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Roadies 18 Winner Ashish Bhatia: I lost Splitsvilla by 12 seconds but won this season by 12 minutes; EXCLUSIVE
After losing out in Roadies and Splitsvilla, Ashish Bhatia is overjoyed to be declared the winner of Roadies: Journey to South Africa.
Ashish Bhatia, who is a known name in the reality genre, participated in Roadies: Journey to South Africa, hosted by Sonu Sood. After losing out in Roadies and Splitsvilla, Ashish is overjoyed with his win this season. Touting this season to be the "best" than the previous ones, the Dehradun lad shared his experiences and compared the previous seasons of the show with Sonu Sood's season and a lot more, exclusively with Pinkvilla.
"When I did Roadies, I became famous but lost in the quarter-finals. Then I also did Splitsvilla. I literally ruled the show and got the hype but lost by 12 seconds, which was worse but I won this season by 12 minutes. This was the battle of the best and more difficult. I am very excited about winning this show as I hail from Dehradun and I had to understand how things operate and shows are done. I used to feel these shows are all fake but after stepping into this world, I realised it's true," said Ashish.
Roadies grabbed headlines for getting Sonu Sood onboard in place of Rannvijay Singha, who hosted this show for a decade. Speaking about the differences, Ashish pointed out, "The difference between previous seasons and this season is that earlier there were so many gang members that you couldn't play your solo game. You had to go against your friends as instructed by the gang leaders, which would lead to a conflict between friends. So, it would always leave us in a soup if we should play our own game or play for them. This season, we could decide for ourselves and get the gang leader feeling where you could make your alliance and run the show. It was a good experience as all the contestants were super strong. This season was the most fun with so many adventurous stunts. We roamed a lot and this was the first time where we had bike rides. We learnt a lot of new things."
Ashish feels that his calmness helped him reach the finale. He shared, "I'd gone to Mount Everest base camp for 15 days and returned as a very calm and composed person. These qualities helped me a lot in the show. There were people who wanted to fight and argue but I always believed in letting my actions speak rather than words. I wouldn't even pay attention to what others said. I just wanted to listen to what Sonu sir said, that's all."
Ashish Bhatia on Sonu Sood
When I saw him in movies, I had no idea what kind of a person he is. We all know how he helped people during the pandemic. We've seen on the show that he sent a cheque to Ukraine to help people evacuate from the war-torn country. He did all of this on the show. As a person, he is very chilled out. When we sat together, we would have a lot of fun and would also exchange our shoes, cap, and jackets with each other, and that was so cool. After a few days, he got samosas for us as we were missing Indian food and were tired of eating chicken sandwiches. He's very nice and did a good job. We were so used to Rannvijay sir that I took a lot of time to understand that it was Roadies. Later, when Sonu sir got his own flavour, it was different and amazing. He was very nice to everybody. I really loved that angle. Many times, it happens that when a contestant says anything wrong, the host remains unaffected because he is only responsible to churn out content but Sonu sir never functioned content-wise. If he thought it was someone's mistake, he would explain to him/her and not let that fight extend. He kept us so calm that you won't believe, we never received a single 'gaali' and this was a major difference.
Ashish talks about his buddy pair Nandini
Nandu (Nandini) is my little sister. She is a dancer and so am I. Her boyfriend Jashwant, she and I, three would chill together. The task that I'd lost, Nandini had won. So, I knew that she is a very strong contender. Earlier Sakshi was my buddy pair but after Nandini became my partner, things were sorted. Before every task, we would hold each other's hands, she would pray and radiate very strong energies. I would feel so energised that I had to leave her hand, or else I would just burst out. We never felt nervous before or during the tasks. Even before the final task, we were very calm. We both would just follow the mantra, 'We are the best and we have to win this show.' Ever since we became the buddy pair, we won all the tasks. We both trusted each other and never even fought once.
Ashish Bhatia on his friend Soundous Moukafir
I developed a good friendship with Soundous Moufakir. She was from Morocco but lived in Paris and we shared the same room for a few days. I enjoyed her company. Once I went against her in the show and she cried. Then I promised that I won't ever go against her. After that, we became good friends and I will cherish it forever.
