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Living with the truth: two choices:
The
current Star Plus show, Sach Ka Saamna is a re-invention
of an internationally acclaimed show that originated in
the US, Moment of Truth.
Truth is explosive. Its potential for eternal gain and
immediate ruin of many lives is well known. All social
and many political issues have to do with man's capacity
to hide the truth and live a life of duplicity.
Sach ka Saamna meaning 'Confronting the truth' has to do
with confessions of private sins or aberrations with far
reaching consequences. 'You shall know the Truth and the
Truth shall set you free!' says the Bible. 'Speak the
whole truth and win Rs 1 crore', tempts the Star TV
which is bent upon increasing its TRP.
Confessing the truth has to do with repentance and
transformation of lives; this is what Christians call
conversion in religious circles. The Bible asserts that
the human heart is desperately wicked. The evangelist
calls for repentance and calls for a turning from sin to
God or Christ to be precise for forgiveness of sins. He
warns people of the Judgment Day when God would call to
account the deeds of men. Man, generally speaking is not
inclined to accept the fact that he is a sinner but when
a television show offers millions of rupees for
divulging vulgar secrets from the recesses of the his
heart, the response is overwhelming.
Now, about the TV show: Sach Ka Saamna aims at
motivating selected men or women to disclose very
unpleasant and explosive truths about their private
lives in the very presence of their family members.
This is how the show proceeds: Before the show,
contestants will be hooked onto a polygraph machine and
will be asked about 50 questions, the results of which
will not be disclosed. During the actual show, from the
50 questions, 21 are selected and posed to the
contestant again. There are around six levels and with
each level the questions get tougher and more personal.
If answered honestly and tallying with the polygraph
results, the contestant passes on to the next question.
After passing each level the contestant has the option
to take the money and go home. He / she cannot quit once
the question is asked. If the polygraph negates his
reply, he loses the game and all the money earned.
If a contestant manages to answer all questions
correctly, he/she stands to win Rs 1,00,00,000 (1 crore)!!
In such a short span—the serial began on July 15—the
show has become the talk of the town, the debate in
leading newspapers and magazines. The saucy revelations
have ruined families, broken relationships and provided
pornographic material for the audience.
Yet the TV serial has a message: every human being lives
with hidden secrets…and there is a huge audience out
there taking voyeuristic pleasure in sensational
disclosures. Pornographic magazines, crime thrillers,
gossip sheets and yellow journals titillate the palate
of the reading public. We know that news channels and
their reporters are on the prowl looking for salacious
or lecherous accounts of politicians, film stars or
public figures to be presented before an eager audience
for thrill and entertainment.
'We wait in ambush,' British journalist Henry Fairlie
wrote, 'for the novel that fails, for the poet who
commits suicide, for the financier who is a crook, for
the politician who slips, for the priest who is
discovered to be an adulterer. We live in ambush for
them all so that, we may gloat at their misfortunes…we
feel cheated by our newspapers and magazines if no one
is leveled in the dust in them.'
Why would men participate in a show that threatens to
reveal their secrets, embarrass them and hurt people
close to them, damage their business interests and
endanger relationships…? The obvious answer is the lure
of monetary rewards and some publicity of sorts. For
television channels, it is a question of TRP, scoring
over rivals and earning more in the process.
Taking the contestants through this assertive roller
coaster ride, the host Rajeev Khandelwal encourages
contestants to keep their calm while supporting them
through their emotional journey. At the end, the game
rewards honesty by testing the nerve, resilience and
integrity of a contestant. The show is an attempt to
bring about a positive change by helping the contestants
shed their baggage and lead a significantly better life.
Mr. Siddharth Basu, who has been credited with many
firsts in Indian television, says, “Sach ka Saamna is a
powerful and engaging show that will explore people's
relationship with truth, and reveal psychological and
social insights that are quite thought- provoking and
often moving.
The true picture of what we are:
It is widely acknowledged that society all over the
globe is moving towards more promiscuity and immorality.
A Christian author, John MacArthur, has depicted modern
society in these words: 'Its society is hostile to
Godliness, it is dominated by carnal ambition, by pride,
by greed, by self pleasure, by evil desires. Its
opinions are wrong, its aims are selfish; its pleasures
are sinful; its influence is demoralizing; its policies
are corrupt; its honours are empty, its smiles are fake,
its love is fickle.'
Men would not acknowledge these about themselves in the
normal course. Self- righteousness is one hallmark of
human nature. That is why they hate the evangelist who
reminds them of their sinfulness and its hellish
consequences. His call for a turn around is described as
conversion by threat of a future hell and promise of
heaven.
This society is up in arms against Christians who call
for conversion . He points to the duplicity of the
religious who exhibit various forms of godliness while
denying God through their lives.
Sach Ka Saamna attempts to reveal man's evil in bits and
pieces; it seeks to tear all masks and signs of
respectability. It seeks to expose the lies that men
are. But there its role ends.
Confronting truth: the way of the Gospel
The Gospel, in exposing evil, is making it imperative on
the part of sinful man to live by the Truth. This
implies confession and repentance. Not piecemeal
repentance; but a bemoaning of sin within and without.
In the words of Charles Haddon Spurgeon: 'Evangelical
repentance is repentance of sin as sin: not of this sin
nor of that, but the whole mass. We repent of the sin of
our nature as well as the sin of our practice. We bemoan
sin within and without us. We repent of sin itself as
being an insult to God. Anything short of this is a mere
surface repentance, and not a repentance which reaches
to the bottom of the mischief. Repentance of the evil
act, and not of the evil heart, is like men pumping
water out of a leaky vessel, but forgetting to stop the
leak. Some would dam up the stream, but leave the
fountain still flowing; they would remove the eruption
from the skin, but leave the disease in the flesh.'
Having said all that , the evangelist is challenging
people to confront the truth like the Sach Ka Saamna
show but with an entirely different motive. The
television seeks to entertain audience with the filth
and dirt inside the deep recess of the human mind; the
evangelist warns of the consequences of such putrefying
filth inside the human psyche and calls for a turning to
God with repentance. His is a call for conversion : from
darkness to light, from death to life. Television
entertains using human filth; God transforms people by
making them aware of the truth about themselves.
The television reminds us of a world steeped in
wickedness; the wrong side of human nature…undiscerning,
untrustworthy, unloving , unforgiving, unmerciful…(Read
Romans 1: 26—31) Men, though aware of the righteous
judgment of God, not only do evil but also approve those
who practice it.
But the evangelist is warning people to turn from their
sins to God: “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the
sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked
and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in
the world; Holding forth the word of life… (Philippians
2:15-16 )
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