A contestant's bizarre string of claims on the comedy reality show India's Got Latent 2 has left both the host and the judging panel struggling for words. Between talk of a secret society, sightings of the dead and memories of another life, the segment quickly turned into one of the show's most talked-about moments, with clips of it now doing the rounds online.
A tattoo that caught Samay Raina's eye
During the conversation, host Samay Raina noticed a distinctive tattoo on the contestant's body and asked what it meant. The contestant identified it as a symbol linked to the Illuminati. When asked directly whether he was part of this alleged secret organisation, he recounted an email that arrived on his personal account sometime after he got the tattoo done. The message opened with the line "Dear Sarthak Mudgal…", followed by blank space and then a single closing line: "From now on we are watching you." According to the contestant, there was no way to reply to the message since the sender's identity was never revealed anywhere in it. The account left everyone present in the studio visibly intrigued and eager to know more.
A claim of seeing the dead
Right after the Illuminati story, the contestant made another startling claim, saying he is able to see people who have already died. The panel appeared taken aback by the statement, and for a moment nobody seemed to know quite how to respond to what they had just heard.
Memories of a past life
The contestant then went on to narrate an elaborate account of what he described as a previous life. He said he clearly remembers events from that earlier life, in which he was a young child who used to play the tabla. He claimed that life came to an end when he fell from the 12th floor of a building, and added that he had shared this entire story with his father as well, well before appearing on the show.
Panelist Balraj Ghai's reaction
Panelist Balraj Ghai weighed in after hearing the claims, saying the contestant was either an exceptionally gifted storyteller or the situation was genuinely beyond his comprehension. In a lighter tone, he admitted that the claims had unsettled him and that he wasn't entirely sure how seriously he should take what he had just heard from the contestant.
The real history behind the Illuminati name
The Illuminati is a name that frequently surfaces in internet conspiracy theories, but it does trace back to an actual historical organisation. The Bavarian Illuminati was founded in 1776 in Ingolstadt, Germany, by a law professor named Adam Weishaupt. In the present day, the name is mostly invoked in online rumours and theories about secretive groups rather than in connection with any verified present-day activity.
The episode is now spreading rapidly across social media, driven largely by how unusual and hard to verify the contestant's claims sounded, with viewers reacting to it in a wide range of ways.
