Small is big in India

[ilovetv]

How did a strapping lad from a small UP village, with a smattering of English but lots of confidence, manage to win hearts and reality shows?


When Ashutosh Kaushik triumphed in Bigg Boss two weeks ago, after earlier winning MTV Roadies, many wondered how the dhaba owner from 'the Other India' did it. How did he eliminate the city-slickers in show after show?

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But Ashu, as he's known, is not unusual. Small is now big in India and he belongs to a growing tribe. There is Dhoni and his devils; Booker-winning Aravind Adiga and his heroes, including Balram Halwai in White Tiger. And there are film directors Vishal Bhardwaj and Anurag Kashyap, with scripts such as Manorama, Six Feet Under and Tashan, that showcase small towns.

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In his earthy way, Ashu says there is much to showcase about India outside the big city. "Agar hum gaonwaale kheti band kar de, to shahar ko khane ko nahin milega." (If we stop farming, then people in cities won't have anything to eat.) And with inverse snobbery, he refuses to speak, or be spoken to, in English.

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Education, he says, is inessential to getting ahead. "It's all about confidence and what you get from the society you grow up in. Maine to itne jhatke khaaye hain, ke ab mujhe kuch farak nahin padta (I have had so many knocks in life that nothing affects me now)," says the 29-year-old.

Small wonder that this self-confessed lafanga who was rusticated from college, has the gumption to say he plans to make it big in cinema. Does he know how to act? No, of course not, but he will learn. Like everything else he needs to, except angrezi-vangrezi (English).

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Sociologist Dipankar Gupta says Ashu's energy and focus is typical of the highly driven small-town man. Gupta says small town people "grab their one chance to enter the big, bad world like no one else."

But Raghu Ram, producer and judge of the popular reality shows, Roadies and Splitsvilla, says small towns should be christened "non-metros" because their size has nothing to do with a very real fact that most of the talent now belongs there. Ram, who is credited with giving Ashu the chance to win MTV Roadies, says, "Kids from small towns have an edge — they are fighting the big city complex, are underdogs and thus perform better."

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It is a point well made, concedes film director Vishal Bhardwaj, who belongs to Meerut. "Small-town kids are very street smart," he says. Most of Bhardwaj's work, including Omkara and Makdee, is set in small towns. Even the dreams of small town folk vary from those of city-dwellers, says sociologist Gupta. The IAS is a good example. Once upon a time, the sons of well-heeled families joined up.

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Today, it is the sub-elite, if not the subaltern that dominates the IAS, he says. The trend reflects the post-liberalisation social churn and shifting of the social tectonic plates. And it is the tastes thrown up by these re-aligned tectonic plates that are reflected in Indian reality TV shows.

Gupta says boxing in America may be the best parallel to the way the aspirational Indian seeks some way out of small town anonymity. "Sports is now not considered a long-term career by the well-to-do," he says. As former Indian cricket captain Rahul Dravid said, "It's easier to train in a small town as there are no traffic jams."

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