The contrast couldn’t be starker. A stone’s throw from the grind-to-glitter cocktail shaker of Mumbai’s Film City is a typically nondescript middle class block of apartments where lives the man who publicly asks his guests the most personal questions with utmost politeness.

Actor Rajeev Khandelwal is the formally attired host of the controversial Sach Ka Saamna (SKS), the television show modelled on the American game show The Moment of Truth, that has celebrity and unknown contestants playing to be rewarded for owning up to their deepest and darkest desires and baring the skeletons in their cupboard.

The show opened in mid-July with high ratings, grabbed India by the jockstrap and had MPs fuming about cultural values in Parliament.

Inconsequentially, as it turned out. Viewers remained hooked.

As MPs bay for the show to be banned, Khandelwal goes about his business with calmness, juggling media calls and preparation for a road trip to Ladakh in his camping truck with his brother and a friend from college.

The neighbourhood is quiet. “That’s why I stay here. Away from the chamghat (bustle). No one calls me to their home, I don’t go to theirs,” says Khandelwal, whose purple T shirt-jeans-curly locks are more in line with the eponymous character of his forthcoming film Peter Gaya Kaam Se.

SKS happened when ‘Babu’ or quiz show specialist Siddharth Basu called him. Khandelwal demurred. Just watch the show, insisted Basu. Khandelwal, who once vowed he would never be seen on reality shows, “watched DVDs of The Moment of Truth and called back to say, ‘Yes’!”

Soon, they were off to Spain where they shot the pilot episode with soap star Urvashi Dholakia and cricketer Vinod Kambli. “I believe in the show,” says Khandelwal earnestly. “Look at the way it has picked up. I connect with the audience and I don’t get uncomfortable about the contestants. They are aware of the questions two days before the shoot. And they retain the option of quitting.”

Why would anyone want to put their personal lives on display in such a manner? Khandelwal thinks it’s because “they want their life story heard. Those who complain about SKS have double standards. I don’t have the courage to be in the hot seat but I respect those who do.”

He dismisses all the brouhaha about washing dirty laundry in public while he offers you an array of teas or, if you prefer, a milkshake. Or even breakfast. “Only three or four of the questions are about sex. So, excuse me, don’t call the show prurient — it’s you who are interested in only one aspect of the show,” he exclaims.

His phone beeps and as he texts one looks around the living room. It is very neat and orderly but bewildering in its array of wall decorations and knick knacks: hearts of many sizes and colours, strings of teddy bears, a Mohammed Ali poster of The Boxer, his awards, cards with pictures from the film Aamir, trophies, curios and photo frames. Khandelwal catches the wandering gaze.

“Everything in the room is a gift from fans. I don’t throw them away. Except for the Ali poster... it’s a three-D poster. I was planning a film on boxing.”

At 33, Khandelwal is making his measured way into the thick of the entertainment industry. The son of an army officer, he always wanted to be an actor. Even when he was average at histrionics, he was the best in likeability. “I was always Master Popular, KV (Kendriya Vidyalaya),” he twinkles.

He went to Delhi to pursue his dreams of being an actor but ended up making a documentary film on the Border Security Force. Later, he shot a pilot episode about a case of mistaken identity and arrived in Mumbai to hawk it to the television channels. By the time he realised that no one was interested in his project, he had run out of money.

The cost of making it in the industry was daunting. “But I am never depressed. I believe — don’t fly high, don’t fly low. To stay rooted to reality I regularly go away for a few weeks from the city,” he reveals.

The turning point in his career came when he went to audition for Balaji Telefilms’ Kahiin to Hoga. Everyone had seen the ad, “even rickshawalas.” When he was on the verge of walking out, thinking that the event was a farce, “a guy called Vishal spotted me. They were casting two characters, Sujal and Piyush.” Four days later Balaji offered him another serial Kya Haadsa Kya Haqeeqat, which had a mini-stories format. Then Ekta Kapoor’s office called again. “Sujal came back to me after three months. There was no looking back,” says Khandelwal.

