Truth be told

So our parliamentarians are outraged yet again. This time it's a stupid television programme that has their jocks in a bunch. Sach ka Saama, the recently launched Indian version of the ridiculous American show Moment of Truth, has our enlightened representatives agonising over the future of Indian culture and morals.

The show basically has people answering a set of 21 questions that progress from the mundane to the increasingly embarrassing and personal in the hope of making some quick cash. In India prize money is Rs. 1 crore (just over 200,000 USD). This is how it works. Aspiring contestants have to submit to a polygraph test where they are asked several questions. When they actually appear on the show, they are asked questions picked from the same set of queries and their answers are tallied against responses in the lie detector test.

I have watched a few episodes of the Moment of Truth and could never understand how people willingly made complete asses of themselves on prime time television and tore their families asunder just to win some money. Questions relating to professional ethics could be very uncomfortable and those relating to fidelity were downright cruel. And yet people queued up to appear on the show! The smug Indian in me dismissively shook the head because it fit in with the popular global perception of Americans.

Truth be told, I was a little shocked to discover a few weeks ago that India was now to have its own version of the show. It shook my belief that to an Indian, family comes first. But then I suppose one has to acknowledge the emergence of a new breed of Indian to whom cash is king. I am also a firm believer in the principle of laissez faire, so I was curious to see how this would pan out. If people don't mind endangering conjugal harmony in the hope of easy money, more power to them.

Not surprisingly, Sach ka Saama has hit a roadblock in its very first week. Members of the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Indian parliament) are up in arms over its "obscene content" and the broadcast ministry is reportedly considering throwing the book at Star Plus (a channel desperately trying to shore up ratings after its bouquet of soap operas fell out of popular favour) for apparently violating the content code. What's really stirred the cauldron is a married woman being asked if she has ever considered adultery. She said no, but the polygraph ruled she was lying through her teeth.

Now what's the point of taking the TV station to task? If there are asinine people who voluntarily go on the chopping block to satisfy India's newly acquired insatiable voyueristic appetite, let them go hang. They walked into this with their eyes wide open.

And what's this about Indian culture yet again? Are you saying that no married Indian woman has ever fantasised about having a fling, if not actually gone ahead and had one? Come on people! Why is it that everything is fine as long as it's not discussed in the open? Has this country never witnessed infidelity? And don't try to brand this an urban phenomenon triggered by the degradation of values under the influence of the crass West. You know just as well as I do that this doesn't just happen in big cities. And none of this is new.

So let Sach Ka Saama run its course and die a natural death. Believe me, it'll happen. People will fairly soon tire of watching skeletons tumbling out of closets. Just leave it be, because you'll just appear hypocritical trying to shut it down under the guise of high Indian morality.