Big Boss 2 finals on 22nd November, Ashutosh won

So, after a lot of drama, the winner of Big Boss Season 2 is finally in. The last few weeks must have been nerve-wracking for the inhabitants of the house, since they would be so close to the prize, and in tension of getting evicted at any point. The last 4 included those who a lot of people had speculated would always be in, and these were Zulfi (not so sure), Ashutosh, Rahul, and Raja (all these 3 always seemed like contenders). And then came the one night that essentially meant that Rahul would no longer be in the show.
In a fit of insanity, when wracked by hunger and by egging each other on, they decided to revolt and broke out of the house by climbing the fence. They were encouraged to go back in, but somebody had to pay for this. The Big Boss started the nomination procedure as a punishment, and finally Rahul decided that he would be the one who would leave, especially since the others all regretted their actions.
The show was helped a lot by the ongoing strike, since all other shows were off due to the television workers strike, and only Big Boss was excluded from this strike since the inhabitants of the house had already spent months inside, and hence they were exempted from the re-run show.
With the final 3, it must have also got very boring for them, and the television all the time was showing them that they have just a few days left, and the money involved was all of Rs. 1 crore. Finally, the 22nd of November came, and Shilpa Shetty got into the act. After almost 3 hours of drama (including with performances from the previous participants), first Zulfi was eliminated, and then Akshay Kumar joined the show to make the final announcement, and he then announced that it was Ashutosh who was the winner.

Video of Ashutosh winning the Big Boss Season 2 on youtube:

Big Boss Season 2 on Colors all 7 days at 10PM

Big Boss (part 1 an year back on Sony) is now in Season 2. It was fairly successful in Season 1, and in Season 2, it moved to the Viacom promoted channel Colors. Colors has been promoting it with a huge amount of effort, running many ads before the show started. Now that the show has started, the 10 - 11 AM time slot, the 12 AM - 1 AM time slot, many discussions of the events on new channels, on the radio, and other media has also happened (and Colors will be happy for all this free publicity). Season 1 ended on 16 January 2007, and Season 2 started more than an year later, at 17 August 2008 (the final is scheduled for 22 November 2008). The channel managed a big catch, with the winner of the Britain based Big Brother Shilpa Shetty appearing as the host once a week, where the person to be kicked out is decided.



For the Season 2, 14 contestants were selected and moved to the Big Boss House located in the beautiful location of Lonavala, near Mumbai. The house has a gym, has a swimming pool, but no communication facilities, and no TV. The format is that every week, the contestants put their nomination for who gets evicted, and at the end of the week, Shipla Shetty announces who gets evicted. First to get evicted was politician Sanjay Nirupam, and Jade Goody left the show soon after it was announced that she was afflicted with cervical cancer.
The house mates who remain in the show are Monica Bedi (although she was evicted once before and was later brought in again), Rahul Mahajan (Pramod Mahajan's son, and who must be the person who has been nominated the most), Raja (who has a wild temper and has fought badly with Rahul and Sambhawana), Ashutosh (who survived the eviction of Diana Hayden, and apparently both of them had a soft corner for each other), and Zulfi Sayed (one wonders how he has managed to survive). Those who were evicted earlier include comedian Ahsaan Qureshi (who came across as somewhat of a male chauvinistic), Alina Wadiwalla, Debojit Saha (the singer, who was non-controversial in the program), Diana Hayden (who was the last one to be evicted), Ketaki Dave (who showed that she missed her family tremendously), Payal Rohatgi (whom Rahul apparently pursued and who became very controversial when she was spotted in a bikini, and with all the massages from Rahul and short skirts ) - she is now in the house but only for a week, Rakhi Vijan, Sambhavna Seth (who is currently in the house along with Payal for a week, and who was the most controversial because of her fighting nature), Sanjay Nirupam (the first to be evicted, and who is now very critical of the program). Rahul is now wooing Monica Bedi.
The Big Boss has made a lot of effort this time to be very interesting, with letting people listen to what others are saying about them while hiding, with punishing the group by having them make their nominations in public, and by other interesting tasks. Bringing controversial people back into the program also makes for a lot of fun. And then having Pooja Bedi host another related program adds to the overall effort that has been spent on this program.

Videos from Big Boss 2 (link)
More Videos from Big Boss 2 on Youtube (link)

'Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat' on Star Plus

Raja Ki Aayegi Baarat is a serial based on the rich guy - poor girl story. For some time now, Yudhistir has been in love with Rani, who was from a poor family in the village, and who was working as a maid in the royal family. He even refused to get engaged to a seemingly suitable girl, Princess Bhumi, who was as such unsuited to him because of her greedy nature, extrovert behavior, fondness for drink, party and fraternising with other males. Eventually, she is married off to the younger brother, Rudra, the step-brother of Yudhisthir. The family tries everything they can to break this love between the elder son and Rani, including setting contests for Rani (and she wins each of them, sometimes in direct conflict with Bhumi).
Eventually, the situation reaches a head when Rani leaves the Palace, and is accused of stealing jewelery. She leaves in disgrace, and soon after Yudhishtir also leaves the palace after Rani. In the village, Rani is promised to Bhujan, but Bhujan and his mother are after the supposed money and jewels that Rani is carrying back from the palace. However, they are exposed when they show the greedy nature and sent out in disgrace, leaving the space open for Yudhistir.
Now, the marriage has been decided, and after the Raja Saheb watches Yudhishtir in the village and sees how he is respected and is involved in the work for the temple, and the love for his eldest son resurfaces. So now the marriage gets approved and Rani gets married to the prince as per all the festivities of a palace wedding, and is slowly winning the hearts of the Raja Saheb. In the meantime, when Rudra and Bhumi were in charge of getting the temple built, and steal money from all the points (including from the statue and from the quality of construction). When Raja Saheb finds out, he is wild and promises that they will be punished. He gives the responsibility of the punishment to the Choti Rani, who is stuck because she has to give a strict punishment to her own son, and in the end, in order to live upto the responsibility given her by Raja Saheb, she disowns her son and his wife, and removes them from any of the palace affairs.

Video of Choti Rani announcing the punishment on Rudra and Bhumi



Videos of the serial from Youtube (link)

The end of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

The Ekta Kapoor promoted saas-bahu serials had an amazing run on TV, being very popular over the years. However, in recent years, these serials have been reducing in popularity for multiple reasons - there are too many channels that are playing the saas-bahu concept, there are other serials on different topics that are becoming more popular (such as reality shows, serials such as Balika Vadhu, etc). One indicator to this was the termination of the contract between Star Plus and Balaji Telefilms, combined with the sudden termination of the long running Kahanii Ghar Ghar Kii.
And now it is common knowledge that the other long running Balaji Serial, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi is coming to an end. Star Plus has asked for the serial to be terminated by 10th November, and Balaji Telefilms has gone to court against this - a real life drama over a TV serial.
Anyhow, the serial had been forced to rehash old villains. For some time, Tripti was back in the form of using the new bahu on the block, Vaidehi, to try and plot against Tulsi. They got Tripti arrested for false currency, and after that, Vaidehi has been more or less absent from the serial. So, another villain, Shiv, from Ganga's history is back. He claims to have been married to Ganga earlier, and manages to both steal Sahil's business (these people seem to never read legal documents properly), and convince the males in the house that Ganga had been deceiving everyone. And they believe him (with Sahil, who had earlier deceived Ganga and cheated on her blaming her). As usual, Tulsi is trying to make sure that the good side wins.