Siddhartha Basu

After producing formatted game shows for more than a decade now, quizmaster-producer Siddhartha Basu is moving to daily fiction for the first time with a new show on a new channel. Jiya Jale will be the Quiz Time man’s first soap on the small screen and it will air on the yet-to-be-launched 9X channel. “I started out doing theatre… so this is not a big change for me,” Basu tells t2 from Mumbai.

“Last year my company Synergy Communications tied up with Adlabs. Since then Adlabs has made substantial investments in infrastructure and equipment. We are maximising its usage by producing Jiya Jale. The move to fiction was a natural progression.”

Basu, now best known for producing the Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan-hosted Kaun Banega Crorepati, sees this move as a step towards diversification. “It’s not that we will stop doing formatted game shows…,” he says. “I am doing a quiz show called Bollywood Ka Boss and then there’s a dance show like Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa. So it is like widening the spectrum.”

Pitched as a “compelling tale of love and loss in the India of today”, Jiya Jale will feature two newcomers in the lead, who will only be revealed on air. The other actors include Mahesh Thakur, Bharti Achrekar and Natasha Sinha.

“Jiya Jale will at least offer an option of absorbing daily drama rather than the overstretched and high-pitched world of daily soaps. The story and characters are highly believable and relatable, set in a real world that people can connect with. I would call it a return of classic storytelling,” smiles Basu.