Raghu To Judge Roadies With Twin Brother Rajiv

Season six of MTV Roadies promises many more twists, and twice as much of Raghu Ram as well

If you found one Raghu Ram a bit hard to take on MTV’s Roadies, there’s some bad news in store. On the sixth season of the dramatic adventure reality show Raghu’s identical twin Rajeev Laxman will join him to create even more hell for the contestants. “Every year we take the show to another level. This time we have upped the stakes even further,” smiles Raghu, the irreverent boss of the Roadies, and Associate VP, MTV shows. With the number of roadies increased to 20 and the prize money doubled to Rs 10 lakhs, contestants are in for hell Down Under with difficult tasks on the deadly terrains of Austalia and biting observations and sheer wrath from the Raghu-Rajeev duo.

Rajeev— who has been part of the casting process of the Roadies for the last four years— agreed to even turn bald for the show on Raghu’s insistence. Hard to tell the two apart, Rajeev will now be introduced to the viewers for the first time. “Roadies is not just about the money. It’s a badge that makes people discover a side to them that they didn’t even know of,” adds Rajeev, who appears to be almost as aggressive as his twin. “Actually I’m more violent and Raghu is more aggressive,” smiles Rajeev wickedly. “But we use these characteristics only to push the buttons of the contestants to get their reaction.”

But what really prompted them to bring the twist of the twins? “Over the past years people have started observing my behavioral pattern. So essentially, now with both of us appearing on the show, the contestants will not know who they are dealing with,” adds Raghu with a smile.

While it’s the curses and abuses by Raghu that have made contestants quake with fear and seethe in anger in the past, some of the past roadies have overcome it all and even found alternative careers in the course of it. While Rannvijay, Bani J and Ayushmann all became VJs on the channel, others like Ashutosh Kaushik went on to participate in Big Boss and Shambhavi Sharma has been roped in for a Suniel Shetty movie.

However, MTV Roadies— the only Indian format to be licensed abroad by the ARY Pakistan— will journey through every place from Great Barrier Reef to the Great Outback this year. “It’s a scientific fact that there are more ways of dying of natural causes in Australia than anywhere else in the world,” quips Ashish Patil, GM, MTV India. While their parameters to zero in on the tasks include dangerous topography, Patil agrees imbibing the local culture is as important. While there might be the Roadies Cheat Code DVD available in the market to crack the auditions, Raghu still warns, “Fakes not allowed. I don’t like people who plan. You need to be real and we’ll take it from there.”

If you thought it was Raghu walking in to twist things at Splitsvilla, MTV’s reality show about love, here’s a trivia —it was Rajeev. Expect the unexpected.

Delhi auditions from October 3- 5 at NCUI Auditorium