DINNER WITH BS: SiddharthA Basu and Anita Kaul Basu' ...

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Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain? might not have made the gradewith television viewers but Siddhartha Basu and Anita Kaul Basuaren’t too disappointed. In April this year, the charmingcouple celebrated 25 years of being together — they firstmet, and fell in love, when she was auditioning for a play in NewDelhi. Now they’re working overtime on their new reality showwith supercop Kiran Bedi. India’s first television quizmasternever says no to food and so we decide to do dinner at MainlandChina, a stone’s throw from the Synergy Adlabs’ office,in the western suburb of Andheri. With his creative energy and hermanagement skills, they make a great team, writes Shobhana Subramanian .
It’s been a longer day than usual for the Basus becausethey’ve had to attend a board of directors meeting. Thesecorporate formalities now take up a little more of their time, butboth Siddhartha and Anita concede they needed Adlabs’ supportto keep going. Which is why, two years back, they surrendered acontrolling interest to the ADAG group company. “Wecouldn’t have survived on two projects a year and we neededto keep together the team that we have built,” explainsAnita. She admits they had some apprehensions about whether Adlabswould ‘take over’ but says the management hasn’tcramped their style and they’ve had all the freedom theyneed. Siddhartha recalls how the deal was signed, believe it ornot, in a make-up van on the road. It was the day of Ganpativisarjan and the traffic on the streets was so heavy that neitherparty could reach the office and the auspicious time was runningout.
The partnership is obviously working because revenues — theywon’t disclose the numbers — have doubled since then.
We’re eating some crackling spinach, steamed prawn dumplingsand corn and water chestnut dumplings for starters. Both husbandand wife say they are quite amazed they ended up as entrepreneurssince neither of them had ever harboured any such ambitions. Shewas a journalist with India Today and he was trying to make acareer out of theatre, radio jockeying and quizzing. Incidentally,his co-host on Quiz Time, the charming Kavita who vanished withouta trace, Siddhartha tells me, works with Dastakar and is still awonderful singer. We get back to the subject of Adlabs and bothhusband and wife agree that the financial support has given them afar bigger platform, allowing them to foray into different genresand even into providing content for regional language channels. Whydo you think Paanchvi Pass didn’t go down well with viewers,I ask? Siddhartha admits he was disappointed with the numbers andwould have liked it to have got a higher viewership. “Withthe benefit of hindsight, no one perhaps really figured out theimpact of IPL. Also 8 pm may have been somewhat early for themetros and the show may have started out being a little challengingin terms of questions,” he reasons. “But, Shah Rukh(Khan) did a good job and the show had a relatively good openingwith TRPs of 4.7, except that I think there was some negative hypein terms of pointless comparisons with KBC.”
In fact, he points out, that in terms of TRPs, there was adifference of only a few decimal points between Paanchvi Pass andDus ka Dum, though the latter was perceived to have been far morepopular. That, says Siddhartha, makes him doubt the efficacy of therating system, which he points out is based on a very small sampleand, therefore, can only reflect a partial picture. Also, he feelsthe press often tends to pre-decide whether a show has worked ornot without looking at the ratings in the proper context.“The average TRPs for IPL, the biggest television event in adecade, were around 4.7, whereas throughout that time thesaas-bahus were running at TRPs of over 6. I question that.”
How long will the popularity of reality shows last?“Unfortunately, everything in India is cyclical and soreality shows will go the same way,” feels Anita who addsthat it’s sad there aren’t any independent formatlaboratories like there are abroad. The channels, she says,don’t really give you enough time to develop something.She’s also miffed that broadcasters don’t let contentproducers keep the IPR for content designed by them. “Wehaven’t patented any of our formats because the channelsrefuse to allow us to do so. The same broadcasters are willing topay foreign producers a bomb for their formats, but theywon’t pay us,” she says, adding that producers perhapsneed to take this up as a collective effort. One such new formatwill be a show with Kiran Bedi slated to go on air sometime at theend of October. It is a courtroom drama featuring people inreal-life situations, facing real problems, who can get some adviceon their legal rights.
The main course is excellent — hakka noodles, lotus-wrappedrice, Tsinghoi vegetables and General Tao’s favouritechicken. Anita, who was quite an athlete in her school days inEngland — she was a sprinter and also played hockey —doesn’t really have the time for any sport these days. Thoughboth of them manage to catch up on some reading, neither ends upwatching too much television — Siddhartha says its quiteunbelievable how inaccurate and irresponsible news channels can be.Anita, who took time off from her career to be a committed motherand spend time with their children when they were young, jokes thatit’s probably a good thing they’re both so busy becausethe kids have such little time these days. “In Delhi, atleast we have a dog and she welcomes us when go home,” shesays. Aditya, the older one, is more like his father and wants tomake it big as film maker — he’s currently assistingdirector Nikhil Advani on Chandni Chowk to China. Their daughter,Medha, who Anita feels may have inherited her management skills,might become an entrepreneur.
Siddhartha regrets that they’re not travelling as much asthey would like to. Too busy making money, I ask? “Busyworking hard,” he answers. But you must also be making a lotof money, I persist. “Well, we’re happily in the blackand hoping to do better, but it’s the broadcasters who aredoing well because we work on a fixed percentage,” he says,adding that he’s hoping to change the equation. “Theway to do it would be by taking on some of the risk. We’relooking at an option where we buy air time, make content and thensell the time to sponsors.”
For dessert we indulge in steamed coconut dumplings withhoney-butter sauce. Neither Anita nor Siddhartha is too fond ofMumbai as a place to live in but they don’t really have achoice. For how much longer do they plan to do this? They’renot hanging up their boots just yet, but at some time, saysSiddhartha, he will take up teaching as he has always wanted to dothat. As for Anita, she says she wouldn’t mind farminglavender.