Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayenge - Rahul finally decides on Dimpy as his bride, leaving Nikunj and Harpreet in the lurch

So finally the waiting is over. On a long program shown on Saturday, Rahul has finally made his choice, selecting Dimpy Ganguly over the final 3 contestants, with Nikunj Malik and Harpreet Chhabra, who made the final, not being selected. The show also put at rest all the talk after Rakhi Sawant's swayamwar, who had got engaged and then broke the engagement, since it is quite clear that Rahul and Dimpy are going to get married on the show. They have already exchanged garlands, exchanged rings, and taken the blessings of the parents present on the show. Rahul also finally said "I love you" to one of the contestants, and it was Dimpy. It must have been that he made his choice much early.
For the last couple of days, the show has been highlighting the various functions that relate to marriage, such as dance and singing shows, bringing in many other stars (but not major film stars), going through many of the rituals such as the haldi. Before this, all the meetings with the different set of parents had happened. Of course, one wonders for Harpreet and Nikunj, since they have gone through all the rituals and even done a haldi ceremony for somebody whom they are not going to marry (although they would already know this before they joined the show).
The show did try to prolong things a bit, such as by asking all the parents, the girls, and Rahul to say whether they did want to say anything to any of the others, and this got a bit boring. However, now that NDTV Imagine has managed to get a swayamwar to end with a marriage, their credibility level must have gone up.

Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayenge - the final three contestants need to be decided

The 4 remaining contestants on the Rahul Swayamvar show are Harpreet, Dimpy, Mrinmai, and Nikunj. And now one of them will be eliminated to make the final 3. This is after an interesting week whereby all of them got a chance to invite Rahul to their homes, and most of the interactions were shown very positively.
In each case, the family members welcomed Rahul a lot (even though the age gap at the minimum is 6 years, and more than 10 years in many cases, and not a single family member seemed bothered by this in any way). Some of them fathers / elder relatives did take the chance to ask Rahul about whether he was serious about marriage, and Rahul did his best to sound sincere and assure the family members that he was going to get married in this show, as opposed to Rakhi Sawant who finally did not get married in the show and because of whom, everybody doubts all these contestants.
What was interesting in the depiction of Rahul's visits to all the contestants home was that they all committed to him that they were in deep love with him, but he was not willing to commit in any way in this way, although he was much closer to them than it was in the past.
In the end, it was down to Mrinmai and Harpreet in terms of eviction, one of them would be the one who would be evicted from the show. And finally Mrinmai was the one who was evicted, and she did not go politely, telling him that Rahul was wrong in evicting her.

Swayamvar Season 2-Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayenge - Moral problems with the show

Swayamvar Season 2-Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, has raised the heckles of many people for what they construe to be anti-India values; while for others it is a fine example of the marriage between notions of small-time celebrities to cooked up reality shows. Such platforms provide a very good opportunity for channels to create a certain buzz about their brand while for those associated with the show itself (the celebrity=Rahul Mahajan and the contestants) it is all about getting those fifteen seconds of fame. In fact for many of the participants it is the stepping stone that they need to bolster their flagging modelling/acting careers.

The moral police who deride the show for its blatant disrespect of so-called Indian values and tradition, such shows go against the concept of the ‘ideal’ Indian woman who is supposed to be all coy and demure. In fact surprisingly the contestant themselves come with pre-conceived notions of the ‘ideal, Indian wife” and look down upon and back bite fellow contestants who do not fit into the stereotype. This was clearly evident in the kind of comments received by a contestant Dimpy Ganguly last week. Dimpy is a fun loving, high spirited girl from Kolkata. A model and actress by profession, her easy charm and dimpled smile had clearly won over Rahul. The two were seen cosying up to each other while taking a hot air balloon ride.

Things came crashing down for Dimpy when it was revealed that a man name Neil Shah had been repeatedly calling her up from Australia. He even sent her a Kuala Bear stuffed toy as Christmas gift. Immediately she was put under the moral scanner by all her fellow contestants. It was shameful to see an open trial being conducted on national television that questioned her integrity and her honesty. Granted that she had put herself in the spotlight by agreeing to be a part of the show; but that did not give the producers the right to question her about personal affairs so openly. The only person who had the right to question her motives and actions is Rahul Mahajan since her affairs are of direct consequence to him, if he were to fall in love with her.

Instead the entire thing was up for public consumption. Agreed that it is this voyeuristic trait of reality television that makes it so ‘happening’ but there has to be a line of decency that ought not to be crossed no matter what the compulsions. It was very disconcerting to see her squirm with embarrassment and a certain amount of shame as the host of the show Ram Kapoor came at her full guns blazing. What was even more disgusting was the manner in which the other female participants reacted-venomous barbs, spiteful comments and a lot of sniggers. No wonder then that a woman is considered to be another woman’s worst enemy!

