Flashback to a couple of weeks. Vinod Kambli, former test cricketer, current occupant of hot seat on India’s newest reality show, clutching a large cross, waiting for the next question. Do you remember the names of the women you had physical relations with? (Actual words : ‘shaareerik sambandh’). Camera, switching back and forth between contestant and wife. Suspense mounting . Background music swelling. Yes, admits a distinctly uncomfortable Kambli, I remember. ‘ Yeh jawaab sach hai’, blares a disembodied voice.

That was Indian TV’s first genuine Oprah moment. Here was a celeb (all right, a former celeb), admitting to his family, and shadowy people ranged in the studio, and a nation of avid viewers, that he had done what he had done. Implicit in the admission were many things : that he, Kambli, had slept with women (not one, but several) other than his wife, and that —- here’s the thing — it was perfectly permissible for such questions to be publicly asked of an individual.

In that one fell swoop, Sach Ka Saamna, the Indian version of the controversial Moment Of Truth, pushed everything right over the edge. Till then, Rakhi Sawant had been the loftiest point on prime-time, as she played the coy bride-to-be in low ‘cholis’ and high aspiration. We watched in dismay the transformation of a feisty middle class girl who would do anything to grab her fifteen episodes of fame, to a silly, simpering ‘dulhan’.

But along came Sach Ka Saamna, and poof, Rakhi is history. The line between the private and the public is suddenly thinner than ever. The nature of the ‘real’ on Reality TV has been irrevocably re-defined. Indian Reality TV will from here on be judged on how much, and how soon, it can reveal the most intimate, embarrassing details of a person’s life.

... contd.