Three seasons ago, as I stumbled out of the Bigg Boss house at Lonavala on a cloudy October morning — after having spent half a day and a whole night in ‘lockdown’ — I made a mental note: ‘Never again!’

On Thursday morning, I was back in front of the Bigg Boss gates… for another day of being locked up with 12 other strangers, monitored by 80-plus cameras 24x7 and totally out of touch with the outside world.

I have been a Bigg Boss fan ever since Aashiqui man Rahul Roy held the winner’s trophy in his hands at the end of Season 1. Since then, I have watched Rahul Mahajan jump off the boundary wall of the Bigg Boss house in defiance (Season 2), laughed out loud at Kamaal Rashid Khan aka KRK’s pathetic jokes (Season 3), watched Ashmit Patel and Veena Malik get cosy under the covers (Season 4), cheered loudly when women contestants won right through Seasons 4 to 7, and sat glued to watch Salman Khan host the show like no one else can.

But being a Bigg Boss fan is one thing… spending time locked up in the house for three months with a bunch of strangers is a different ball-game altogether. “I’ve been here before… how bad can it get?” I thought as I mentally psyched myself to walk in a second time. But then, this is Bigg Boss.

LIFE AS WE DON’T KNOW IT
Thursday started early... 5am early. Groggy and tired, I found myself — with four other journalists from Delhi for company — motoring it up to Lonavala, a hill station two hours away from Mumbai. Reaching the gates of a nondescript warehouse, we were ushered through various levels of security checks into a huge room where we met our fellow ‘inmates’ — all journalists from various publications and websites in Mumbai. As I high-fived a few familiar faces and shook hands with many new ones, we were lined up for the first step before checking into the house: the checking of our bags.

When a representative of Endemol India — the creators of the Bigg Boss format — rummaged through my handbag and pulled out things, I found my world being taken away. “Nothing can be taken into the house from all of this,” she stiffly smiled, pointing to my notepad and pen, cash and credit cards, house keys and pen drive. Along with all that, I had to switch off and hand over my two phones and even slip off the watch on my wrist.

Ten minutes later, I walked out, with nothing but the clothes on my back. The one item from my bag I was allowed to take in? My lipstick. What I wasn’t? My painkillers. “But I need them!” I protested, even as I felt my niggling toothache become a steady throb. “If you really need them, just speak into the camera and we will send it over, one tablet at a time,” I was told. Why?! “We can’t take a chance... what if you overdose in there,” was the grim reply. Well, life in the times of Indrani Mukerjea?

A couple more security checks — including a body search—  later, we were ushered into the Bigg Boss house blindfolded and in groups of twos (the theme this season is ‘Double Trouble’), with instructions that we couldn’t open the blindfold till we were well and truly inside the house. What greeted me as I stepped in and slipped off my blindfold was a riot... of colours.

COLOUR BLIND!
Vibrant yellow to glossy green, shocking pink to flaming red, I had never seen so much colour before at the same place at the same time. It almost felt like I had walked into a rainbow. Would there be a pot of gold at the end of it? I doubted it. 

Over the next 30 minutes — or so we thought, since none of us had a watch or phone to gauge the time — the 13 of us explored every nook and cranny of the 8,000sq ft house. From the unending bunches of flowers on display in the living room to the boudoir-like decor of the washroom to the innumerable mirrors in the bedroom, this was one house that you could love or loathe at first sight. The theme? A cross between Moulin Rouge and Alice in Wonderland, with everything arranged in twos — from the dining chairs to the beds.

“This year, we wanted to take the theme very seriously and so everything in the house is in groups of twos. The idea is to play the game in a way that nothing in the house can be done in isolation… one will always need a partner,” Deepak Dhar, managing director and CEO, Endemol India, told t2 at the end of the day. And why the riot of colours? “It psyched you out, right? That’s what we plan to unleash on the contestants,” grinned Dhar.

POLITICS AND PAIR-PLAY
After getting to know each other better — only Hindi can be spoken in the Bigg Boss house — and a prank we played on a fellow contestant that resulted in a broken door (yes, we were a violent bunch!), we wolfed down the lavish breakfast that was sent in, our growling stomachs telling us that it was actually closer to lunch time.

Breakfast done, a voice boomed over the loudspeaker: Bigg Boss! Yes, the same voice that we have known — and loved/hated — through the last eight seasons. Our cheers on hearing Bigg Boss speak for the first time in the day quickly died down when we were told that we had to do our first task: nominate two fellow contestants each, one of whom would be eliminated at the end of the day! “But we don’t have a reason solid enough to dislike anyone (yet),” we protested. But then, this is Bigg Boss. 

One by one, we filed into the all-too-familiar Confession Room to nominate two names, at the end of which three contestants — the quietest of the lot — were picked as the ones with the maximum nominations. I said a silent prayer when my name didn’t figure in that list (yes, go ahead and judge me!) As the nominated trio looked at us with a hint of derision, we kind of knew what the contestants feel like, week on week, when the housemates they trust the most turn around and nominate them. Thank god we were only doing it for a day, I thought. 

Within the next hour, Bigg Boss sent word on the next task: divided into groups of twos, we both would have to hold one plastic ball with one hand each, and walk around the house doing our normal chores. The catch? We couldn’t sit or lie down till the end of the task and even going to the washroom meant having to do it with your partner. Yelp! Starting off as six groups, we spent the next hour doing the task as ‘serious’ Bigg Boss contestants, till my group was one of the last two left. The prize at the end of all the hard work? Nothing… with Bigg Boss adjudging that all the teams hadn’t done the task as per the rules. Damn! 

I AM BEING WATCHED
With our body clock telling us it was late afternoon, the special lunch sent in by Bigg Boss was more than welcome. However, halfway through lunch, one contestant — the one who had got the maximum votes during the nomination process — was told that he had been evicted and had to leave the house immediately. “Can I finish my lunch?” he asked. “No,” was the answer, with the rest of us swallowing our food as fast as we could, scared that we would have to follow suit soon.
 
Lunch over, we all found ourselves heading for the huge bedroom and plonking ourselves on the colourful — and slightly small — beds. A round of Dumb Charades and Antakshari later, we were given our final task for the day: whatever we spoke from that moment on, had to be sung. Anyone who didn’t follow the rules would be punished. “You will have to sing out what you want to say, but if you sing a song, you will be disqualified,” was the instruction from Bigg Boss.

What followed over the next 30 minutes? Plenty of tuneless sentences, making all of us crack up loud at first. I fell into silence a little later, irritated at the sound of my own voice. I broke away from the group, choosing to explore the house a little bit more. But wherever I went, I could sense the cameras — all 80-odd of them — watching every move I made, monitoring every breath I took. One word to describe it: unnerving!

Late afternoon and Bigg Boss’s voice once again boomed over the speaker: our stay in the house was over. We walked out, even as a drone hovered above our heads watching us as we said our goodbyes.

I hopped, skipped and jumped out with a smile, happy to be in the house, but happier to be out of it. ‘Never again,’ I made a mental note. But then, this is Bigg Boss.

THE BB 9 HOUSE

Priyanka Roy
What would you do if you were locked up in the Bigg Boss house for a day? Tell t2@abp.in
Bigg Boss premieres tonight at 9pm on Colors