Swayamvar Season 2 - The drama is yet to begin in earnestness! - On NDTV Imagine

Swayamvar Season 2- Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayenge has had a sedate beginning. Given the controversial nature of the ‘groom’ and his past exploits, Rahul has so far been extremely unassuming and not tried to hog the limelight. He has been courteous to all the contestants. In fact he has often appeared embarrassed and bashful, unable to deal with the girls and their clamouring for his attention. In fact, at times he has this look of incredulity on his countenance as if he is wondering to himself “Is this really happening to me? Wow! How did I get to be so lucky?” Indeed over the last couple of years, he has travelled from one end of the spectrum to the other-from being in the hospital for drug overdose to being divorced from his first wife and then becoming a much publicized playboy during Big Boss Season 2.

However the same attributes of timidity and bashfulness cannot be ascribed to the fifteen contestants. They are an over eager, in your face, ‘modesty be damned’ bunch of girls. Of course given the format of the show where they have to woo a man instead of things being the other way round, they cannot afford to be overtly modest. Thus you will find them tripping over each other in their bid to please, tease, coax, cajole, seduce Rahul so that he spends the maximum time with a particular contestant. Some try to show off their culinary skills by preparing various dishes, while still others try to woo him by their singing, dancing and other such skills. The winners of various competition winners get the invaluable prize of getting to spend one-on-one time with Rahul.

So far two celebrity guests have come on the show to judge the contestants. The first one to come on the show was Sambhavna Seth. She came as Rahul’s sister and had a meeting with all the girls individually, forming her own opinion of the aspirants. The fact that Sambhavna’s credentials are as dubious as Rahul’s is of little consequence to the show producers. As a co-participant with Rahul during Big Boss 2 she had created as much trouble and controversy as the man himself.

The second celebrity judge happened to be the lovely and glamorous Gautami Gadgil Kapoor, wife of the host Ram Kapoor. Gautami came on as Rahul’s sister-in-law and she too judged the various contestants by spending time with them. She tried to gauge the persons behind the personas of the various girls and also gave them valuable advice. She selected Swati as the person she found most compatible to Rahul. As the days pass, competition is bound to heat up. It remains to be seen how the girls handle themselves from here and on and more importantly, how Rahul handles all the attention.

Rahul Mahajan begins his swayamvar with a bang!

Swayamvar Season 2-Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega has finally begun. Fifteen beautiful and very hopeful girls will be vying to win Rahul Mahajan’s affection and admiration. Like the previous season (Rakhi’s Swayamvar), the first episode was a grand event where the aspirants were introduced to their prince charming. Set in one of the beautiful palaces in Udaipur Fatehgarh Palace, the contestants alighted from expensive vintage cars to be greeted by Rahul, bouquet in hand. Most of the girls also carried small gifts in order to make a good first impression.

The fifteen hopeful girls came from all over India. The average age of the girls will be around twenty five years and most of them were visibly nervous as they were out to woo a man (and not the other way round) and that too on national television. It takes guts for a woman to pursue a man rather than the reverse. Most of the girls were either students or aspiring models and there even was a lecturer of a college. Most girls came bearing presents so as to make a mark in Rahul’s heart at the very first opportunity. Twinkle Mukherjee from Kolkata gifted Rahul an idol of Goddess Durga, “jor” and cheli– that marks the 'gathbandhan' (wedding knot) between a bride and groom in Bengali weddings. Charmy from Ahmedabad showered her affection and wished Rahul good luck by gifting him a showpiece of 'Farishtey'(angel). Nikunj Malik, an accessories designer from Faridabad made Rahul's day truly special by gifting him a wallet especially designed by her with her picture in it. Rashmi from Lucknow gifted him a set of a Lucknawi Kurta-Pajama.

Tannu from Faridabad and Mrinal from Nagpur gifted the Dulhe Raja a statue of Radha Krishna and a Bhagwad Gita respectively.Rahul was visibly overwhelmed and touched by these warm gestures and could not suppress his joy and happiness as the girls made his way to him one by one. A lovely party had been organised where the girls tried their best to spend some one-on-one time with Rahul. While some made him dance, others sang to express their joy and some even spouted poetry. It was very evident from the behaviour of all the contestants that they meant business and were serious about their efforts to woo Rahul.

The coming episodes will be interesting to watch as we will get to see the girls more up close and personal. The kind of chemistry each girl is able to strike up with Rahul will determine the length of their stay in the show. There will cat fights galore as the girls have already started back biting about each other from the first episode itself. Whether Rahul’s Swayamvar is as successful as Rakhi’s only time will tell, but viewers can certainly look forward to many entertaining episodes full of drama, romance and excitement.