With Upen, Dev and Ashmit, there are no achchhe din for Patels in show business

The words achchhe din might be on everyone's lips but 2015 didn't get off to a very good start for one Gujarati. Last night, Upen Patel was evicted from Bigg Boss 8 in a surprise, mid-week elimination.At midnight, Patel was carried out, in a coffin carried by grim reapers. We can't help feeling this was rather cruel of Bigg Boss — evicting someone is one thing, but it's another thing entirely to point out so literally that this is the nail in the coffin of Patel's television career. Patel, who has tried his luck at both modelling and acting in the past, can now add reality TV to the list of things that haven't quite worked out for him professionally.There is however a plus side to Patel's exit from Bigg Boss 8. It's led to the discovery that there is actually such a thing as an Upen Patel fan. This realisation clearly took Patel by surprise as well because he's spent the last few hours retweeting all the tweets expressing support and sympathy after his eviction. So what if the fans can't spell?   Or if they are under the impression that Patel is a woman:  A fan is a fan, and Patel has more than one. If that isn't a New Year Miracle, we don't know what is because let's face it, Patel hasn't really had much of a run professionally. To go from MTV India's most stylish man to the guy leaving the Bigg Boss house in a coffin isn't really much of a trajectory. No wonder then that a psychiatrist who visited the Bigg Boss house came to the conclusion that Patel is insecure (though really, what else can you be if your career has led you into those premises?). We hope that the outpouring of hashtags that are not trending and tweets of support will help Patel feel better about himself even if they are largely irrelevant as far as his professional standing is concerned.[caption id="attachment_2026973" align="alignleft" width="380"] Courtesy: Facebook[/caption]Looking at the tweets supporting Patel, it's clear that to a certain group of Indians, Patel is handsome, talented and worthy of fandom (even if it is only of a fleeting, tweeting variety). Admittedly, there are far worse looking men who have made it as heroes in Bollywood. So what could be the reason for Patel's lack of success? Could it be the fact that he's wooden even as a model, let alone as an actor? Considering how so few who appear onscreen in Bollywood actually act, it seems unfair to hold lack of talent against him. Perhaps the problem is in his name, or more specifically his surname.It is worth noting that Patel appears to be a rather unfortunate surname if you're a man in show business, achchhe din notwithstanding. It's difficult to find a celebrity Patel as far as the world of glamour is concerned. Upen can take consolation from the fact that at least his situation isn't as hopeless as Ashmit Patel's. This surnamesake of Upen's followed a similar path from silver screen to small screen after his dreams of being a Bollywood hero were dashed. Ashmit also appeared in Bigg Boss and then became a host for the show, Superdude. However, television hasn't been much kinder to him and Ashmit remains best known as dude whose face rings no bells in anyone's head.Perhaps the only Patel who has come close to tasting success in show business is Dev Patel, who like Upen, is from England. Aside from the success of Slumdog Millionaire, Dev dated Freida Pinto for six years. Does that make up for acting in films like The Last Airbender? You decide. All we can tell you is that the "slumdog sweethearts" broke up last year and Patel was last seen eating a sandwich and sporting some seriously unflattering stubble.So can Upen and Dev change the fate of Patels in show business? Given Upen is being carted out of Bigg Boss in a coffin, it doesn't look like it. But the actor does have his Tamil debut — he plays a supporting role in Shankar's I — coming up. Perhaps he can give Dev, who has The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel coming out in 2015, some competition in the race to become the most famous Gujarati in cinema. This year, may the best Patel win.