Where do successful working people (read: too busy to socialise) find love? At workplace, pubs, gyms, online (yes, its true!) & lately they enroll themselves for ’’Reality Shows’’ where not only they get a chance to find love, they might even end up being paid for it!
And what do shy/reserved/pigheaded/unexperimental people do? They (like yours truly) sit home in front of the telly, with garma garma chai n bhajiya & watch those ’’reality’’ shows where strangers look for love, money & what not! And while I was busy watching one such show, my ever-prying bhaiyu (brother) goes: Is this yet another of those silly reality shows you always keep watching? Like that Joe Millionaire, where those 20 girls were trying to woo a fake millionaire!
Me: No no, yeh jara hatke hain! Here we have a twist in the ’story’ coz there are 15 girls who are looking for love & are gonna try their best to win the man who has no idea that the girl he chooses is going to win a million dollars and he thinks he has come here to look for the love of his life! And the girls too thought the same but now they have been told that they could also win the money & so...
Bhaiyu: Phew! ye ye, just tell me what happens in the end! I really cannot understand how you have the patience to watch all this.. errr crap!
Me: I just love watching shows where people [esp smart n savvy ones!] make fools of themselves! And here are 15 of them making a fool of the guy!! Oh, I love this show right from the first frame. The cast, location & presentation is so perfect! Now u shush & lemme watch...
Paisa yeh Paisa... nahin koi aisa!
In this quest for love or money, 15 beautiful women try to win the heart of a handsome & charming bachelor, a 33-year-old lawyer, Rob. The women, unaware of the million dollar prize, have come to find love & the bachelor who says he dislikes blind dates has come to select his life partner from one of the 15 unknown beauties! The show is hosted by one Mr. Jordan Murphy who guides the girls through the rules of the game & who also informs them that the chosen girl would win a cool million dollars! The only rule here is that this incentive should be kept a secret from Rob. What the girls have no idea about is that in the end the winning female contestant would be asked to choose between Rob or the money! Hence the game of choosing between love or riches begins.....
Pariyon ka mela hain... har dil akela hain!
In the first episode we meet the 15 beautiful women who are onway to the beautiful mansion in Bel Air, California. These single ladies are from every part of the country & not one is similar to the other. They range from show-off name-dropping Kelly, a sophisticated breathtakingly beautiful Erin, a naive Paige who has taken a vow of celibacy, Cristy who could give most models a run for their money, Alima a math teacher, Laura a 34 year old fitness instructor who claims to be much more wiser than any of her younger competitors, Christina who has been engaged five times & is looking out for the sixth! And the list goes on......
All the girls are ecstatic to be in the mansion & as champagne flows the girls talk about how the guy would be or what they expect from this ’game’. It is now that Mr. Jordan lets out the secret that the woman who wins the bachelor’s heart would also win one million dollars! But they are also forbidden to reveal this cash incentive to the bachelor himself. As if this was not enough, each of the girls is now presented with a check made out to them for a million dollars. The reactions were priceless as each of the girl glowed looking at the amount - some held on to the check gasping, wondering if they would win this & how comfy life would be. Soon Mr. Jordan collects the cheques for safekeeping & reminded the girls that one of them would definitely be a millionaire before the show was over. However there were few girls who poohed the idea of money and said they would rather follow their hearts, choose the guy [whatta bunch of foolish girls!]
As the girls prepare themselves for the ’date’, we meet the poor unsuspecting bachelor or as Mr. Jordan calls him ’’The Lucky Guy’’. Rob, a former marine is now a practicing attorney as well as an athlete. [Personally I am not very impressed with this so called handsome lawyer, his looks dont matter much as he seems to be unconfident & unable to hold a conversation but then the girls would surely see the million dollar halo behind him!!!]. As each of the girl meet Rob - a 30 sec chat time- he tells each of them how lovely they look & he tries hard to keep his eyes in their sockets! Kelly shows her knack for grabbing attention; she has baked some cookies for her prince charming & Rob is duly impressed!
Next morning, after a surprise breakfast meeting during which Rob chats with each girl for a few minutes, its time for Rob to decide the ten girls who he would ask to stay back. Rob randomly calls out each girl, the ones asked to stay were told how lovely it was meeting them and he could see a connection blah blah. And the ones he wanted to eliminate from the game, get to hear some awkward praises, only to be told it ’wont work out’ between them. When he made the final choice, I was like ’’Oh my god! He let Cristy go & opted for Paige? What’s this penchant guys have for sweet n silly naive girls???’’ Anyways, Cristy murmurs something like learning a lot from this experience (?) and is out of the game for good.
While the chosen ones celebrate, the five eliminated girls are taken to the secret room where they pick up the cheque made in their name and chuck it into a fireplace. This was the saddest part of the show - the ’poor’ five girls who are send back to their real world in cabs... and I wait eagerly to watch the next episode!
Reality Bites.... and how!!
After two boring dates with the eight girls, its time they cook dinner for Rob & also another chance to grab some Rob attention. This is also the time when the real Rob surfaces; once in the company of 10 beautiful women Rob is at his wits end on how to without showing his true self! He gets drunk, misbehaves, asks the girls to pull off his boots & to get into the hot tub!!! All the ’’oooh whatta guy’’ uttered for Rob in the introduction episode quickly turns into one word : JERK! Not even the money seems to make amends for his behaviour [or does it?]. However, the next morning before another elimination round, Rob apologizes with some stupid excuses which few girls accept nonchalantly while the others admit [behind the curtains] that they are now into this game just for the money! In the elimination round five girls are shown the door & the best five are now sharpening their claws to get the man of their dreams… or the million dollars they have been dreaming of lately!
So what would happen if the girl Rob chooses wants the money more than she wanted to be with Rob? Nothing lost I guess coz that babe would walk away with a cool One million dollars! And don’t we all know what the winner would do? The girls have realised that no Rob is worth losing a million dollars & given a chance he would have opted for the money too! The girls seemed to have come to terms with this pretty easily as none of them had trouble keeping their million-dollar secret [Whoever said a woman cannot keep a secret obviously didn’t know any of these 15 gals!]
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