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The event will also take place tomorrow at the MMRDA
Grounds in Mumbai's Bandra (East) suburb.
Over the course of the past two weeks AXN's team
of Australian model Tania Zaetta, ex-cricketer turned television
host Mike Whitney along with the hot 'n' wild couple Salil Acharya
and Deepica Sharma have been touring six cities in the country challenging
people to do exactly what they thought they never would or should
do.
Extreme Dhamaka will air as a series of 13 half-hour episodes
on AXN in December. Sony's assistant marketing V-P Rohit Bhandari
said that the biggest challenge had been coping with the searing
heat.
Comparing the series to last year's, he said, "We had just
one host, Whitney, doing Who Dares Wins. Also we were on
the road continuously. This time Whitney and Sharma alternated with
Zaetta and Acahrya and so the stress was
relatively less." He explained that they had two event management
firms taking care of proceedings, this time. While Shobiz looked
after the venue set-up, Candy took care of the road shows.
Whitney said, "Some of the stuff that we have done on Extreme
Dhamaka is bigger and better than what I have done on television
over the past nine years. In fact, using the stadium arena for an
event like this has never been done before. There was skepticism
expressed by people abroad over whether this was feasible in India
and we have laid their concerns to rest."
Whiteny added, "We have a serious job to do and there is no
monkeying around. What is unique is that the stunts are much easier
said than done."
Acharya remembered the time he jumped into a tank in New Delhi,
in order to convince a participant to do it. "It was important
for Deepica and myself to get a clear idea of what we expected participants
to do," he said. As far as the mini dares and carnival stunts
were concerned, he recalled people attempting to eat dried grass
and eggs that were literally a century old.
Zaetta meanwhile disapproved the notion that Indian women were
too conservative. She remembered a 45-year-old women in a sari driving
a bike backwards.
Acharya added, "We will be having stunts involving fire today
and tomorrow. A bike will be driven through a ring of fire. It is
a matter of both precision and timing. We have two ambulances stationed
at the venue. There is also security padding to guard against any
mishaps."
Talking about the response received, Whitney said, "In India,
fans cannot get enough of reality television. Indian fans are very
polite and respectful which is a contrast to Australia where they
can be very abrasive."
"Tania and I try to get up close to the fans as much as possible
which is very rare for celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan
Singh or Bollywood stars. I am not happy until I have signed the
last autograph. At the end of the day, if they do not switch on
the television then Tania and I do not have a job. Therefore, the
personal touch is important."
He added that the routine never got monotonous. The
Extreme Dhamaka challenge was different for each city.
"Each city had a unique flavour. In Chennai, for instance,
there was a communication problem due to the Tamil language. So
instructions tended to go from one person to the next. The festive
atmosphere around us at the different cities where effigies were
burnt added to the sense of excitement," he said.
Acharya also said that one of the aims was to build a Salil-Deepica
brand equity. Four to five months down the line when the television
viewers get familiar with them, another local show could be looked
at.
Also read:
AXN
contest winners to host 'Extreme Dhamaka'
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