If Chief Minister Manohar Joshi had come prepared for some tough questions at the chat show Saad Pratisaad on Sunday evening, it was all in vain. As Doordarshan's programme officer, Shivaji Phulsundar, admitted: "Most of the questions were quite goody-goody. There were no tough customers. Many callers started their question with a line of praise for the CM. However, these questions were spontaneous. We had not doctored them."

While the questions were general, Joshi's answers were only a reiteration of broad policy statements. For instance, he was asked if his government could provide houses to 40 lakh slum dwellers. His reply: "We are very serious about the slum rehabilitation scheme. The scheme may have slowed down due to the fallin land prices. But, we will achieve the targets in a short while." When asked about corruption, the CM said: "Kindly do not get cowed down by any kind of corruption. Bring it to my attention." When asked about his allegedly strained relations with Shiv Sena supremo, Bal Thackeray, his reaction was predictable as it gets: "He is the revered, respected chief of the organisation. I obey his orders and our relations are perfectly fine."

The predictability of the programme was enhanced by meaningless questions on personal life and leading on this front was one of the programme co-ordinators, Mangala Khadilkar. As Phulsundar put it: "We had carved out some light questions to make the programme enjoyable." Khadilkar made it a shade too light. "Who looks after the home ministry in your home?" and "How do you find time for your family in such a busy life?" were some of questions she asked to make the programme "enjoyable."And if the imbecile questioning slowed down the pace of the show, problems with phone linesmade it worse. People from all over the state were asked to phone in their queries. Mumbai Doordarshan claims to have dedicated ten lines for receiving the calls. However, the arrangement did not work. Most of the callers in Mumbai found the number constantly engaged. And while the queries were to trickle from all over Maharashtra, only the Mumbai callers could get through.

Phulsundar admitted there was a problem. "We were monitoring around ten lines. And we could play only one query at a time. Next time we will keep a separate number for the outstation callers. We have to learn from mistakes."