Sach Kaa Saamna : India's Moment of Truth

I got hooked onto Moment of Truth while flipping between channels a few months back.
I found it pretty innovative and enjoyed other people squealing out their truths in utter discomfort. The format is like the contestant takes a polygraph test and later on same questions are asked, and the contestant has to answer TRUE/FALSE on those question. These are later matched. If its in the affirmative, the contestant goes to the next question with some added cash in the booty. If its in the negative, the contestant bows out with his existing sum. The questions are very personal in nature and might as well result in hurt feelings and broken relationships.

Human tendency as it is, is to see other people in embarrassing situations, this show managed to grab quite a few eyeballs. Every question seemed to get the audience on a high. And every answer followed with gasps of shock as if these are unheard of and constitute acts of sacrilege and felony:-) Only in America, I felt!

But hang on, whats this ? One fine morning , I see ToI and there on page1 Kambli says that "Sachin has not helped me much". Now Sachin sells in India. The legend goes that once in a party of bollywood celebs and cricketers and politicians, Amitabh Bacchan made his entry , everybody ran to shake his hand. When Sachin made the entry, everybody ran to shake his hand, Amit ji leading the pack. Coming back to Kambli's rant, those comments were quoted from a TV show "Sach Kaa Saamna", the Indian version of the highly popular "Moment of Truth".

Now, when I saw the original version, I was pretty sure that this concept won't work in India.
What with cultural sensibilites, private affairs in public life and all, I assumed that the questions would be much more toned down than the original one. Well, the winds of change seem to have blown east. I had underestimated the TV audience, who likes to watch other people clean their dirty linen in public.

17th july: An aged person was on the hot seat, having already won around 5 lakhs.
He had 3 failed marriages and was about to be engaged for the 4th time. His daughter-son-in-law, 2nd wife and to be 4th wife were there in the audience. The questions started like this:

Host : Do you think that you did enough to save your 3 broken marriages?
Contestant: (Swipes his sweat) NO.
PAT comes the answer: ANSWER is CORRECT.

next question:

Host: Have you ever had sex with a relative?
Contestant: (Unable to look beyond the host) YES.
PAT comes the answer: ANSWER is CORRECT.

next question:

Host: Have you ever had sex with a girl younger than your daughter?
Contestant: (laughs then ponders) YES.
PAT comes the answer: ANSWER is CORRECT.

next question:

Host: Have you ever had sex with a prostitute?
Contestant: (swipes sweat again) YES.
PAT comes the answer: ANSWER is CORRECT.

After a couple more questions, the contestant loses out to a non-sexual question and goes home with 2.5 million INR. The public and the TV audience were shocked at the dick adventures of this below-the-hip-shooting geriatric, shocked at how a person can indulge in all this perverted stuff.

And I thought, this used to happen only in America!