After four hugely successful road trips with HistoryTV18, Rocky and Mayur are setting out on another between Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Goa from August 23. HistoryTV18’s #RoadTrippinWithRnM is a unique travel vlogging series that started in the latter half of 2020. Now, in its fifth season, the series will have Rocky and Mayur chronicling their stories in real-time and sharing them on social media through vlogs, photos, and reels. In an interview with Metrolife, Rocky and Mayur talk about travelling during the pandemic and shooting using a new format.
Given that the two of you are used to travelling all the time, how were the last one-and-half years?
Mayur: We didn’t travel for only about six months after the pandemic hit. The rest of the time we have actually been travelling. We have done five seasons in the middle of the pandemic, in the middle of lockdowns, travelling through containment zones. So it’s been a year of adventure, but of a different kind. This show has been an eventful one because we had to shoot under a lot of constraints. We usually travel with a huge crew, but the pandemic took away all that and we were given an iPhone and asked to shoot and narrate our stories. There were three of us who embarked on a journey and that was our biggest challenge — telling stories using a phone.
How did you zero in on the locations?
Mayur: Rajasthan was our first choice because we have a lot of friends there who were suffering because of the lockdown. They were calling us and telling us that they needed help. Basically, road tripping is designed to help people travel to a particular place and to go and eat, drink and try things that are very touristy.
We later headed to Himachal and later Delhi and Kolkata. We are now looking forward to our journey from Tamil Nadu through Karnataka and Goa. The richness of food, variety, culture, costume, dance and music along this belt is stunning and everything is lush green.
Vlogging is a new way of showing people what you are doing and experiencing in real-time. Did you require training in this medium?
Rocky: Switching from the long format of television where everything is edited, cut and planned, to shooting with a phone with no mics, lights, cameras, was indeed difficult. We had to bring in the flavours, colour, texture, stories just like we used to during the pre-pandemic times. But the states that we visited made our task easy, thanks to their beautiful landscape. Shooting on a phone was like playing football out in the open and then switching to indoor football. We just tweaked the rules a little bit.
How do you keep your energy high and generate new ideas and visuals all the time?
Mayur: We are not putting on an act for television, this is who we are. We are curious and we love eating food. We’ve grown up together, so that comfort is there. This show comes with a great sense of freedom with responsibility. There are no rules, we just work like machines when we are hosting our shows.
There’s no ready script and we don’t know what is going to happen next. There’s no planning about shots, angles and locations. The excitement is about the uncertainty about what may happen next. This is what keeps us alive.
How do you stay fit?
Rocky: I am 126 kg and really unfit. I enjoy food, which is my passion. I have no filters. I can have eight dosas and 12 cups of coffee and still want more. But staying active and being involved in road-tripping has helped me stay on my feet.
Most people just sit at office, sit at home and don’t move around too much. Being healthy is all about movement and the ability to negotiate the world. We need to redefine being healthy. Being skinny and muscular is not really healthy.
Mayur: In the first few years, it was just the joy and excitement of two dear friends travelling together and being paid to eat food. Earlier, we would eat anything. But now when I am not shooting, I exercise a lot and practise intermittent fasting. But when I get my favourite food there’s no limit.
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