The Amazing Race eliminated Hoskote Venkatesh and Naina Venkatesh during Sunday night's premiere broadcast of the CBS reality competition's 23rd season.
 
The "Father and Daughter" became the first team eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they arrived at the Race's first Pit Stop at the Teatro Municipal De Iquique in Iquique, Chile in last place.

ADVERTISEMENT

In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Monday, Hoskote and Naina talked about their The Amazing Race experience and early ouster. Below is the first half of their interview. Check back with us on Tuesday for the concluding portion.

Reality TV World: How far behind Brandon Squyres and Adam Switzer do you think you finally arrived at the Pit Stop?

Hoskote Venkatesh: To be honest with you, I'm not sure.

Naina Venkatesh: Yeah, I mean, after we realized that they were pretty much done with the Roadblock. It really honestly didn't feel like it mattered anymore to finish the task in any amount of time that we wanted to, because we knew that we were going to be eliminated, so there was no rush. 

Reality TV World: It seemed like you fell behind the pack -- who were on your same flight -- when Naina, you were looking for your father's landing spot as he was paragliding. Once you reunited, Naina, you told him you thought the cab driver might've taken a longer route, so what exactly happened there?

Naina Venkatesh: Well I can only assume, right? So there was obviously a language barrier, but I tried my best to tell him to hurry up and get there as quickly as possible with my limited amount of Spanish. But I got a really bad feeling as we -- a few minutes after we left the area when he started calling people and taking all these quick turns.

It did seem like a very convoluted route to get there. I don't think the organizers of the Race would do something so intricate, and the route to actually go pick up my Dad, the fact that I left second and when I arrived there and he said, "Oh the last team left a good 15-20 minutes ago," I was speechless.

But in my timing, I felt like I knew something was wrong. There was a ride in the taxi where I felt like he didn't really know where he was going.

Reality TV World: Any idea how much time you spent driving around?

Naina Venkatesh: Not really because I was just worried. I just wanted to get there as quickly as possible. I've never been to Iquique, so I could only muster so much enthusiasm and direction in that location because I've never been there before. But it did feel like a lot longer than it needed to be.

Reality TV World: It seemed like you both didn't read the second Roadblock task's clue carefully enough and Hoskote was supposed to do the task when you, Naina, started it. How quickly did you realize the wrong person was doing the task and you had to switch? The show edited it to appear like Naina, you realized you had made a mistake almost immediately.

Naina Venkatesh: Well actually, yeah, the show portrayed it as reading the clue incorrectly, which we initially did. However, what wasn't shown on-camera is actually right after, we realized immediately that my Dad had to do it. But the fact that I actually did the task was very deliberate. Brandon had finished, so we pretty much knew that we were going to be eliminated.

And I had done nothing all day. I was pretty much just riding airplanes and sitting in taxis, and the fact that I would've left this experience having done nothing wasn't acceptable to me nor my Dad.

I wanted to do something that would be memorable so that I could have at least some kind of experience in Iquique. So my Dad, being as loving and as adoring of me as he is, he basically said, "You do the task. I want you to have some sort of experience here." And he's just a wonderful Dad like that, that he didn't want me to miss out on anything.

So I went ahead and did the task, and there just came a point basically where I got tired and it was getting late and we had to wrap up. So I just came on back and my Dad finished the task, and despite what may have been shown, it was actually already pretty late. In Iquique, it's winter there, so it gets dark really fast. So people assumed that he took a very long time to do it. He actually did it quite quickly.

Reality TV World: If you both had known prior to the paragliding task that the person to paraglide must also be the person to do the rowboat Roadblock task, do you think you would've made the same choice and had Hoskote do both or no?

Hoskote Venkatesh: It's self-serving, but I just adore this young lady, and so I wanted her to get as much -- because both of us love the show to death. It should get an Emmy every year as far as I'm concerned. It's the best reality show on television, so we wanted her and me -- but more her than me -- to get all the experience that we can get adventure-wise.

So when we realized that the first clue was a little bit convoluted, I thought she was going to do the paragliding. But when I realized that she was the one who was going to take the ride in the taxi, then I realized the second time that I would have to do the other one too and I'd get to do the boating.

But I wanted her [to do it] because she had done nothing all day, so I said, "Let her do it. We already lost anyway, so I would like to have her have some fun!" So I had her do the task.

Reality TV World: You both seemed athletic and adventurous, and Naina, you admitted you wanted to paraglide but you thought it'd be a great opportunity for your Dad. If you had stayed in the Race, do you think you two would both kind of fight over the thrilling, scary tasks -- or did either of you bring certain strengths to the table you'd take into account when choosing who does what Roadblock, like maybe one of you has a better memory than the other or something like that?

Naina Venkatesh: Certainly. Certainly. When it came to more of the adventure stuff, when we were pretty much in tandem with someone else and it was jumping out of airplanes or rappelling or ziplining -- we probably would've been fighting over that, because we're both very much adrenaline junkies.

We seek adventure and we're not afraid of anything, because we know that we're not going to get hurt. And why pass up an opportunity like this?

However, when it comes to things like memory and eating and more skilled things like that, we definitely had our partition on who would do what. I would do the eating tasks and probably the memory tasks.

However, my Dad obviously being a man, he's stronger than I am. So he probably would've done more of the physical tasks because he could finish it a lot quicker. So we did have a strategy going in. Unfortunately, our experience was cut short. (Laughs)

We could go on as to why it happened to us. We had very bad luck. America didn't really get to see what we were capable of. We were a force to be reckoned with. I really think so. And given the circumstances that we were put in, it just didn't come out. And if we had had the opportunity to not have that significant delay in flight, that really, really put us behind.

And the fact that the taxi also put us significantly behind as well, just everything went wrong with the things that were kind of out of our control.

Above is the first half of Hoskote and Naina's exclusive interview with Reality TV World. Check back with us on Tuesday for the concluding portion.


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON GOOGLE NEWS