Bollywood is turning into a big, ugly Bigg Boss house

At this rate, the Bigg Boss guys will have to hunt for new gimmicks.

B-Town publicity machinery seems to have hijacked the reality show's formula of going hyper with hate stories. Splits, spats, divorces and disputes are flavours of the season. Love affairs of the stars are such plain old vanilla.

It is almost as if Bollywood has suddenly been transformed into an oversized Bigg Boss house.

Also read - Why Kangana Ranaut-Hrithik's break-up was the ugliest Bollywood has ever seen

Kangana Ranaut wants Hrithik Roshan arrested even as trolls of Anushka Sharma sent her ex-boyfriend, cricketer Virat Kohli, on a very public overdrive of rage. Katrina Kaif seems to be revelling in a fresh bout of confusion over whether Ranbir Kapoor is her "rumoured alleged boyfriend" (the juicy aside for the tabloids here being Kat has cultivated rejuvenated happy vibes with Salman Khan).

Malaika Arora and Arbaaz Khan split after months of vague vibes, ironically while co-hosting some romantic game show called Power Couple. Farhan Akhtar and ex-wife Adhuna broke up too, and rumours of his affair with Kalki Koechlin surfaced soon after.

Who needs the old-fangled way of scoring box-office hits to stay in the news anymore?

Also read - What Virat-Anushka break-up says about love and longing in India

You could argue it is probably a coincidence that so many splits and spats are happening all at the same time this year. The semblance of a pattern lies in the way these instances have been publicised in the media.

We live in an era when love affairs and marriages of film stars do not make for spicy gossip anymore. Stories of turmoil in the lives of celebrities clearly do. In a market where publicity tricks have become supersaturated, Bollywood seems to have taken tips from Bigg Boss on how to keep its beautiful set in the spotlight.

This is the next level of voyeurism as entertainment, being played out by the stars in real life. The idea is to systematically serve all reports of strife to the media, which then plays it out as long-winded reality drama in gossip pages and on prime time television.

Circus of the season has sadly been the aftermath of TV star Pratyusha Banerjee's suicide. Small screen celebrities, spewing fiery sound bites, jostled to get into the frame even as news TV cameras and press photographers unleashed frenzy.

All these TV stars have claimed to be close friends of Pratyusha. They have in some way or the other confirmed being fully aware of the troubled personal life Pratyusha shared with boyfriend Rahul Raj Singh in her last days.

As long as Kamya Punjabi held a press conference to reveal "shocking truths", and Dolly Bindra or Rakhi Sawant pretended to be Pratyusha's official spokespersons, it was okay.

Also read - Pratyusha, Jiah Khan, Divya Bharti: How many stars will we lose?

Things really seemed to go over the top when Rahul's ex, Saloni Sharma (allegedly a reason for his fights with Pratyusha) started giving out details of the triangular hate saga to daily supplements.

You could, of course, wonder where all these close friends were while Pratyusha was alive and suffering. Plus, for all their zeal to reveal truths to the press, shouldn't they have gone to the police first?

May be, Pratyusha's demise gave these stars a convenient excuse to hog the limelight. Or, they were simply playing out their Bigg Boss fantasies, dwelling at length upon the murky tales of the late actor and her boyfriend Rahul.

For everything it is worth, there is always the media to blame for misquoting in the end, if something backfired.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)