For many years, she has made commoners and kings sit on the hot seat. And when it’s her turn to face questions, Anita Kaul Basu doesn’t appear nervous. Rather, it is she who does most of the talking, and few questions, for once, are passed.

Basu, joint director of quiz and game show producers Synergy Communications, currently has her hands full with the production of Mum, Tum Aur Hum, the newest game show on Star Plus. Naturally, it’s her new baby that takes up most of the conversation. In between, however, Basu takes a walk down memory lane to trace her journey to the top.

It all started by chance, says Basu. “Never had we said to ourselves that quizzing would be for us,” she says of her husband ? India’s ace quizmaster Siddhartha Basu ? and herself. “We both had a communications background. I was in the print media, and Siddhartha was actively into theatre. If we hadn’t ventured into quizzing, Siddhartha would, in all probability, have become an actor,” she says.

Basu’s professional career began in 1980 as a journalist with India Today. She worked with the magazine for five years, and married Siddhartha in 1983. Then, after her two children were born, she took a sabbatical. “I wanted to devote quality time to my children,” Basu says.

But things had begun to happen even as she was raising her kids at home. Quiz Time, which kicked off on Doordarshan in the mid-80s, had made Siddhartha a household name. The second version of the popular quiz programme, launched in 1986, was also produced by the couple. It heralded, in a way, Basu’s return to work, apart from initiating her into the art of TV production.

It was in 1990 that Synergy Communications came into being as a company. But work had been pouring in ever since Quiz Time had managed to win over India’s nascent television audience. “Since we had given a concrete face to quizzing in the country and had set new standards on TV in a restrictive era, we never had to run around looking for work,” says Basu.

The early 90s saw the satellite TV boom in the country. With several channels trying to bite a chunk of the quizzing pie, it was cruising all the way for Synergy. “The idea we tried to promote in our programmes was to have fun while you learn,” Basu says.

Then in 1998 Mastermind India with Synergy at its helm went on BBC. And it opened up Indian quizzing to an international audience. As husband Siddhartha invited participant after participant to take the hot seat, Basu kept herself busy in the wings to ensure that everything went according to plan.

“Mastermind India was a priceless lesson. Remember, we had learnt production hands-on, and had no formal training. And, all of a sudden, we were trying to make locations out of old buildings in every corner of the country. And the fact that we would have only one day to achieve that task only made things worse,” says Basu. “It was a programme that really tested our potential.”

Nevertheless, Basu stood through it all, and Mastermind India ran for five successful seasons on TV. Meanwhile in 2000, Star TV came knocking at the couple’s door with a mega-project ? an Indianised version of the popular American show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The Basus, needless to say, were game for some action.

The rest, as they say, is history. Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), with Amitabh Bachchan making his debut as quizmaster, scorched TRP ratings on primetime Indian television and became the most-watched programme. “Having Bachchan as quizmaster was definitely a USP,” says Basu. “Moreover, it was a show, which was open to the common man, and was thus instantly identified by him,” she adds.

Another four years and many other quiz shows later, KBC 2 made a return on TV this August. It has proved to be a chartbuster once again. However, rather than sitting back to soak up the glory, Basu is more concerned about making Mum, Tum Aur Hum click on the small screen. “It’s an interactive show that has a mother and child teaming up against others of their kind, and explores the relation between the team mates amidst oodles of fun,” she says.

So what lies ahead of Mum, Tum Aur Tum? Basu isn’t hitting the buzzer on this one, at least for now. But the hot seat can only get hotter.

Based on a conversation with Anirban Das Mahapatra in Delhi