Back to beinga host

Ramesh Aravind is thrilled to be a part of the next season of Kannadada Kotyadhipati

It was curiosity that led us to the meeting organised by Star Suvarna, where a group of celebrities were invited to “reveal an exciting secret”. After a few minutes of suspense, they announced that Ramesh Aravind would be hosting the next season of Kannadada Kotyadhipati (Kannada version of Kaun Banega Crorepati) .

Having tasted success in films, the award-winning actor/director tried his hands at being a host for the small screen. He won over millions of hearts with his chat show, Weekend with Ramesh, that featured celebrities sharing their personal victories and defeats with viewers.

Emotional talk show

Ask him how different Kannadada Kotyadhipati is from his earlier talk show and the actor responds, “ Weekend With Ramesh was an emotional talk show, where we discovered celebrities on a personal note. This quiz show will keep audience and the player on tenterhooks. It involves the viewers’ hearts and minds.”

The actor-director-scriptwriter, who is right now involved in the post production work of his directorial venture

Butterfly (remake of Queen ), will soon also be seen in Radhika Kumaraswamy’s Bhairadevi . He is paired opposite Anu Prabhakar Mukherjee and this film too, like Butterfly , is a multi-lingual project.

In spite of his busy film schedule the actor says he is willing to commit time for the quiz show.

Talking about how the Kannada film industry is drawn towards KBC , Aravind says, “We would avoid parties when the show would go on air. Friends and colleagues made it a point to arrange a huge screen for guests to watch the show. There was even a joke about vegetable vendors that was going round. I believe the vendor would ask, ‘what do you want? Tomato, potato, onion or carrot?’ That is the popularity of this game show,” says Ramesh, who adds he is right now training with Siddhartha Basu to be the perfect quiz master and host. He says the speciality of this show is “it is successful in over 120 countries in over 80 languages. The show is successful because everyone wants to be a millionaire. It is a vehicle of hope, which runs on the fuel of 15 questions and the fortune of one crore.”

He adds that “one right question can change the world. For instance, when the world never thought of why an apple fell to the ground, here was a man – Newton – who wondered and we got the theory of gravity. Every progress in mankind is because someone asked that one right question, the answer to which can become engines of history and civilisations. That is the basis of KBC .”

Small as big

Aravind says he is as comfortable on the small screen as he is on the big screen. As of now he has postponed returning with the new season of Weekend With Ramesh . “Being a host is a challenge, because you have to give up drawing attention to yourself and focus on the guest, make them comfortable to either share their emotions or play the game with confidence. I am happy to be working with this team as Siddhartha Basu introduced Amitji as a quiz master with KBC ,” shares Ramesh, who wants Puneeth Rajkumar to be the first person to sit on the hot seat. The hot seat, according to Ramesh, “should not be a chair of comfort. Even if it is comfortable, it will be my task to keep the participant on the edge of that very seat throughout. The game show will sure be test of nerves,” he assures.