The most gripping reality show on air is Bigg Boss. This show is currently reigning the small screen and is matching the tastes of the average Indian citizen. It provides a stage for potential ‘house-mates’ to showcase their ability to survive not among physical but mental hardships. Bigg Boss is basically an Indian version of its immensely successful U.K. counterpart, Bigg Brother. For those who don’t know, the Bigg Boss house is occupied by contestants whose candid remarks, confessions, actions and gossip, as they interact with one another, is recorded by hidden cameras. Each week the contestants individually nominate two persons whom they would like to remove from the house. The two contestants getting highest number of nominations are put up as candidates for eviction. It is up to the audience to vote and decide whom they would like to see continuing in the house and whom to eliminate. In order to maintain control over this house, the omnipresent Bigg Boss, a voice doles out justice when needed. He also assigns tasks to the occupants each week. These tasks help the inmates to earn their food. The winner i.e. the person who remains in the show for days and of course the deciding vote by the people establishes the winner and he/she can walk away with the reward money, one crore rupees!

Thrown into the Bigg Boss house sans any form of entertainment other than the company of the rest the sufferers the inmates resort to anything from showy ‘love’ affairs to vulgar fights and even groundless allegations against one another. It is after all purely a case of the survival of the fittest! Anyway if you love the show or you hate it, you definitely cannot ignore it.

It can also be said that the show has existentialist leanings considering Jean Paul Sartre’s play; ‘No Exit’ which endorses his belief- Hell is other people. This particular play which deals with life after death-people who after entering hell find it completely opposite to the popular conception which talks about physical tortures and endless fires. In short-eternal torment. They instead find that they are led to a room one by one and with nothing to do they soon feel irritable as they are unable to tolerate one another. This, Sartre claims is hell, where mental torture is applied rather than physical. Bigg Boss has definitely taken a cue from this play.