Rannvijay Singha bids adieu to MTV Roadies: A look back at what made him a quiet, formidable presence on the show

Back in 2007, a school dropout from my batch became talk of the town after she appeared on the iconic and messy interview round of the cult TV show MTV Roadies. Because small towns essentially behave like joint families, her solitary appearance in an episode made her more popular in town than any other accomplishment, academic or otherwise, ever could have.

Television still ruled the roost in terms of advertising and framing of culture back then, but the previous stronghold of Bollywood had begun to somewhat weaken with arrival of edgy content and channels like MTV and Channel V. As young teenagers, we gravitated to the global, more risqué sensibilities that suddenly began to feed into the idea of a counter-culture.

Small-town kids have this pent up energy and restraint waiting to unspool into the open landscapes of freedom that the cities offer, and Roadies became this imprecise but significant moment in the country’s coming-of-age story that though toxic at times, also represented the aspiration of those never handed an olive branch. And no one man embodied this curious juggernaut of adolescent obsession more than the man who was also the first winner of the show – Rannvijay Singha.

I will be honest, I loved Roadies in its formative years when it was about athleticism and gnarly competitiveness. Maybe also because it stood for the one thing that I could only admire from a distance – the verbal violence that unfortunately also became its identity. There is no denying the voyeuristic pleasures of the bald men and their apprentice Singha going at it hammer and tongs, as if stuck inside an icy cubicle falling through space, its air being sucked out by the second. Such was the popularity of the show at a time, we watched classmates run away from college to give interviews, kids forge proofs of age to qualify just to stand in line for an audition. But while the appeal of the show itself is a case study in agency and aspiration, no other man embodied its cosmetic ethos more than Singha, and the myth that followed him everywhere he went.

Among the foul-mouthed, loose cannons Raghu Ram, and later Rajiv Lakshman, Singha assumed the gainful position of the sage, the man who commanded a kind of vague respect that was evidently a function of the show’s own marketing techniques. Singha became a Roadie when no one really understood what being a Roadie meant.

He, however, crafted this saintly but aggressive persona that appealed to those propelled by chaos, and to those driven by discipline. It is probably a unique narrative campaign, the gradual carving of the living embodiment of a show that eventually also became the currency it would be measured against. What did it mean to be a Roadie? It meant to be like RannVijay.

Singha’s athleticism, strength, militaristic outlook, passion for sports and bikes, calm and respectful demeanour, not all of these would have of course been manufactured, but in the lived history of entertainment in India, Singha gradually became the OG influencer before influencers were even a thing.

Roadies was always, I feel, for people who did not fit into the scriptural morality of school and academia. They just were not built for it. And because not everyone has access to the creative shores of Mumbai, or the stomach to fish along them, Roadies suddenly became this shortcut to a fictional land of relevance and importance. It could not maybe get you respect or approval among your parents but it sure as hell got you noticed among your peers. The profanity or tempered vulgarity of the show were always deterrents, at least to kids who had middle-class parents to come home to but in a Singha, these kids also saw this seemingly unblemished pillar of dignity, who for reasons either organic or scripted, expounded variably about values, honour, and respect – things Indians only associate with education, degrees, and good grades. Random words that a make-believe world had suddenly but quite impressively managed to channel as a way of manufacturing value.

With time, the charm, or should I say the savage pleasures, of watching Roadies wore off because it slid towards the extremes of sensationalism rather than the edgy, relatable glory of competition. Over the years, Singha has himself looked tired and fairly peeved by the stagnation of a role that he could not have possibly imagined playing for almost two decades. 

Sonu Sood might bring in a certain pedigree, but Roadies will feel hollower without Rannvijay Singha at its disorderly, tumultuous heart.

Manik Sharma writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between.

by Manik Sharma