After the first four ‘audition’ episodes the real action on MTV Love School has finally taken off. Eight couples have finally made it to the scenic locales of Solan in Himachal Pradesh. I’m loving the Student Of The Year feel of this show but I’m sure that this reality series will have a lot more action than KJo’s romantic flick.
Love Professors and real life couple Karishma Tanna and Upen Patel start by asking each couple to identify their issues using tags placed on a notice board. This was a clever and easy way of chalking out the syllabus frankly. The main chapters are trust, fidelity, understanding, communication and intimacy.
It might be too soon to say this, but I think Karishma and Upen work quite well as the solid couple they’re being portrayed as. While they look good together and have this easy comfortable vibe, what’s good to see is that they hear out the contestants quite sensitively and maturely.
Those of you who have a problem with live-in relationships should stop watching now. Love School doesn’t have a typical dorm and in fact each couple has been allocated a private room. While it was the guys who got to pick the rooms of their choice, the girls were hardly happy with their choices. Clearly, ‘Understanding’ is something they need to work on big time.
Some rooms had missing taps, some only had single beds and some even had missing doors! But the worst of the lot were the ones without a mirror. That’s got to be a girl’s worst nightmare. Looks like the rooms are very much a part of the game.
Now Love School does address intimacy, pre-marital sex and infidelity quite boldly. While that might be a great development for Indian television, it might not make for a comfortable family viewing. For example, Karishma asks one of the contestants if she thinks about her ex while being intimate with her current boyfriend. While it’s a valid question, given that it might reflect where a relationship stands, it’s not something that Indian families talk about. Oh, no no!
And everything that was making sense up until now, just went for a toss with a PARTY! It’s kind of an MTV tradition to host parties in their shows, be if after some Roadies’ profanity or Splitsvilla’s emotional atyaachar. Being one of the country’s eight most troubled couples certainly calls for some partying, right?
I can just tell that this show is going to be all downhill from here. As expected, the party was interrupted by some rona-dhona, all a part of the act. I’m having a hard time believing if these couples are even real to begin with. What takes the cake is the fact that this part looks like it has been completely scripted. One of the contestants sulks about being ignored by her boyfriend. Surprisingly comes a perfect shot of her standing alone at the bar. Dirty looks are being given while the boy dances away merrily with someone else. Predictable and planned.
Love School tries hard to look different from the whole lot of reality shows but essentially ends up being the same. Well at least the first day of Love School was hardly anything more than a bunch of kids playing together and then breaking into petty fights. How will Karishma and Upen keep this ‘school of chemistry’ together, remains to be seen.
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