Siddhartha Basu is an Indian television producer-director and quiz show host, widely regarded as the "Father of Indian television quizzing". He is best known for hosting shows such as ''

Quiz Time A quiz is a form of game or mind sport in which players attempt to answer questions correctly on one or several specific topics. Quizzes can be used as a brief assessment in education and similar fields to measure growth in knowledge, abilities ...

'', ''

Mastermind India {{italic title ''Mastermind India'' is an Indian television quiz show based on the British quiz show ''Mastermind''. It originally aired on BBC World's ''"Made in India"'' series between 1998 and 2002. Each round saw four contestants taking the ...

'' and ''

University Challenge ''University Challenge'' is a British television quiz programme which first aired in 1962. ''University Challenge'' aired for 913 episodes on ITV from 21 September 1962 to 31 December 1987, presented by quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne. The BBC ...

'', and as producer-director of shows such as ''

Kaun Banega Crorepati ''Kaun Banega Crorepati'' (also simply known as ''KBC'') is an Indian Hindi-language television game show. It is the official Hindi adaptation of the ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' franchise. It has been presented by actor Amitabh Bachchan ...

'', ''

Dus Ka Dum ''10 Ka Dum'' (English: Power of 10) is an Indian version of the international reality game show ''Power of 10'', and aired on Sony Entertainment Television. The show was hosted by popular Bollywood actor Salman Khan. According to reports, the sh ...

'', '' Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa'' and ''

India's Got Talent India's Got Talent is a televised Indian Hindi language talent show series and is part of the '' Got Talent franchise''. The program is produced and distributed by Fremantle. The show aired on Colors TV till season 8; since season 9 the show is ...

''. Founder-Director of the television production house

BIG Synergy Big Synergy Media Limited is a television production company headed by chief executive officer Rajiv Bakshi. It started as one of the country's first few independent television outfits in 1988. BIG Synergy is an acknowledged leader in factual en ...

, & later a creative mentor and consultant with the company, he stepped back from all roles in the company in December 2018. Along with Anita Kaul Basu, he is a Founder-director of Tree of Knowledge Digital, a greenfield venture in the area of interactive edutainment events, e-learning, gaming, publishing, and select television production.

Early life and education

Born in Calcutta in a

Bengali Hindu Bengali Hindus ( bn, বাঙ্গালী হিন্দু/বাঙালি হিন্দু, translit=Bāṅgālī Hindu/Bāṅāli Hindu) are an ethnoreligious population who make up the majority in the Indian states of West Ben ...

family, Basu grew up in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

, and Madras. He did his early schooling from Besant Montessori School and

Cathedral and John Connon School The Cathedral & John Connon School is a co-educational private school founded in 1860 and located in Fort, Mumbai, Maharashtra.The Frank Anthony Public School, New Delhi, Frank Anthony Public School in Delhi. Next, he moved to Chennai and completed his schooling from Kendriya Vidyalaya, IIT Madras. He did his graduate studies in English Literature from St Stephen's College Delhi, and earned his MA degree in English as a boarder at Hindu College in the Arts Faculty at the University of Delhi.

Theatre

As an undergrad, in 1973, he became a founding member of "Theatre Action Group"(TAG), a theatre group in Delhi, under the artistic direction of

Barry John Barry John (born 6 January 1945) is a former Welsh rugby union fly-half who played, during the amateur era of the sport, in the 1960s, and early 1970s. John began his rugby career as a schoolboy playing for his local team Cefneithin RFC bef ...

. He acted in numerous plays, most noted for his performance in and as '' Oedipus'' and Mozart in ''

Amadeus Amadeus may refer to: *Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), prolific and influential composer of classical music *Amadeus (name), a given name and people with the name * ''Amadeus'' (play), 1979 stage play by Peter Shaffer * ''Amadeus'' (film), ...

