Love All- The Sports Quiz

With the general quiz supposed to be hosted by Jayasree Mohanka and Souvik Guha being postponed for the umpteenth time, it was a pleasant surprise for all us sports buffs to know that it would be replaced by a sports quiz hosted by Biswabijay Sen on the same day, 21^st February.

It was a sports quiz with a difference. A quiz for the sports followers, not the sports readers. There were very few dry questions, and the prelims too were filled with videos and visuals. After a prelims where the scores were abnormally low for an open sports quiz, 6 teams were announced for the final, and there were some surprises in store, particularly with few of the major forces in open sports quizzing of the last 5 years missing out. There was however some controversy, and mystery surrounding one team which had apparently qualified for the finals. They made a dubious but inconspicuous exit, and were to be replaced by one of the doyens of sports quizzing, but as luck would have it they too had departed , thinking that they had not qualified. The lucky ones to benefit from all this confusion were a team called the Sharpshooters, featuring our very own enquiry member Sumantra aka Central.

And did they take advantage of their luck !!! The sharpshooters put in a really sharp display and came 2^nd , behind the obvious favourites Deepanjan, Souvik Guha and Sounak. In a good day for enquiry a team of Panda, Niranka and I managed to get 3^rd place on the last question. There were no prizes for 3^rd place or else I would have put a poster of Gigi Fernandez in my living room from now on.

Summing up the quiz, I would say the questions did leave something to be desired. It was a bit monotonous at times, since almost all the questions were straight visual identifications. AV’s are always welcome in any quiz, particularly when it comes to sports, but the questions could have been framed in a more interesting manner, I believe.

Some of the questions I can remember:-

1. In 2003, in a match against South Africa Brian Lara scored 196, and was the last man to be dismissed . He missed out on a double century because of something which happened in 2000. What? (This was accompanied by a video clip)

Ans. In 2000, there was a major rule change in cricket:- Earlier if a batsman hit a ball, and then it hit the helmet , 5 runs were awarded to the batsman, but 2000 onwards the runs were awarded as penalty runs to the team. Brian Lara had hit a ball which hit the helmet, so before 2000 he could have scored a double century, but alas that was not to be.

2. Which Indian won the Arjuna award in 2000 and the Dronacharya award in 2009?

Ans. Puella Gopichand

By Titash

Business Incubaiter- The Business Quiz organized by Praxis Business School

It is a well known fact that enquiry members would go to any lengths and travel through any road for a good quiz. This was no more in evidence than when three quizzing gypsies , , Panda, Boss and I along with Jagadish from IIFT, made the long trip to Praxis for their Business Quiz on the 10^th of February. Now, where this place exactly was no one knew. After asking countless people , as we made our way through the roads, then the galis and finally the jungles in Panda’s car (observing the golden rules carefully) , we finally arrived at our Quizzing Oasis. The quiz was hosted by none other than Charanpreet Singh, the director of Praxis and a quizzer and quizmaster of high repute in his own right.

The quiz was well attended, if not in terms of quantity but surely in terms of quality. After a prelims were the 1^st 2 teams had abnormally high scores, and the next 4 were all bunched together , the finals line up stood as :- 2 IIM C teams, Asansol Engineering College, IIFT Kolkata (Myself and Jagdish), Army Institute of Management and Calcutta University , represented by our very own Panda and Boss. I must say the quality of questions in both the finals and the prelims were excellent. Most of the questions were highly workable, and very few (if any) had obscure answers. It was a bit of a throwback to the old days, where most of the questions were on paper, and the slides just showed Question 1, Question 2 . Of course, I must say it was quite lackadaisical of the quizmaster not to make a complete ppt, but that’s again a very personal opinion. Despite the high quality of questions, there were was one thing I didn’t find too appealing, and that was an overdose of audio questions. Most of them were somebody reading out a management book, and people were asked to identify the author or the book which made it monotonous. Of course, this was only a small blight on what was a wonderful quiz.

After a highly competitive final, Asansol Engineering College emerged the surprise winners with the 2^nd team from IIM C finishing a close second. Boss and Panda kept the enquiry flag flying high with a fine performance in 3^rd place. The highly fancied team of IIM C involving CRamshankar finished 4^th and urs truly’s team and Army Inst brought up the rear.

Overall , one of the best business quizzes I have attended.

Some of the good questions:-

1. In the IPO filing for Google, in 2004, rather than a typical round-number amount of money, the company announced its intention to raise $2,718,281,828 shares. What was the significance of this?

Ans. The value of e

2. Which company named after something you might find in a farm was so named, because the founder wanted it to be before of his previous employer in the dictionary

Ans. Apple

By Titash

Worst quizzes ever

To prevent this post from offending the Quiz masters who managed to give us hangovers without getting us drunk, I will be using codewords, in true Fake IPL player fashion.

I request people to send me reports on terrible quizzes they have attended so that I can make it a part of this post. You can do this by emailing me at birladey@gmail.com.

I will start with what was by far the worst quiz I have ever attended based on the quality of questions.

It was an internal quiz at a college, lets call it the Hermitage, in 2006. The best question of the quiz according to me was "From which country was Copernicus ?"

