Bigg Boss 8 finale is a snoozefest: Gautam Gulati wins, Rajat Sharma grills contestants

Life will never be the same again. Bigg Boss Season 8 is over. Where will we learn lessons about light molestation, making jokes about being molested, denials of love, how to hit on other women in front of your wife, and sneaking kisses (or was it more?) in the toilet? And you thought Bigg Boss has nothing to give back to society. Also, let’s not forget that Bigg Boss and all its lessons on life are shown at 9pm, while Masterchef India is shown as late night programming at 10.30pm. Go figure. Just so we don’t forget Bigg Boss anytime soon, the finale was two and half hours long. It had Malaika Arora Khan shaking a leg. Sonakshi Sinha made a guest appearance, shook a leg as well and walked one of the finalists out. Ajaz Khan (it’s okay if you don’t know who he is, I’m not particularly proud that I do) escorted another. Rohit Shetty showed up to plug the new season of Khatron Ke Khiladi and made the finalists drive a bike through what was passed off as glass, but seemed to be a sheet of sugar. And then Rajat Sharma made an appearance and shook a leg and…okay, I kid. But what WAS Rajat Sharma doing hosting an entire segment in the middle of India’s answer to dodgy reality television? More on that later. The finale in itself was nothing to write home about. It’s as if even the producers had lost interest in Bigg Boss 8. They did manage to line up all the contestants and we got to see them dressed to the hilt – some looking good, others looking like they were going to take part in a pantomime. The finalists got makeovers by a team of makeup artists who made Karishma Tanna, Pritam Singh and Gautam Gulati (again, if you don’t know who they are, be proud of yourself) look really good. Ali Quli Mirza (the chap who ran his hands up a female contestant’s thigh because he felt like it) looked distinctly gigolo-ish and Dimpy Mahajan looked like she was about to wail, “Piya tu ab toh aaja”. If I was Dimpy, I would take serious umbrage to the fact that I was the only one made to dress like a lady of the Mumbai dance bar night. [caption id=“attachment_2074707” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Gautam Gulati. Image courtesy: Facebook[/caption] One hour or so of the finale was song and dance as well as new programme promotions. None of the eliminated finalists burst into tears while being led out. They actually looked pleased as punch – maybe calculating how much they’d made for sticking out for so long. The first moment that stood out for me was when finalist Pritam Singh opted to take Rs 25 lakhs instead of risking being eliminated and winning no money. His explanation was that he has a wife and a child and another one on the way. Since he’s the only earning member in the family, he’d rather take home Rs 25 lakh than nothing – especially after suffering four months in the Bigg Boss house. Always nice to see someone take sensible decisions, even if it’s on reality television. Then, right after the bench had been set for the scum of celebrity-hood with Ajaz Khan making an appearance on Bigg Boss, who should appear but – cue drumroll – Rajat Sharma, the doyen of India TV and hard-hitting interviews. Now this is something which intrigues me. Why would someone of Rajat Sharma’s calibre make an appearance on Bigg Boss? That too twice.He must really like the show. Of course his appearance is actually a clever way of advertising his show, Aap Ki Adalat, and reaching out to a larger audience, but it still leaves you with a sinking feeling about the depths people will plumb to ensure TRPs. The last time I saw Rajat Sharma interview someone it was Kiran Bedi. Here he was interrogating each Bigg Boss finalist. From the slightly ridiculous, Sharma had stepped down to the utterly ridiculous. Let’s give points to him and his team for knowing enough about Karishma Tanna, Gautam Gulati and Pritam Singh to make points and counterpoints. Sharma asked them questions as sparkling as the ones he’d posed to the prime minister. It would have been nice if Sharma had stayed away from the unnecessary moralising about Tanna’s relationship with her co-contestant Upen Patel (she hasn’t broken up with her boyfriend). But a little moral policing is always fun, especially as prime time, general entertainment. He even gave his judgment on whether Pritam Singh’s decision to take the money instead of waiting to see if he’d win Bigg Boss was the correct decision or not. This was like watching Barbara Walters appear on Jersey Shore. Just as I was digesting Sharma’s moment in the Bigg Boss sun, they announced the winner and that was that. Bigg Boss 8 was over I have rarely seen such an abrupt ending to such a long-running show or episode. One moment, I was ruing the slow death of journalism; the next moment Gautam Gulati was the winner. Eleven nominations, five minutes in a bathroom with Diandra Soares and months of strutting around shirtless on television culminated in a blink-and-miss-it win. With that came to an end my daily relationship with Bigg Boss 8, Only to be replaced by my weekend relationship with Khatron Ke Khiladi. It even seems to have some of the same contestants as Bigg Boss 8. A rose by any other name… .