When in the hot seat, meet...

Ramesh Aravind will now star in the return of an opportunity that had cruelly left him. Six years ago, he had signed a show deal with a TV channel, had trained to join a distinctive roster of quiz hosts, and had then watched with “a bit of disappointment” his chance to host the regional import of the UK original Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? slip through his fingers because of the transfer of TV licences. He didn’t share this with anyone.

Now, ready to present Kannadada Kotyadhipati - Season 3, in place of actor Puneeth Rajkumar, he fishes from the flashback a life lesson for himself: “It’s important to not lose heart; do something better in between, and sometimes, you get back what you have missed,” he says.

The last three years have featured his well-received talk show Weekend With Ramesh in which notable people from many vocations relive their life stories from a big red chair. He admits having had no trouble choosing the quiz show over the next season of this pet project, “a ready merchandise” when the two shows coincided on the calendar. He points out he likes to try new things.

And in doing so, the actor and director re-bonded with Siddhartha Basu, one of India’s popular quizmasters and a trainer to the host. “I first went to him with all the notes and folders he had given me all those years ago. I asked him if he remembered it! He wondered why I had them all. Well, I knew they would be useful someday. When we were in college, Siddhartha Basu was the King Kong of the quizzing world in India. He was smart, urban, rocking the scene, and was international in his thinking. He was graceful in what he did. That’s what I like about him even now.” And that “he never takes things for granted.”

The show, the man believes, aligns with his spirit: the lean towards academia. “I have always been a serious student and a rank-holder! So that part of me, I could never show in my films. It’s like, when I ask a question, I like to know the answers myself. It’s knowledge-based.”

Kannadada Kotyadhipati (KK) follows the international format and leads the common man to the grand prize with 15 multiple-choice questions. A couple of episodes will put celebrities on the hot seat. A lifeline not used in the previous two seasons will be offered. The episodes are filmed in Bengaluru with the locals as the show’s audience, a first.

In a homegrown flavour, the show can be a coming together of two assets. As the host sees it, “In our mythologies, we have kept Lakshmi (wealth) and Saraswati (knowledge) apart — bada brahmana, bada meshtru, is what we have been telling all along. KK is an interesting bridge between wealth and knowledge, and I’m happy to get you that.”

“What excites me about the show is... some lives will change — some may change a little, while some will change a lot. And some more who watch the show may be inspired to take part in it. There might be a youngster who decides that it matters to have knowledge. Where else in the world will you get one crore in one hour by answering 15 questions? It’s impossible. It takes years of toiling to make that kind of money. Money, sometimes, is a by-product. It’s also about dreams coming true, at least for a couple of them. For that, you need somebody who lifts you up, or an opportunity like this,” he says.

When Sai Prasad, the head of the host channel, says of the show’s credo — “We’ll make sure no wrong person sits on the chair, and no right person misses the chair,” Ramesh Aravind concurs, “That’s the right way to look at the chair, yes.”