MTV Roadies Hell Down Under: And The Winner Is...

The spectator sport of reality television works best when it has a scrappy underdog pitted against a tough favorite, and if one throws into the mix a brassy fighter, it makes things all the more TRP-friendly. The sixth season of MTV Hero Honda Roadies gave all of this and more as it took viewers through a cavalcade of emotions, fights, tough tasks, and behind-the-scenes humour.

The final pitted Nauman Sair and Palak (Gurmeet) against the choice of the rest of the contestants, Kiri. The first task involved a rock-climb, grappeling up against a sheer rockface. The task was made harder by tying one leg and a hand, requiring much contortion to make the slog up to the top. A surprise awaited the first climber - he had to make a split-second decision to cut the rope of one of the other two contestants, and decide who would make it to the final round with him or her. Surprisingly for some, Kiri was first up the cliff, only to be confronted by the evil twins, Raghu and Rajeev, who badgered him into making the right choice - stressing that the easy choice might mean victory, but the harder choice, the stronger contestant would give respect.

Kiri waffled interminably before finally ending the struggle of everyone's favorite prima donna, Palak, and taking Nauman with him to the final round. Palak took this quite sportingly, and Nauman was more relieved than he could express.

The final task was back-breaking in every sense of the word. Kiri and Nauman had to shoulder a burden of their own body weight, enchained at their ankles, wrists, and neck, and struggle up an incline towards the Roadies flag. This task took a lot out of them, reducing both to sweating, bleeding, struggling, wrecks. The support of the crowd was evidently with Kiri, until Nauman made the final lunge, plucking the flag out and collapsing to the ground. His friends gathered around him, dousing him in water as he was crowned MTV Hero Honda Roadie 6.0. The finalists - Palak, Kiri, and Nauman - got their Hero Honda Karizma bikes, and Nauman was awarded the grand prize of the collective winnings through the money tasks, totalling over Rs. 3,00,000.

The wrap-up was rather quick, with little of the emo drama one has come to expect from the vote-outs each week. The real surprises came in the behind-the-scenes segment, where we saw how challenging the final task really was, taking a herculean effort from even Rannvijay to accomplish.

The final minutes were somewhat marred by the joke ticker at the bottom of the screen, with a series of one-liners targeted at Kiri scrolling past, mostly relating to his poor command over Hindi. The Indian bias against the "yellow peril" evidently runs deep, even in satire.