I am not sure if I should be particularly proud of this but watching Big Boss is one of my guilty pleasures. But then again I should warn you that I watch a lot of shows on Indian television sheerly for the fact that they happen to be sooo bad that they are good. Get me?

If you watch television or read newspaper or are on any of the social media platforms, the news of Dipika Kakkar Ibrahim winning Bigg Boss 12 must have already reached you somehow, irrespective of whether you wanted to know or not. The blessing and the curse of living in a tech-savvy world!

Okay, so we can maybe start by congratulating Dipika for clinching the trophy without even trying for it while all those who could have killed and died for it sat among the evicted housemates and watched.

However, that’s not our concern here. I have nothing personal against Dipika. Yes, she indeed was a dignified individual like Salman Khan called her in one of the episodes. But I have a question: what did she do in terms of the entertainment factor in the entire season? Which brings me to question number two: what did she do in terms of the performance factor in the entire season?

Let’s take a quick recap of what Dipika did for the entire season (and trust me, it would be super quick). She cooked a lot, tended Sreeshant when he was not keeping well (pretty much for the entire season), cried when he misbehaved with her, went back to him every time after that, cooked some more.

Some would justify her victory by saying things like she was a celebrity, people knew her, she has worked for long on the TV, and thus she “earned” it. Well, in that case so was Karanvir Bohra who by the way has a bigger fan and follower base on social media.

The dynamics here remind me of Bigg Boss 11, where Hina Khan was a way bigger celebrity with a way bigger fan base than Shilpa Shinde and yet the latter won. A possible reason for these two instances? Perhaps I have an answer, perhaps it’s our undying fixation with the idea of the aadarsh Indian bahu who slogs in the kitchen day in and day out.

Believe me or not, both Dipika and Shilpa followed the same patterns, they both slogged in the kitchen, kept away from most of the housemates, cried, A LOT, and were almost dormant during the tasks and in both the cases they received votes, heap loads of them.

While we might dismiss it all as mere reality shows with no social implications whatsoever, they do highlight the dark truth of Indian patriarchal mindsets to a large extent. How else will we justify our hatred for Surbhi when Sreeshant garners support for behaving the same way?

It is all gendered and it all highly patriarchal. How else will we justify voting for Shilpa and Dipika when there were so many more who tried way harder than them? How else we explain the change in our loyalties which tell an entirely different story on social media? Accept it or not, we are still not ready to let go of our idea of the perfect Indian woman who cries in silence, the damsel in distress who takes shit from everyone, and cooks nevertheless.