Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
“After the TikTok ban, India’s Got Latent was my one shot at fame,” said Vishal Sharma, who participated in one of the final episodes of Samay Raina’s India’s Got Latent – Season One, but never got to see his episode air. Because just before it was to be aired, the Ranveer Allahbadia controversy erupted and the show had to be junked.
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Sharma once had more than 1.5 million followers on TikTok. His videos got views from across the world, and he earned between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000 a week through Google and Amazon ads, or roughly Rs 40,000 to Rs 60,000 a month. But Sharma’s earnings dwindled as the app got banned in India six years ago.
TikTok was banned in India amid national security and data privacy concerns, days after the Galwan clash with China. For thousands of creators, the sudden ban resulted in an abrupt end to an audience, an income stream and their online fame. Sharma was one of them. A struggling actor in Mumbai, Sharma appeared on India’s Got Latent’s first season hoping it would give him another shot at being noticed.
“So many contestants became famous after appearing on India’s Got Latent. I could have, too. Sometimes, it really feels like god is testing me hard,” Sharma, a native of Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, told India Today Digital.
Not every contestant who appears on India’s Got Latent necessarily makes it to the final cut. The format of the show is such that performances are routinely edited out, like any other reality TV show. Sharma, however, had a reason to believe his appearance would make the cut. Days before the Allahbadia controversy erupted last year, The Habitat, the Mumbai venue where the show was filmed, had posted a collaborative photo of Sharma with Samay Raina, raising his hopes that his episode would eventually be aired.
But when India’s Got Latent’s Season One was abruptly cancelled and all the clips were removed from the show’s YouTube channel, those hopes vanished for Sharma, and 13 other participants who appeared on one of the last episodes to have been shot in season one.
However, on August 14, the Supreme Court closed that chapter for Samay Raina, quashing criminal proceedings against the comedian. Season Two of his show has since taken off on Netflix and YouTube, but for more than a dozen participants from the first season, the show’s return is bittersweet.
Sharma, who depended on the show for fame, has spent about eight years in Mumbai trying to find work in Hindi films, but has failed to find any substantial roles. He is known around Bandstand in Mumbai’s Bandra as the “Silver Man”. Sharma covers himself in silver paint and poses as a living statue at the promenade for money. He does this every day, except on rainy days, when there are fewer visitors, and also because the rain takes off his makeup.
That was also his act on Samay Raina’s show.
Another person who appeared on the show was Saurabh Kingrani, a theatre artist from Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, who tried his hand at stand-up comedy in the same episode of India’s Got Latent that never aired.
“India’s Got Latent offered a large digital audience,” he told India Today Digital. So he downloaded the phone app of the show and his application was shortlisted.
Kingrani appeared on the show hoping to find the kind of fame that many contestants had achieved.
Take for example Sukrut Deo, who appeared on Season Two of India’s Got Latent, and now has over 4,64,000 Instagram followers. Deo, a Marathi theatre actor, impressed Alia Bhatt and Sharvari on the comedy reality show’s panel, and the social media boost he got after appearing on India’s Got Latent was remarkable.
Comedian Avinash Agarwal, who played Donald Trump, now has more than 4,70,000 followers.
For many contestants, the show has become a launchpad. But for these 14 Season One contestants, it did not. They have remained… latent.
A CHANCE LOST BEFORE THE SHOW BEGAN
In India, Rs 32,000 a month is the threshold for being among the top 10% of individual earners, according to the Institute for Competitiveness’ 2025 report on income inequality and labour markets. Vishal Sharma’s income through TikTok, when he was earning up to Rs 60,000 a month, was above the top 10% threshold in India. Then TikTok was banned in India in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, soon after the Galwan Clash with China.
Sharma’s income from the platform nearly disappeared. His account became largely inactive, and his follower count fell sharply. Today, Sharma has less than 60,000 followers, a fraction of what he once had.
But Sharma’s story was not the only fallout from the show’s sudden end.
After Season One of India’s Got Latent was cancelled, massive scrutiny followed over the show’s format, its profanity and its brand of humour.
The controversy grew so big that Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also weighed in, saying, “Everyone has freedom of speech, but our freedom ends when we encroach upon the freedom of others.”
Ranveer Allahbadia later apologised publicly. Police complaints were filed in Maharashtra, Assam and other places against Allahbadia, Samay Raina, Apoorva Mukhija, Ashish Chanchlani and others linked to the episode.
The controversy moved to the courts, but last week, the Supreme Court quashed the criminal proceedings against Samay Raina and Vipul Goyal, Balraj Ghai, Sonali Thakkar and Nishant Tanwar. The court also took note of their efforts to organise a chess tournament in March for persons with disabilities and raise awareness about organisations working with them.
