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Indian reality TV star Rakhi Sawant said recently that she wished Tamasha was shot in Dubai so she could participate and make “the whole world go mad” and for host Adnan Siddiqui, having her on the show would be a “dream”.

Responding to a question from Maliha Rehman on Sunday’s episode of her podcast Gloss Etc on whether he’d be able to handle Sawant on set, the show’s Badshah Salamat (king) said it was “very difficult [for Sawant to join a Pakistani show nowadays], but it would be very entertaining if she joined”.

Siddiqui said the show had fans in India ever since its first season and Sawant’s appreciation of the programme was not a one-off thing.

He recalled receiving a phone call from veteran Indian comedian Johnny Lever. “He told me, ‘You’re doing a great job.’ And I said, ‘Thank you so very much,’” Siddiqui remembered.

The actor said it was a big deal that the show was popular in India and that five seasons in, it was now at a point that they were getting reviews from the neighbouring country too.

“I read [in a comment from India], ‘This is the right name, Tamasha (spectacle), because they really are putting on a spectacle in that house. Now I’ll have to watch all the seasons, I just started.’ So, you get comments like these that make your heart swell up.”

Tamasha is based on a format popularised by the Dutch TV show Big Brother, which has been adapted in several countries. The Indian version, where Bollywood star Salman Khan is Siddiqui’s counterpart, is called Bigg Boss.

Earlier in the podcast, Rehman said people accused Siddiqui of trying to be like Khan on his show when he scolded contestants. The host replied, “If I am, what’s so bad about it? [Khan] is such a big actor, let me.”

Siddiqui said the team behind Tamasha had managed to build up a sizeable show with limited resources. He said they worked to make the show even bigger with every successive season.

“Now, if you compare it [with similar shows abroad], see how big their team is, how big their country is, what their system is like, how they are managing it. We don’t even have that big of a budget. But still, we are competing with them… Yes, [they have] a better show, it’s bigger, it’s older, it’s a lot better actually. But you can’t say this is incomparably bad, I can say ours is an 18 if theirs is 20.”