Namit Das

Had a nasty breakup and been itching to get back at your ex ever since? Then Channel V’s Axe Your Ex (Friday at 7pm) is where you should be. A Bakra-meets-Emotional Atyachaar format, Axe Your Ex helps a participant abuse and humiliate — all in a fun, good-natured way, insist the producers — a former partner on national television!

“It’s a crazy world out there and I am sure almost everyone, at some point of time or the other, has fantasised about getting back at an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend. This show allows these kind of people to vent their frustrations and teach their former partners a lesson,” chuckles host Namit Das, more popular as Rishi, Ranbir Kapoor’s best buddy in Wake Up Sid.

From hounding an ex to the brink of a nervous breakdown to publicly humiliating him or her in front of thousands, Axe Your Ex has a host of “treatments” at hand. “But nothing that we do on the show will be in the serious space. In fact, pranks are the driving force of Axe Your Ex,” says Namit.

What are these treatments? “The producers and I have studied all the characteristics and weaknesses of all the ‘victims’ in advance. The first episode had someone who was petrified of the police. So the whole torture was centred around him being hauled up by the cops. It was hilarious,” laughs Namit.

But how does one not cross the thin line between fun and seriousness, a la Jab We Met? “It’s very difficult because here we are dealing with real people who have been in real relationships. But fortunately, all the people that we have had on the show so far have been very sporting. I just hope we don’t have a situation in the future where I get beaten up by a participant!” says Namit.

“Unlike other relationship-related reality shows, you won’t find any rona-dhona or gaalis on Axe Your Ex. Everything is carried out in a fun and sporting space,” he adds.

So would Namit — whose character Rishi also got dumped in Wake Up Sid — ever think of getting back at an ex-girlfriend on the show? “Considering that I have always been at the receiving end of many relationships, I just might. I would love to get back at a couple of my ex partners,” laughs the actor who will next be seen in the Neil Nitin Mukesh-Deepika Padukone-starrer Lafangey Parindey.