INDIA’S GOT LATENT EPISODE THAT NEVER AIRED
“If you publish my story, there won’t be any controversy, right?” That was the first question Saurabh Kingrani asked when we asked him about his experience on an episode that was never aired.
Kingrani is a trained theatre artist who has done street plays, worked in film productions, and tried his hand at becoming an influencer, without much success. At India’s Got Latent last year, he tried his hand at stand-up comedy for the first time, but his performance did not go as planned.
Kingrani had a similar calculation about life as Vishal Sharma when he filled out the application for India’s Got Latent.
He was going through a difficult period financially and said he needed to support his family. His main reason for participating was to gain followers.
“I thought that if my episode came out, and I gained some followers, I could slowly start my journey on a better note as a theatre actor,” he told India Today Digital.
He had never performed stand-up before. “Mumbai had not worked out as a theatre destination for me. I had done street plays there, but commercial theatre opportunities were limited,” said Kingrani, who holds a Bachelor of Performing Arts degree.
“There was no participation fee,” he said.
He went on stage and attempted stand-up for the first time, and he bombed. He was making jokes about himself. Kingrani had undergone 17 surgeries over the course of his life and decided to use that as material.
He was born with several health problems. He underwent heart bypass surgery and angioplasty in 2003, when he was five years old, followed by brain angiography. He also underwent several other procedures, including treatment for a scrotal hernia and surgeries involving his eye and nose.
His attempt was to turn all of this into comedy. “I tried to express it in a particular style — that I had come back from death 17 times,” he said.
That sounds like classic India’s Got Latent material — slightly dark, extremely awkward, and a pitiable situation that, in an unapologetically politically incorrect way, could get laughs.
For a brief moment, the room became serious.
Balraj Ghai, founder of The Habitat, who was on the panel, asked Kingrani about the operations. The conversation then returned to jokes.
When he was asked how disappointed he was because the episode never aired, his answer was, “My performance had fallen flat then. But it could have got me some popularity. Deadpan humour is a comedy genre, after all.”
But at some level, Kingrani felt he could have done better, and he’s low-key and also glad that the episode did not air. “But guess what? I am already preparing for my next performance on India’s Got Latent.”
Vishal Sharma, meanwhile, is still hoping his episode will air, and he might get more followers on his Instagram.
India Today Digital reached out to Samay Raina for comments on what he thought about the situation that these former contestants are in, however, his PA told us that he is busy with the shooting of India’s Got Latent Season 3, and therefore, couldn’t get back to us.
THE COST OF MISSING OUT ON AN AUDIENCE
For performers like Saurabh Kingrani and Vishal Sharma trying to build careers from scratch, a few minutes on a hugely popular show like India’s Got Latent can have value beyond those few minutes of fame.
A small clip from Latent’s stage can be turned into an Instagram Reel or YouTube Short, and help garner millions of views and bring in new followers. Recognition on that scale is difficult to build without the kind of push a popular stage like India’s Got Latent can provide.
It also becomes part of a struggling actor’s CV, because it takes confidence and guts to get on stage and showcase a talent that is latent.
That was what Sharma was hoping for after years of auditions and his evening routine at Bandstand.
Today, he reaches Bandstand around sunset, covers himself in silver paint and performs as a living statue. Visitors drop money into a plastic jar, sometimes Rs 10 or Rs 50. Some pay through UPI. On ordinary days, he earns as little as Rs 70-80 in the whole evening. On better days, especially weekends, he makes around Rs 1,000.
During the day, he continues to audition for acting roles.
“The money is poor in small roles,” he said, and social media is where he is to grow.
His India’s Got Latent appearance had seemed like a way to connect those two worlds. For Kingrani, too, the expected payoff was not necessarily the show itself but what could follow.
“I’ll prepare a character for my next appearance on India’s Got Latent,” he said, explaining he has designed the character himself. He has yet to practise the act or buy the costume, but plans to test it at a comedy weekend show in Sambhajinagar before trying for India’s Got Latent again, if he gets shortlisted again.
Around a month after the release of Samay Raina’s comedy special Still Alive, which was released in April, Ranveer Allahbadia too announced a detailed documentary chronicling the day-by-day fallout and behind-the-scenes events of the Latent controversy. Influencer Apoorva Mukhija also recently revealed that she has moved to New York after being accepted by a college there. Everyone else connected to the show has made a comeback in some or the other way, but these are the guys who lost one shot at fame.
Today, Kingrani has returned to Sambhajinagar, and Sharma remains at Bandstand in Bandra, still covering himself in silver paint when the evening begins.
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