Sujal, the lover boy with dark undertones, wrote soap history. Women were in love with the unflinching lover, and when Khandelwal exited the show his successors failed to match his appeal. Gossip mills tweeted about an offscreen romance with his co-star Aamna Sharif, whom Sujal pines for. “Aamna and I were close for three or four years but there was no relationship. I do have someone in my life at present but I don’t want to talk about it.”

He did not leave Balaji because he got big headed but because Sujal was not what he wanted to do all the time. “I cannot wave and scream ‘I love you’ to women who wave and scream ‘I love you, Sujal.’ So Khandelwal took a break. He did a music video without charging a penny.

The popularity of Sujal fetched him plenty of film offers, which he rejected. Then Aamir came along, a role that broke the Sujal mould for good. “It was a film about a loser. Debutant director Rajkumar Gupta said, ‘Your face has to carry the film.’” Doubting Thomases said that a television actor could not pull off a film with no songs. It ended up with packed halls and standing ovations.

Khandelwal is unstarry in the extreme. And self-deprecating too. He is also not a man in a hurry. Struggles may have left him with the occasional churning stomach that he won’t admit to, but he believes in himself. “I deal with every project as if I am starting from scratch. I feel one has to keep shifting gears, experiment. Plenty of actors think if they do TV they cannot do films, so no one takes a chance. But it is about the opportunity to showcase your talent, whatever the medium. The rule is, there are no rules in this industry.”

Khandelwal has had his share of struggles, But he is possessive about those memories, especially his Delhi years which “are reserved for my autobiography.”

If Delhi was all about struggle, Mumbai was scary. “There were 100-200 guys, all good looking. I didn’t even have a proper portfolio. But in six months I went from earning Rs 15,000 to Rs 150,000.”

His phone rings. A channel wants him to participate in a debate on reality shows. “I will gladly talk about SKS but I don’t want to be a representative of reality shows. SKS is a class apart,” he declines firmly.

He changes and he’s back in a suit for his interview with a network channel. He saunters out with his hands in his pockets.

Two giggling girls are waiting to spot him, and are ready to swoon as he heads for his car. Khandelwal looks quite embarrassed but waves as we drive off. He is used to women throwing hints but is not wired to take up the opportunity, he says apologetically.

“It’s getting a little difficult now”, he admits. Soon he will move to a building where the security is better. Fans now land up at odd hours. “The bell will ring and there will be a pretty girl standing at the door at 6 am.” he laughs.

The interview continues in his car, a sleek Honda CRV, (“free of instalments now” he quips). The actor is determined to resist being merely decorative in films. “I want to be part of its soul.” But the waiting game is challenging. Peter got delayed because of the recession. “It was very frustrating but I turned down offers from some very respectable names because I wanted Peter to be my second film after Aamir,” Khandelwal says.

Peter is about a Goan taxi bike driver who wants to make money and leave Goa. On the last day, a woman comes and sits behind him. It changes his life. “A British guy called John Owen was adventurous enough to make a Bollywood film in India. That itself was enough for me.” Khandelwal says, adding that his decisions are made at the snap of his fingers. Money is not the criterion. Emotion is. “If the work I get does not make sense I can sit at home for months”.

Triumph by his measure is yet to arrive. “Success is being in a position to choose what you want to do. Right now I am not there yet,” he says.

His mantra for staying the course? “It may sound pompous but I would tell myself: you are a national property. And I am Rajeev Khandelwal’s caretaker. I’d distance myself from Rajeev and instead look after ‘him’. It is like having a split personality.”

As the car purrs up to the sixth floor of the channel office, one looks to see if any question has been unanswered. “Ask whatever you like,” he says agreeably. How about some mild SKS revelations? First kiss? Class III, he ducks nicely. When did he lose his virginity? A little late in life. At 24. Casting couch? Not till date but he has been offered roles by people who have expressed what their sexual preference is. And no, he never makes the first move. “I have initiated a relationship only once. Yes, I was in films by then. It worked out well. And no, she is not from the industry.”

Clearly, Rajeev Khandelwal, like the guests on his show Sach ka Saamna, can reveal some truths about his own life when he wants to.