IN DEFENCE OF SACH KA SAMNA
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IN DEFENCE OF SACH KA SAMNA Arvind Gigoo
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watched sach ka samna with keen interest and was highly impressed by the brilliant performance and splendid style of Rajeev Khandelwal. He conducted the programme flawlessly without creating even a single moment of boredom. He proved better than “many others”.Confession lightens a man and enlightens others if their minds are open. Each interesting person has his own inner secrets ---- hidden inner truths. I am not talking of spirituality. I am talking of the events that have happened to him. Introverts and shy persons do not open up. I----- an introvert and a shy person------ understand and appreciate them. Life is based on half-truth .Or we live in lies. Man is afraid of his “mirror”. It is the courageous who reveal their concealed truths to the world. Speaking the truth ennobles a person and brings about catharsis in him.. He feels light when he weeps. Goethe says: “Noble are the men who weep. Leave me alone, you who have a dry heart and dry eyes. I curse the happy for whom the unhappy is only a spectacle.” The critics of sach ka samna should have sympathized with the person occupying the “hot seat” and answering piercing questions. But hypocrisy and falsehood envelop us all. And we seek refuge in the fine-sounding words “Indian culture”. We love the masks we wear. The programme stung hypocrites and liars. Truth always bites. Does truth prevail? Will truth prevail? Sach ka samna can create a new kind of authentic human relationship . And an authentic life is beautiful and superior. The veil flutters and falls, you are naked and supreme. Therein lies the charm of life. You are facing you. There is no ‘double’. You-----the many----- are one. Sach ka samna touched the hidden ‘ I’ of those who raised their voice against it . The man wearing the mask must have thought: “I too have lied to my wife, my husband, my father, my mother, my children, my brothers, my sisters, my friend, my employer, my lover, my beloved, my boss, my women, my prostitute........... everyone. And this person in the “hot seat” voices my secrets and my lies. But I will continue to lie to others and to my self.” The young man (the yoga teacher) shed tears while answering Rajeev Khandelwal’s acid questions and at the end he fell prostrate at the feet of his mother, father and brother, and then sank into the lap of his mother like a child. Weeping elevated him. The beauty of fall! A superior man! Where was the ‘anger’ of the man? Rupa Gangoli was superb........... dignified, sensitive, graceful, charming and honest. I salute all those who participated in sach ka samna and were candid. They are the persons I, as an Indian, am proud of. I prefer the thief and the smuggler to the hundreds of thousands of the “Indians” who are a shame for this nation. If a man answers his innumerable questions in loneliness he will be a “new man.” He will pass through agonizing spiritual crises and touch a different life. The path to heaven is through hell. The “hot seat” is a concrete metaphor for the “dark night of the soul.” I do not mean to say that sach ka samna is a step towards spirituality. What I mean to say is: Let us search for the “thief” in us, the “prostitute” in us, the “devil” in us, the “impotent” in us and then face the world. Answering twenty-one questions is extremely difficult and, at times, even impossible. Let us have the courage to answer our own questions. Sach ka samna has shown us the way to speak the truth. Why ban this programme which has cemented some relationships? Maybe, it has strained the relationships of the “strangers” living together, of the “dead souls”, of “cold bodies” and of “dishonest” persons. Self-introspection can instil hope and trust in all. Persons with a shady past and present can transform their lives into a beautiful future. Let us all sit in the “hot seat”, and analyze and watch ourselves. Imposing a ban on sach ka samna will mean imposing a ban on truth and on the free human being who wants to shout at the world: “I am this.” Why should we gag an ‘honest’ person and suffocate him? The viewer with a very narrow mind is to blame. |
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| *Arvind Gigoo, a retired professor of English, is the author of The Ugly Kashmiri published by Allied Publishers Pvt. Ltd. Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi. |
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