Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao premiered on 13 July 2009 on Sony Entertainment Television. It was the first and only series of reality showIss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao based on British reality game showI'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!. The winner of the show was Mona Wasu, who earned prize money of 10 million INR. The show is set to return for a second season in 2021 in English to allow for more international celebrities.
Concept
The show is licensed from ITV's format, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me out of Here!. The basic concept is the same, where a group of celebrities have to survive in a jungle camp without any amenities, and must compete with each other to stay on in the show. Every contestant gets a handful of rice and some soybean or lentils for food every three days, which is clearly not enough for survival. Therefore, they must participate in various physically challenging contests and win "food credits" for themselves and their team members. Each day, the team must nominate one participant to play in the day's contest and be the bread-winner for that day. At the end of every week, the contestant with the fewest public votes and the contestant with the most elimination nominations from the participants face off in an elimination task called the "Maha Jungle Challenge". The winner of this challenge gets to stay back while the loser is eliminated from the game. The audience can vote for their favorite participants via phone calls or SMS.
Series overview
Season 1
Ten Indian celebrities were chosen to participate in the only season. They were flown to Taman Negara in the rain-forests of Malaysia, where they had to stay in the jungle in an outdoor camp with little or no luxury amenities. Every contestant was allowed to carry any two luxury items of their choice, which they had to specify before the contest began. The ten celebrities were often divided into different sub-groups and made to compete among themselves every week.
Celebrities
Some more celebrities were introduced in later episodes as the original celebrities started getting eliminated. The 10 original contestants were:
Each week the audience votes to save their favourite celebrity to stay in the jungle. The celebrities with the lowest votes face each other off in the "Maha Jungle Challenge" after which the loser is evicted from the jungle.
Season 2
Following the success of the UK, German and Australian versions of the franchise it was released in January 2020 that Sony Entertainment will reboot the Indian version. The series is set to return for fall 2021 and will focus on 12 Indian and international stars in English. Rumoured participants include: Indian Model and Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, east is east Director, Actress and Human Rights Campaigner, Anglo/South African, Leslee Udwin, Bollywood Actor and Producer, Ajay Patel and US Scriptwriter & Director and TV Personality, Rosetta D’Acampo.
Highlights
In the second week, 8 contestants out of 10 staged a walk out from the show as Akashdeep Saighal got bitten by bugs and worms while doing a task. The two contestants who decided to stay back were, Palak Kaur Johal and Fiza Chand Mohammed.