Mastermind India
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Mastermind India was a quiz show based on Mastermind was aired on BBC World's "Made in India" Series. It was aired between 1998 and 2002.
Mastermind India was based on the British television quiz Mastermind (TV series). Each round saw four contestants taking the black chair one by one, and facing rapid fire questions on subjects of their own choosing in the first half, and on general knowledge in the second half. One of the hallmarks of the Indian show was the staging of the contest at heritage sites across the country. For example, in 1999 the semi-finals were held at the Ferozshah Kotla in Delhi, and the finals were held at the City Palace, Jaipur. Mastermind India was hosted by Siddhartha Basu, and had five seasons, telecast on BBC World, the last one being in 2002.
The ones who wrested the titles in successive years were Dayita Datta, Ajai Banerji - both schoolteachers from Dehra Dun, K.E.Priyamvada, a copy editor from Delhi, Archana Garodia, a businesswoman from Noida, and Ramanand Janardhan, a software engineer from Pune. A Champion of Champions round was held in mid-2002 to launch the fifth series,pitting the first four title holders together, which was won by Archana Garodia.
An odd coincidence was that both Ms Datta and Mr Banerji were both originally from the state of Bengal and were 43 years old when they won the title, apart from both being school teachers in Dehradun.
[edit] MasterMind India; The Book
MasterMind India with Siddhartha Basu is a quiz book featuring all the questions and answers of each series. Currently there are six volumes of Mastermind India. The first edition was published by Teksons, Delhi and the later were published by Penguin India. Each volume is for one year. A hardback volume is also published for series one to three.
