MTV Roadies 5.0 winner Ashutosh Kaushik

He seemed the least likely to last the distance but it was the 27-year-old dhabawala from Saharanpur who ended up as the champion of MTV Roadies 5.0.

Ashutosh Kaushik, better known as Ashu, might have never boarded a flight in his life but he soared the highest the very first time the popular reality show on MTV went international. With a simple motto — “Mein sabki phaad dunga!” — Ashu left behind the so-called cool guys and gals from cities like Mumbai, Calcutta and Delhi.

“I just cleared all the ‘pur’s — I was the only one from Saharanpur, the only one from Jaipur and the only one from Kuala Lumpur,” laughs Ashu, making it clear that he only speaks in Hindi.

A pause later, he explains the significance of the win. “I had never thought my life will change in this fashion — jo socha tha usse dus guna zyada hua hai mere saath,” says Ashu. “I had never seen Roadies before this edition and to become the champion Roadie is truly unbelievable. The last four years Roadies only happened in English and I couldn’t understand a single word, so I would move on to other channels. Look at my luck, from this year Roadies was turned into a Hindi programme. That was a huge plus point for me.”

Ashu didn’t give it much thought while auditioning for Roadies 5.0. “I just about turn up for every audition happening near my place… I went for Indian Idol too. It didn’t matter to me whether I could sing or not. I was there. So for Roadies too, my friends told me about the auditions and got me to participate.”

Ashu failed the auditions. Not once but twice. But he was not one to give up. “After being rejected at both the Delhi and Lucknow auditions, I turned up for the Jaipur auditions. Had I not made it there, I would have gone for the Mumbai auditions. The train reservations were finalised.”

One of Ashu’s greatest strengths right through the show was to not take to heart producer-host Raghu Ram’s verbal mauling. “Oh, woh toh zinda aadmi ka post mortem kar deta hai,” laughs the Saharanpur lad. “If you can survive that you are on, otherwise you might as well go back home. Even in the last episode when I was in the top two, Raghu lashed out at me saying that I hadn’t done anything to come all this way. Yeh hi Raghu ka pyaar hai… Uska gussa kisi ne dekhi hi nahin shayad… I never had any expectations from him. I would hear what he had to say and forget about it. You can’t expect to hear good things from that man.”

It was when Snehasish got voted out that Ashu started feeling he had a chance to win Roadies. “Maine khud ko bola Ashu tu toh game mein puri tarah chha chuka hai… But then all the people who were ousted came back to the show and we had to get them out a second time. Then I was sure nobody could beat me. After Shambhavi left, it was easy. I kept Nihal and got Sonel out. Otherwise Sonel would have won, not me.”

While Ashu became quite close to Sonel, he believes that the others too are friends now that the show is over. “During the show we were hardcore enemies fighting it out amongst each other. Whatever you saw on TV was true, we were not faking at all. But after the journey ended, we all had a good laugh and we became friends.”

The first international trip, though, wasn’t such a friendly sojourn for Ashu. “I always wanted to go abroad. I had never even gone to Goa… so going to Thailand and Malaysia was a big thing for me. But there’s nothing there. You don’t have an Indian to talk to, no decent food to eat... Apna India sabse best. Foreign countries only look better on paper.”

What next for the Roadie raja? Well, watch out SRK. “I have now joined acting classes here in Mumbai. Dekhta hoon film mein chance maarta hoon… Hero banke hi chhodenge…”

So will the dhaba shut down in Saharanpur? “No, no it was running while I was on the show; it will keep running.”

Who was your favourite Roadie? Tell t2@abpmail.com