His Tryst with Truth

All his life,Raj Thakur had been waiting for this: a moment of truth. A space in time where he could stand up and take responsibility for all his actions and their devastating repurcussions. His wish came true when he got a call to participate in Life OK’s reality show Sach Ka Saamna. Thakur’s brutal honesty won him Rs 50 lakh as prize money,making him the first contestant to do so across all seasons of the show. A fitness trainer and an ex-Merchant Navy officer from Meerut,Uttar Pradesh,Thakur apparently confessed to every grey episode and dark secret of his life.

The youngest of his siblings and the son of a cop,Thakur says his family had no clue to what he confessed on the show — how he took advantage of his position as a Merchant Navy officer,how a ghost scare orchestrated by him cost his batchmate a career and the one lie that almost cost his ship Captain his job. “I did not know that the Captain’s wife was terminally ill and he needed money. Eventually,we pooled in resources for him but I never had the courage to say sorry. At the academy,my teacher fell ill after I locked him in a tiny bathroom without windows. My actions have disrupted many lives but I never had the guts to own them up,” enumerates Thakur.

Sach Ka Saamna,he admits,became a platform where he could apologise publicly. Once in the hot seat,he was prepared to face it all. “I knew they’d be asking such questions on the show,for they did an in-depth research on me,put me through the lie-detector and followed me around my routine,” he adds. Although he has won a huge sum,money was never the aim,he says. “I’ll give it to my parents and friends-in-need,” says Thakur,now “set to right all his wrongs”. The show airs tonight at 11 pm.