The "Torchaar" Experience

Just fell like penning down my KKK Experience. Thanks to my Mom that I was writing down my diary and my experiences. In this Blog, I will write down what I felt post the stunts and after seeing the episodes and just went down memory lane. Will share extracts from my diary as well. With time I will be writing about all the stunts, for now I will just sharing Stunt No.1-"Mard Tangewala" and Stunt No.8-"Chameli" the 35kg Snake

Stunt No 1-"Mard Tangewala"
From my Diary:

An awesome beginning at Khatron Ke Khiladi where we won our 1st Stunt and got Immunity. "Mard Tangewala" was the name of the stunt and we won it in a pretty good way. Only a few of the contestants like Aashka, Kashmira,Sumit,Dheeraj,Pramod, Sunit,Mauli were happy for us and congratulated us in good sportsman spirit. Ahraan and Dina are surely the ones to lookout for and so is Sangram. I felt that Aashu and Aarti gave a tough fight too. We woke up at 4:30am, got to the set by 6:00am, had our breakfast, were blindfolded and taken for our stunt where we met Akshay Kumar who was just great in the way he carried himself off. I think I was the only one to hug him and go for the stunt. He made us say the "Gayatri Mantra" before we started and we will be doing the same in every stunt. Akshay sir really appreciated the fact that I lost so much weight & applauded the same. Most of the Production unit enjoyed our victory and Huzefa, the director, told me that he was too proud of me for what I have done in the 1st episode itself on KKK. Just want to keep the same focus tomorrow as well. Felt really bad for Sambhavana as she never got to the chance to prove herself.

Getting back into time,Post seeing the show:
This was the perfect beginning for Anjumji and me on the show. Just to let you know, All of us(ok a few) initially really found it difficult to wake up early in the morning to reach the sets where we were served breakfast anytime from 6:00-7:00am. Reena, ensured that we all were in time at our cars to leave for the stunts because if the call time was 5:00 am and if the clocked ticked by even a second extra we would have to hear how we don't value time and blah blah blah blah blah. It was super fun because when we look back at hose times, it was actually super fun and an experience in itself. I really got to write this, Khalid was my room partner and for two consecutive days he could not find the hot water tap in the loo. I wondered at that time as to how he would do the stunts.

Getting back to Breakfast, we had the best spread of food right from potatoes to baked beans to sausages to whole wheat bread to eggs to cheese to fruits and lots of coffee and tea. Breakfast is that one meal I surely miss a lot, even though I was pretty careful when it came to the quantity I was eating. Our toilets were mobile toilets & were just perfectly sized. That usually used to be our last stop before we went in for an stunt, I mean any stunt. For the 1st stunt when we reached at 5:30am, it was soooooo cold & we all were freezing to death. Few of us were sitting in the cars with our breakfast, few were getting their make up done, few were warming up with black coffee, few were using the steam iron to get some warmth but finally the sun was out and Cape town looked different suddenly.

Next came to Blindfolds, which again has an awesome history. Blindfolds were these black bandanas and we were asked to cover our eyes when we were asked to do so before the stunt. We had to wear them literally before every stunt. We used to walk putting either of our hands on the shoulder of the person walking in front of us and walked in our pairs. We go used to the blindfolds, but the 1st time we took them off, we saw Akshay sir on a horse and it took us about 3-4 minutes to see him properly because our vision was quite blurry.

I was in awe of seeing the Real Khiladi who with every stunt became a friend and a great person to learn from. Ajumji & me were really really happy to win the 1st stunt and it meant a lot to me personally as this was my 1st challenge post winning "The Biggest Loser". One person whom I really appreciate for his honesty is Shasvath, who came up to me and told me that he never thought that I could have held on to the rope for the entire round. I just knew that this show was going to be a fantastic experience with having the Khiladi of Khiladi's as the greatest motivator.

Stunt No 8- "Chameli" the 35kg Snake
From my diary:

Every day started really getting taxing on all of us and we are so looking forward for our holiday on thursday. The 1st stunt was the stilt stunt which was not performed by us as we(few of us) were to perform the evening stunt. Eventually, all had to do the evening stunt as the morning one went off badly. I was so sure that we were going to get eliminated as Anjumji told me that she would not do the snake stunt, which was really creepy, yet fun. I had fun taking out the lemons and Anjumji held on for 5mts with 150 snakes on her face. Was really proud of her & it gave us both confidence as well. Dina, Pramod, Sumit and Kashmira got eliminated today for not such a bad performance. Just wasn't their day. Was really happy for Alesia.

Post seeing the show:
It is very different when your up there doing a stunt and its an adrenaline pump kind of a feel.

The Stilt stunt visibly did look as one of the toughest stunts and I wish I had got a chance to try the stunt though. Akshay Sir was not at all happy with the performance of any of the contestants even though I felt that Sunit did a superb job to cover about half the distance. Sunit is a very mast kind of a personality & I admire his calm attitude.

When we went in for the 2nd stunt of the day and met the 35kg Chameli, I just had a great feeling about the stunt yet was feeling creepy. For me Fear Factor always meant facing snakes and I was hoping that I would get that chance. When you are actually about to get introduced to a stunt by Akshay Sir, the mind works so fast and we keep on assuming what the stunt is.

Anjumji really freaked out when she saw the snakes and this was surely her biggest phobia. She had never seen faced snakes and three cheers to Anjumji for trusting me and completing the stunt. She was between those 150 snakes and did not even open her eyes for a second, not even one second. One of Akshay sir's family friends were also on the set of KKK and this 8 year old girl Simar was sitting very close to us. She gave me a sign and smiled as if she was saying Sandeep don't worry because you are going to rock in this stunt. I was struggling to get the last lemon after getting the initial two lemons so easily. The 3rd lemon was stuck in one corner and what a site it was to see 7 snakes surrounding the lemon and me going helter skelter to just get it out with my teeth. There was a time when I believe that I nearly went totally inside and Akshay sir had to hold on to me. Hahaha... Getting that last lemon finally was the greatest feeling and moment.

I was really proud of Aashka, Alesia who really were scared of the snakes and held their nerves so well. The best moment which made us all crack up was when Akshay sir asked Alesia the age of Mark, her son and Shasvath answered, 4 years old. The funny part was that Akshay sir was expecting the reply from Alesia and Shasvath replied.

It was really disappointing to see Kash, Sumit, Dina and Pramod go back today. They all are great performers when it came to doing stunts and are true Khiladi's in every sense.