No question India

10.44 am: Plunged into darkness. For two seconds, and two seconds precisely, I think the show will start without the stars. Tough luck, lights are back.

10.435 am: “All cameras on” shouts a disembodied voice, and I adjust my clothes, pat down my hair. You never know, I tell myself, the camera may find me so fascinating it can’t keep off.They did tell me, when they seated me there, that the last seat in the last row on the left hand side, never entered the screen. Still, anyone can make a mistake. I look around me: really, such a well-behaved audience. Not restive or ill-bred at all.

10.47 am: “Someone check if all the lights are facing upwards,” yells same disembodied voice. Why? To stare at the ceiling? 10.50 am: Lights dim. Goodie, we are about to start.

10.51.am: Baddie: lights return. Sardarji at the back in grey and black Calvin Klein (so it said) full sleeve T-shirt, calls out: “Audience shot ho gaya?” First, I duck for cover. Then I surface. Hey, that’s not fair, they should at least have warned us we are on air. I’d have put a smile on my face for whole human race….

10.53.am Young thing returns. Gives me great pleasure to welcome you…100th. episode, 2nd.year of the show in November, high TRPs, first overseas guests, promiment editors from subcontinent, 9 questions preselected… I want her to forget her lines so my pen can catch up with her tongue.

She’s a self-possessed young woman. Knows her mind: tells us when to clap: at the start, at the end, and if you want to clap during the show too, go right ahead. Audience laughs. They like her. Then she warns us to stay in our seats when asking a question. Don’t try it, she adds, if you get up, I will push you back in your seat I am very unsympathetic, she concludes. Audience laughs, but a trifle sheepishly this time.

10.57 a.m. Call goes out for a small child’s mom. We’re unaccustomed to kids, excuses the young thing (what’s her name?). “Open a day care centre,” advises an audience wallah.

11.05 am. “Prrranoy to aa gaya,” purrs my neighbour as though he is a film star and she an adoring fan. Dr.Roy, anchor, walks in. A few tentative claps (the young thing had not given any instructions). Smart black suit, white shirt, burgundy tie. Tests mike, sits on black cushion on his seat. Why does he have a cushion, I write, for height or comfort?

“Thank-you very, very much,” he smiles, and audience hearts collectively MELTDOWN. “You are the stars,” he tells the people. I can tell: this audience is as sweet on him as suet pudding. “I am the policeman,”he adds. Sure, sure,and I am the Pope, I to say me, admiring his modesty. Roy warns against libel laws- “don’t travel any where for two months or you may not come back”. Asks if Anusuya (so that’s her name) has pointed out the fire exits. She hasn’t: wags his finger at her naughty, naughty.

11.17 am: Panellists arrive. Guy to my left is unravelling the wire to the pole mike. Why has he waited till the last possible moment to do that? Oh, my darling this is Delhi.

11.25 am: “We start in about 60 seconds,” Dr.Roy says and I feel we’re in a spaceship about to launch into some stratosphere. Music. Anusuya starts to clap, audience follows. Okay, bye.. see ya in the first short break. Stay with me.

11.55 am: Hello. I’m back off air. Questions continue, answers go on. We could still be taping. All that I can tell you of the shoot is that everyone on the panel and in the audience is so fluent. If I had to (speak), I would have taken the length of the show (60 mins.) to get out a sentence. “Stand by studio”Anusuya commands. Gotta go.

12.09 am: Another break. I’m busy working out the perfect, subcontinental cricket team. The panellists are nonchalant: they worked out the team off air, before the question was asked on air. As Kajol said to Shah Rukh in KKHH:“cheater.”

12.25 am: Dr.Roy has said goodbye, and so must I. It was fun, I write, only problem, nobody knows I was there.

Now you do.