Of Dudes and Dreams

Young fame-seekers audition for a reality show about flirting, hoping to grab a passport to showbiz

Almost none of them, however, is interested in wooing a girl —it is fame that they are all chasing. Dressed like the '90s' rap artist MC Hammer, in dhoti pants and a jacket, Sunny Arora waits outside the screening room. A Haryana boy, he moved to Mumbai four years ago to realise his dream to be famous. He says he isn't unrealistic "like millions of others who want to make it big in films". He wants to be a TV star. The 24-year-old has already done cameos in CID and Adalat on Sony and was even a prospective bridegroom on Veena Ka Swayamvar, but the channel, Imagine, shut down before the show could take off.

Shalini Sethi, director-programming, Bindass, admits that of the three cities they scoured for talent — Chandigarh and Delhi being the other two — Mumbai sees a majority of contestants who aspire to be famous. That these contestants are indiscriminate about the show format does not bother her.

The show has introduced the "Superstud Oath" in Delhi where boys are made to pledge that they will not objectify women. Few of the contestants practise it in real life.

While Chouhan brags about having four girlfriends — each for a different mood — Paras Saluja, a successful entrepreneur in the North but a struggling actor in Mumbai, believes his day is "incomplete" until he has "interacted with a woman in some way". Karan Kullar is open about dating but wants his parents to find him the "right girl" when it is time for him to marry. Another aspiring "superstud" Jayesh Lakhotia, an MBA-turned-struggling actor, is wary of women.

But the judges at the audition — Patel, British-Asian model Sofia Hayat and television actor Madhura Naik — say that it is easy to weed out non-serious contestants in the second and final rounds. "We're looking for a sense of humour and charm," says Hayat, who found the Sikh boys from Chandigarh to be the most romantic and endearing.

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