Disaster struck Roadies

This is my own experience with the disaster that happened at MTV Roadies 6.0 auditions in Delhi. I was one of the eye witnesses who saw the whole episode and learnt how smooth looking things turn violent within minutes. It was also visible that how impatient and vulnerable our youth has become. Despite all the efforts by MTV, it was a complete chaos.

Everything was going normal in the beginning. As it is a popular and India’s only adventure reality show, therefore, all aspiring roadies usually start lining up for the auditions night before. Hence, at around 9 -10 A.M. there were good enough people lined up for the auditions and this happens in every city wherever there are Roadies auditions. There are different kinds of people who come for Roadies. Everyone wants to be a roadie, however, some of them are those who seriously are aspiring roadies and have their focus on the auditions and interviews for selection. However, the percentage of these people is very low. Seriously. Believe me. That is what I have experienced. Major chunk are “Wanna Be” types. Their only motive is to have fun, play games, do hooting, shouting, passing comments, getting on camera and doing loud and senseless talks in group discussions. God forbid if they are along with those serious aspiring roadies then their chances for selection are gone because these “Wanna Be’s” will not let anyone speak and argue pointlessly resulting chaos in GD.

The issue is that this lot of non serious people is growing year by year. Everybody wants to be on camera and they can do everything for that. This affects not only other candidates but also to the whole management of MTV who has to manage the whole crowd at every city. Eventually it also wastes their time as they have to take auditions of each and every person who is there. Hence, not to forget, these people were enthusiastically involved in the incident that happened on 3rd October, 2008 at NCUI auditorium, Hauz Khas, Delhi. However, it also smells like it was a pre planned attack by some anti social elements but this kind of crowd also joined them in disrupting the activities. That’s why I said that the youth has become so vulnerable that anyone can take them anywhere by motivating them in a wrong way. It started with normal hooting and shouting like “Open the gates, take us in” which happens almost in every city. The only difference was that eventually it became out of control unlike other places. Some people were normally lined up in a long queue, however, others gradually started gathering near the entrance gate of the venue and started shouting slogans. After some time, some of them started jumping the gates and boundary walls and police was just looking at them with a very casual attitude. Police as they show in bollywood movies came into action when the disaster had happened. They were present near the gates and boundary walls, however, didn’t or should I say couldn’t stop the crowd to break the rules. Hence, eventually huge mob was inside the premises of auditorium and they were passing information to the crowd outside that the “Auditions have been cancelled and you can go home”. At that time, it was not the real situation that was portrayed by them. It might be done to create chaos among people outside and ignite them. Hence, they were succeeded in it. As a result, more people staring jumping gates and boundary walls and gathered in the premises and the situation was out of control. They started attacking anything that came in between. Broke glass doors, windowpanes, damaged Karizma bikes (installed just for the show), turned chairs upside down and even damaged elevator glasses. As a result the place was full of broken pieces of glasses and ripped roadies stationary like forms, stickers etc. along with hoardings and banners. Even after that MTV crew opened the doors for the auditorium and allowed people to come in and listen to their stand on the auditions. Gunjan (the host of the show), Vaibhav Vishal (Associate VP, Creative & Content, MTV) and other crew members addressed the crowd and requested them to be calm and clearly told them that even if MTV has to wait till 2 in the night they will take auditions. The only request they said they have is to be calm and as the auditorium hall was jam packed, therefore, start leaving the hall one by one so they can create a space and start the auditions process. However, despite their best efforts, crazy people didn’t listen to them and even attacked a crew member who was addressing the crowd. Within few minutes the crowd was out of control in the hall and created havoc. Around 40-50 people were gathered on the stage and damaged lights, tripods, cameras and countless other things. Again they started shouting and telling people to go home as no auditions will happen here.

Then came the icing on the cake, media. Who says they show news? They deliberately ignite people and create news and this was clearly visible over there. They were behaving like they are giving a chance to people to perform once they say action. Deliberately showing camera to angry mob so that they become more violent and do more destruction. Completely shameful. They didn’t even stop when police told them not to point camera towards the mob as by seeing camera they again get charged up and start doing nasty things. Long story short, media also helped these anti social elements to disrupt the activities. By the way, I even heard someone saying long time back when the crowd was outside the premises and people were waiting for their number “Its enough. Let’s call media”. Quite possible that it was pre planned and our gullible youth zealously participated in it.

Later, the auditions were formally cancelled and packing up activities started at the venue. However, some aspiring roadies were still there in a hope that the auditions might get started later in the evening or they can get some news about new audition dates. Not to forget, even at that time some funny people were turning up at the venue and analyzing the activities so that the auditions cannot start again. Finally, the pack up was done. MTV crew moved back. MTV’s website http://www.mtvindia.com/ was updated that the audition has been cancelled and new dates and venue will be announced. But Roadies crew must have learnt a lot from this episode. Next time I hope the things will be much more organized and controllable with proper security and a bigger venue as the current venue was too congested to handle such a huge turnout. Not to forget, people who disrupted activities over here will again try to do the same at new venue. They have to deal with it and that too with true ROADIES spirit. Best wishes to Raghu (Executive Producer, MTV Roadies) and I hope Roadies 6.0 will also be a success as the previous seasons of Roadies were.