''. After a hiatus of many years, he returned to the stage in Prime Time's landmark production of

Mahesh Dattani Mahesh Dattani (born 7 August 1958) is an Indian director, actor, playwright and writer. He wrote such plays as ''Final Solutions'', ''Dance Like a Man'', ''Bravely Fought the Queen'', ''On a Muggy Night in Mumbai'', ''Tara'', ''Thirty Days in ...

’s '' Dance Like a Man'', playing the roles of Jayaraj and Amritlal.

Career

Siddhartha Basu's career in television began in 1977 as a documentary filmmaker with a company called TVNF after he completed his MA in English Literature from

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate Central university (India), central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and ...

. Meanwhile, he also worked with

All India Radio All or ALL may refer to: Language * All, an indefinite pronoun in English * All, one of the English determiners * Allar language (ISO 639-3 code) * Allative case (abbreviated ALL) Music * All (band), an American punk rock band * ''All'' (All ...

as an announcer and hosted programs on General Overseas Service, and ''Yuva Vani''. In 1985, he first hosted the inaugural series ''

'' on Doordarshan. It was an inter-collegiate quiz show, still well remembered for the quality of quizzing and quizzers. Basu moved on to host and produce subsequent series of ''Quiz Time'', '' Spectrum (TV series)'' - the 7 nation SAARC Quiz, '' The India Quiz'', and '' The Beanstalk Quiz Summit'' (On Doordarshan), ''

'', ''

'' (2003) on

BBC World BBC World News is an International broadcasting, international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a State-owned enterprise, public corporation of the Governme ...

, and '' India's Child Genius'' on STAR World.Board of Directors
BIG Synergy. Along with his wife, former India Today journalist Anita Kaul Basu, he formed the media company Synergy Communications Pvt. Ltd. in Delhi in 1988, which in due course became Synergy Adlabs, then

- after its tie-up with

Reliance Mediaworks Reliance MediaWorks Limited (RMW) is a film and entertainment services company and a member of the Reliance Group. The company is one of India's film and entertainment services companies with a presence across several media businesses including ...

. Promoted by Siddhartha and Anita Kaul Basu, and Karun Prabhakaran, BIG Synergy built its reputation as a leader in the field of factual entertainment, starting off as one of the country's first independent television production houses. In 2010, Big Synergy was named "Production House of the Year" at the

Indian Television Awards Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

. In 2011, the BIG Synergy team won the "Indian of the Year – Entertainment" award of

CNN-IBN CNN-News18 (originally CNN-IBN) is an Indian English-language news television channel founded by Raghav Bahl based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is currently co-owned by Network18 Group and Warner Bros. Discovery. CNN provides internat ...

. Basu's biggest quiz show success came in the form of ''Kaun Banega Crorepati'', first produced for STAR Plus in 2000. '' KBC'', as the show is also known, is the licensed Indian version of the globally successful format ''

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' (often informally called ''Millionaire'') is an international television game show franchise of British origin, created by David Briggs, Mike Whitehill and Steven Knight. In its format, currently owned and l ...

'' with Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan as its host. The second edition of the show

KBC2 ''Kaun Banega Crorepati'' (also simply known as ''KBC'') is an Indian Hindi-language television game show. It is the official Hindi adaptation of the ''International versions of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' f ...

began airing in August 2005 and notched up the highest ever opening in the history of Indian television, going on to sustain its position among the most-watched programs in the country. The third series of ''Kaun Banega Crorepati'' was hosted by Shah Rukh Khan in 2007, while 5 subsequent seasons between 2010-2014 and again from 2017 to 2019 were once again hosted by Amitabh Bachchan. As of 2018, Siddhartha Basu has been associated with the show as a knowledge partner, together with DigiTOK (Tree of Knowledge Digital) and as a creative consultant. The first 2 seasons of Sony's hit show '' Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa'', the Indian version of

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

's celebrity dance show, '' Dancing with the Stars'', was produced by

, as were the first 2 seasons of

, on Colors TV.

