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Riding to hell and back

Do you have a dream? One which doesn’t let you sleep and keeps you on your toes almost every waking minute of your day? Are you ready to go to any extreme to fulfil it? Have you ever been betrayed just because you wanted to believe in a person? Raghu Ram did, he wanted to work with MTV.

After years of religiously following it from season 1 of the reality TV show Roadies (mark it I was 11 then) and watching reruns of multiple auditions, episodes and behind the scenes. I couldn’t figure out what goes inside the bald head of Raghu Ram, what’s his story, why he keeps everything so private, but that wasn’t just me. A number of haters/admirers, contestants of the show all had the same set of questions.

Making a show like Roadies which teaches the basics of life like never give up, pushing one’s own self, using brains, keeping your promise and more, in the back drop of a reality show where Raghu is constantly shown on TV yelling, abusing people and contestants are deceiving each other, playing politics – all of it wouldn’t have been easy. The book reveals more on why it really wasn’t! Season after season Roadies amused me, Raghu Ram even more! When I got my hands on Rearview: My Roadies Journey there was no way but to finish it in one go, the 10-year-old mystery was about to unfold finally!

This book takes you on the journey of Raghu, a Munirka boy who has a twin brother and a world of bullies to face. The book explains Raghu, Roadies Raghu and Funny Raghu. From a thin, unfit child to the most hated personality on TV and the man behind the most successful reality TV show. All of this has taken almost everything from him his friends, family and his own self. The story starts back in 1998, when Raghu Ram and his (evil twin) brother Rajeev Laxman were just interns at
TV18
. The journey tells you about the ups and downs Raghu go through at TV18 and how he gets rejected in an interview at MTV when he returns later for a job. In the book he mentions that he regrets what he does at auditions every year but he can’t help, it’s the contestants who are asking for it. After getting bullied for years in childhood he can’t take bullying anymore. He won’t tolerate people misbehaving with his crew, with woman, contestants who try to get unnecessary attention by abusing him and of other sorts (refer the shows).

This book tells you about everything you need to do in order to build your dream from scratch. Season after season why he picked up people and how. Sometimes he just believed in them, befriended some, some earned his respect and also he got deceived by some. In an interview Raghu Ram told me, ‘I’ve learned that heroism comes from trying so hard that one cannot fail, Roadies taught me that.’

I guess my mystery is solved. He is just extremely loyal to his work, crew and friends and he doesn’t take any nonsense.’ His story does compel one to try hard and harder.
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