Rich kids slum it out in new Indian reality show

Sunny Sara, 28, a night club owner in Mumbai, was one of the participants in a new and popular reality TV show called "The Big Switch" which involves rich contestants residing in a slum for one month to help slum dwellers.

"There was no running water, no air conditioning, none of the amenities I was used to. I missed my Blackberry and my bikes," Sara said. "It was a life-changing experience."

More than a third of India's population survives on less than one dollar a day, according to a 2007 United Nations report, while the number of dollar millionaires rose almost 23 percent in the same year, the fastest pace in the world.

The show went on air late last month, almost a year after Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" showed the world what it was like to be poor in Mumbai, where more than half its 18 million residents live in slums or on the streets.

"Most of India's television audience is in the middle class," said Zarina Mehta of UTV Bindass, which airs The Big Switch.

"When you bring in people from the richest strata and put them with the poorest of the poor, it makes for great television," Mehta added.

"Our show is also about hope and the fact that you can work your way out of that poverty."

The show involves 10 rich contestants paired with 10 slum dwellers. The groups have to work on tasks such as shining shoes at railway stations and selling wares at traffic signals, jobs the poor often have to do.

Points are given for each task and the onus is on the rich contestants to win the cash prize of 1 million rupees ($21,600), which would go towards fulfilling the dreams of their partner.

The show, which ends in the last week of January, was shot in a slum in Mumbai's suburbs where fishermen live, and contestants, who also included an actor and a former Miss India, had to live in a one-room hut with their partner.

Sara's partner on the show is Abhishek Kushwah, a 22-year-old who grew up in Dharavi, Asia's biggest slum.