Big Synergy Big Synergy Media Limited is a television production company headed by chief executive officer Rajiv Bakshi. It started as one of the country's first few independent television outfits in 1988. BIG Synergy is an acknowledged leader in factual en ...

has also produced other landmark shows such as '' Aap Ki Kachehri - Kiran Ke Saath'', '' Sacch Ka Saamna'' and ''

'', with

Salman Khan Abdul Rashid Salim Salman Khan (; 27 December 1965) is an Indian actor, film producer, and television personality who works in Hindi films. In a film career spanning over thirty years, Khan has received numerous awards, including two Nation ...

as host, on

Sony Entertainment Television Sony Entertainment Television (SET) is an Indian Hindi-language general entertainment pay television channel, that was launched on 30 September 1995, and is owned by Culver Max Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese Sony. SET India's ...

. Starting in 2017, Tree of Knowledge has produced 4 seasons of NewsWiz, a quiz show based on news and current affairs, with participation by high school students from all over the country, hosted by Rajdeep Sardesai, on India Today TV.

Film acting

He has played a few character roles in Hindi movies – R&AW Chief Robin Dutt (RD) in Shoojit Sircar's critically acclaimed film ''

Madras Cafe ''Madras Cafe'' is a 2013 Indian Hindi-language political action thriller film directed by Shoojit Sircar and starring John Abraham, Nargis Fakhri with newcomer Raashi Khanna in lead roles. The film is set in the late 1980s and early 1990s, ...

'' (2013), barrister and Bombay Mayor Romi Mehta in Anurag Kashyap's period extravaganza '' Bombay Velvet'' (2015). He acted as President of India in the superhit 2014

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...

movie of Rosshan Andrews, '' How Old Are You?'' which was later reprised in Tamil as '' 36 Vayadhinile'' (2015). He did play the part of India's Minister of External Affairs in the recent action blockbuster ''

Tiger Zinda Hai ''Tiger Zinda Hai'' () is a 2017 Indian Hindi-language espionage action thriller film written and directed by Ali Abbas Zafar from a story by Zafar and Neelesh Misra. The sequel to ''Ek Tha Tiger'' (2012), it is the second instalment in the ''T ...

''.

Personal life

Siddhartha is married to Anita Kaul, who worked as a journalist with ''

India Today ''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' launched a new o ...

'' magazine from 1983 to 1988 and with whom in 1988 he set up Synergy, a television production company. They have a son, Aditya, who is presently working in the Hindi film industry, and daughter Medha who works with an international organization in the field of public policy.

Books

* ''Inquizitive'' -''The India Quiz Book''. Seagull Books Pvt. Ltd., 1989. * ''Mastermind India with Siddhartha Basu''. Teksons Bookshop in association with BBC Worldwide Ltd, 1999. . * ''Mastermind India 2''. Penguin Books India in association with BBC Worldwide, 2000. . * ''Mastermind India 3''. Penguin Books India in association with BBC Worldwide, 2001. . * ''The Complete Mastermind India, Vol. 1''. Penguin Books India, 2002. . * ''Mastermind India 4''. Penguin Books India and BBC Worldwide, 2003. . * ''Mastermind India 5''. Penguin Books India and BBC Worldwide, 2004. . * ''Kaun Banega Crorepati - The Official Book''. Rupa, 2010. * ''Know for Sure''. Encyclopædia Britannica South Asia. .

Filmography

References

External links

Interview with Siddhartha Basu, India's No. 1 Quiz Master
''23 January 2008''. *
BIG Synergy, website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Basu, Siddhartha Living people Male actors from Kolkata 21st-century Bengalis Bengali Hindus Kendriya Vidyalaya alumni St. Stephen's College, Delhi alumni Indian television executives Indian television producers Indian game show hosts Indian television directors Hindu College, Delhi alumni Indian television presenters Cathedral and John Connon School alumni Male actors in Hindi cinema Male actors in Malayalam cinema Male actors in Tamil cinema 21st-century Indian male actors Indian male film actors Year of birth missing (living people)