of his PI, looked like a boring person, rest will get to know in the next round.

7. Mohit:-

Judges say: Selected!
Darwin says: Selected! The typical hard core performer needed in every season of Roadies!

*I leave the room to keep the empty cup in the sink*

This time too the initial pre-PI events were wrapped up in five minutes before the PI of the first contestant Nisha began. Ravneet is a welcome breath of fresh air. Nisha would play her typecast role of a female toughie. Wonder what Rishabh and Mannat had that Devender did not have. They did a few push ups which I guess even Devender would have done had he been asked to do so. Anyway all three of them didn’t have a clue about the African continent. So probably the portions of the PI that they did not show might have the clue for the selection of this pair.
Wonder whether there are any invisible judges aiding Nikhil. Cyrus Sahukar is just warming the seat and Cyrus Broacha’s antics are actually distracting, although quite welcome I guess.
This year's format seems to make the point that you can get a peep into a person’s character without browbeating him. Sometimes when it becomes all yelling, you freak a candidate out without even getting to know whether he has any stuff in him. Just stoically bearing the yelling is not the criteria; else any PC can become a roadie.

I like this change in tonality, though compared to the previous seasons, without the yelling, it looks a bit tame. Any change is uncomfortable and I guess the initial discomfort is just that. Moreover, I guess the change in tonality is more to do with “instructions/directions” from the Government being enforced, rather than one brought about by the producers on their own. Else, an outside chance is that this could be a conscious departure by Nikhil to tread a different path and I am sure he would want us to believe it is the latter .

Ravneet is my favourite from Chandigarh auditions and hope she makes it to SA. ===

So that’s it for today from Darwin! Hope you guys enjoyed this Dar-view-nism.
Special thanks to Arjit for helping me out on this!
Cheers!!!

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