PremiumTemptation Island India: Is India ready for Karan Kundrra, Mouni Roy's show where it’s okay to go astray by love?
November 3 marked the premiere of Temptation Island India, a reality show in which the contestants are lured to go astray by love. The point here is: Is India ready for such a show?
Last Updated: 05.14 PM, Nov 04, 2023
Actress Vidya Balan spoke a dialogue in a film, which mirrors the reality of today's relaity shows. Vidya had said, "The only thing that makes any film sell today is ‘Entertainment, Entertainment and Entertainment’. When one talks of ‘entertainment’, the conversation remains incomplete without the mention of evergreen films like Sholay, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, 3 Idiots, Maine Pyaar kiya, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and many others… At the same time, there are also other films like ‘Kamasutra’, ‘Murder’, ‘Fire’, ‘Khuddar’ ‘Bandit Queen’, ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’, ‘Lamhe’ and many others, which too have made news.
The only difference is that, while the former lot of films made news/ were in the news because of their so-called ‘clean’ content, the latter lot of films made news/ became news because of its ‘ahead of times’ kind of content. Till date, countries like India are still fighting shy (even though not as much as before) to consume content from the latter lot of films. That brings us to the most eternal question: Is India really ready for such content?
With the advent of OTT platforms, it seems that the baton of censorship has only exchanged hands from a strict teacher to a lenient teacher, who would not mind if you copy a thing or two in the exams. Speaking of OTT platforms, these days, the international show ‘Temptation Island’ has been making news for many days now. The reason? Well, JioCinema is now streaming the Indian version of the international show. For those who know the international format of the show, the question again which arises here is, ‘Is India really ready for such content’?
An international website that is only about reviews of shows and films, has a user describing the ‘Temptation Island’ show as ‘Unbelievably unrealistic and just degrades society. Pathetic’. There is another user on the same website who described the international format of ‘Temptation Island’ as ‘This show is awful. It goes against everything moral which is what is wrong with the world today..’
Only a few months ago, Salman Khan had made it very clear on the Bigg Boss OTT 2 show that he will not tolerate any kind of untoward behaviour. In the same show, a contestant Jad Hadid went onto expose his posterior in full public, as his way of expressing his anger and frustration against a fellow contestant, who was a lady! Post that, what followed was Jad Hadid apologising for his uncalled-for behaviour and Salman Khan and contestants forgiving him! Period!
The latest update is that, ‘Temptation Island India’ sees the same chiselled physique international model Jad Hadid as one of the eligible single contestants whose job is to lure the females from the couples’ gang! And, with a show name like ‘Temptation Island India’, what really remains to be seen is what will happen when Jad gets angry again over a fellow contestant this time!
Looking back, during the nineties, the Karisma Kapoor starrer ‘Khuddar’ had become a controversial film, because of the term ‘s##y’ in one of its tracks. Thanks to the then-moral police, the pressure mounted on the film’s makers so much that they had to replace the ‘forbidden word’ to ‘baby’. Circa 2023: The first episode of Temptation Island saw the contestants using the ‘still-forbidden words’ like ‘F###’ so effortlessly that you land up wondering how their languages would have been if the said term was not invented at all! Then, one of the contestants in the first episode actually had the guts to tell the line “Jidhar ladkiyaan dekhi nahi, wahi par (using a term for playing an instrument) ye shuru ho jaata hai” with zero fear on the face about the show’s hosts/ makers or even their parents!
Well… that’s just the beginning! Then, there was a contestant who took immense pride in describing himself as a guy ‘whose fingers move really fast… on the guitar’! Is that the content that the viewers expect to hear and see from today’s Boomer generation and Gen Z while they switch on their TV sets or mobile sets to see ‘Temptation Island India’.
The very fact that, even though India is a land of Kamasutra and Khajuraho, we Indians always tend to swiftly address any serious topics. A recent example can be cited that of the Akshay Kumar starrer ‘OMG 2’, which eventually became a controversial film, because of its story plot. And, the Censors did have their final say by certifying the films with a ‘A’ certificate. So much so, Akshay Kumar even joked saying, “Pehli adult film hai jo teenagers ke liye bani hai”. If a film like OMG 2, which advocated children learning human anatomy, ran back and forth before it finally got released, one really wonders about the future of entertainment arenas when shows like ‘Temptation Island India’ get made!
Just a few days ago, a leading actress came in the eye of a storm because she confessed about ‘pre-marital infidelity’. Post the show was aired, social media suddenly became the unanimous domain for many memes featuring her and her actor husband. Does that mean that the audiences today are so strongly rooted in our culture that they become unforgiving when it comes to infidelity! Well, if that’s the case, then, one really wonders about the reaction of the same people towards a show like ‘Temptation Island India’, wherein it's an open invitation for the couples (although not married) to go astray in love and be unapologetic about it!
One of the introductory videos about the show has the host Mouni Roy telling, “Yahaan couples aur paas aayengey yaa kisi aur ke pyaar mein doob jaayengey”. (Will the couples come furthermore closer to each other or will they fall in love with someone else?). If this is not an invitation to pre-marital infidelity, then, what is! One does understand that, with the advent of OTT platforms the freedom of expression has only got a further bigger platform, wherein there are no restrictions over the language or even none of the big daddies keeping a tab on the content! But one does feel that, where to draw the lines for such shows, esp on OTT platforms!
And for the wise man who had spoken the iconic line, ‘The future is AI (Artificial Intelligence), we would like to add to that, ‘Even though the future is AI, it is definitely not shows like TI (Temptation Island), at least for countries like India, which thrives on morals, cultures and values. The end decision is however, of you the readers who are also the viewers! After all, the TV set is yours, the mobile screen is yours and yes… even the temptation is yours too!