You might be tempted into thinking "That's not very bad" but just you wait. I am not finished yet.

Every second question in this quiz was a spelling ! In the same round, some teams got multiple choice questions which passed ! And on top of that the QM carried a copy of the Manorama Year Book with him.

One of his questions was "What is a basilisk ?". A team said "It's a mythical snake mentioned in Harry Potter." The QM did not agree. It passed to us. I knew that beside being a mythical snake, another name for the Jesus Christ Lizard, which can walk on water, was the Basilisk. So just to be safe I said, "It's a reptile that walks on water". He disagreed again. It passed across everybody. He then revealed the answer which was simply, "It's a Lizard". Try as hard as I could, I could not convince him that a lizard is a reptile. The QM, in turn, in order to convince me took out a page from the Manorama Year Book and showed it to me. "See it's written here. Basilisk, Lizard."

I knew I was beaten.

Another really dreadful quiz was, quite unexpectedly, a Sports Quiz at Aye Aye Yum Boca, a couple of years back. This had to be the worst quiz, I have attended, based on the format.

The first few rounds of the quiz were alright, with a lot of age old repeated stuff. Going into the last round we were leading the eventual winners by 70 points. The last round was a "Choose your Topic" round with choice preference in ascending order of scores. It was a speed round with a maximum of 10 questions in a minute for every team on their chosen topic.

Half of the topics had 20 points per questions & the other half had 10 points per question. So if the bottom 3 teams chose the 20 point Topics & did well, we would be left helpless because we would be left with just 10 point questions. Also there were negatives for guessing wrong ! So the only options you had were to answer correctly or pass. Till date, the only quiz I have attended where guessing was discouraged.

The round started with all the bottom teams choosing the 20 pointer sets. The team which was in 5th spot chose "Sporting Venues" & got 5 correct. Among the 5 that they answered was this question. "How do we better know the Yuva Bharati Krirangan ?"

After every team had their go, we needed 4 correct answers on "Football Coaches" to win. The round started with this question. "Who started the Cattenacio style of football ?"

This was a 10 point question according to the QM & Yuva Bharati for some reason was worth 20. Despite my having a hunch, we had to pass because of the negatives for guessing. The next 3 questions were of the same sort. Then he asks us, " Which I-league coach is renowned for spotting young talent ?"

That did it. I knew getting 4 correct in this round was hopeless and looked at the QM with such contempt that I am sure people thought I was gonna hit him.

The very next question, in a speed round, would have taken a full minute to ask if we hadn't stopped him halfway, by saying pass.

We answered one and got one wrong in that round and finished fourth. The team who had been 2nd finished 3rd. So the only purpose of the round had been to stop good teams from winning and it had worked wonders !!

By the way, the answer to the Catenaccio question was the Inter coach Helenio Herera.

Another quiz deserves a mention in the worst format category & this was the Movie quiz at Aye Aye Tea Swordpur SinghRest, 2010. But here some of the questions were really good.

The most awful quiz that I attended in school was the Hedge Tea-RatRace quiz.

It was supposed to be a mega event and so lots of teams turned up. The QM was some news anchor called Veer. We got to the stage with 5 other teams and were feeling happy with ourselves. 12 questions later, we were swearing under our breaths as we boarded a bus for home. Yes, the mega event for which around 50 teams turned up and waited for over 2 hours for the prelims to start, was over in 5 minutes ! And even those 5 minutes left us school kids wondering, "How can an adult behave like this on stage and how can people laugh at such poor jokes !!"

A few years on and I have realized what some people are willing to do for even a bit of money and that if you are confident, you could commit a murder on stage and people would still clap !!

Numerous quizzes, featuring the Shahenshah of bad QMs, Mr. Moronob Energy, should be included in this post but I have been to so many, especially while in school, I kind of lost track.

In his infamous Sunny Tropics round, we once chose the EPL. He asked us who the current manager of Blackburn was. With a big smile on my face I said "Graeme Souness" which was absolutely correct.

But I had forgotten one tiny fact. Moronob lived in an universe parallel to ours, where strange things happened, unheard of here, in our world.

In his world, Blackburn at that time were being managed by Steve Mclaren, which is why I think he was quite right not to have awarded points for my answer. I should have had the foresight to give both answers, Souness & Mclaren. You can't expect the Shahenshah to know what was happening here, in our world !! Entirely my fault !!

Which is why I am rendering a formal apology, here in this post, to Mr. Moronob Energy for vociferously dissenting against him on stage. I am sorry Moronob Sir !!

A few more things that go on in Moronob Sir's world :

The mascot for the 1954 WC was the trophy itself !!

The 1000th goal in WC football was scored before the 999th !!
According to Moronob, Robbie Resenbrik scored the 1000th in 1978, which is consistent with our world but according to Moronob, the 999th scorer was Alessandro Altobelli who made his debut for Italy in 1980. I guess, in Moronob's world Altobelli is a much revered scientist for having figured out the rudiments of time travelling.

Naim Suleymanglu has had 3 names !! In our world it's only 2.

Aung San Suu Kyi appears in Tintin in Tibet !!
Tintin in Tibet appeared in 1958 when in our world Aung San was 13 years old. Looks like in Moronob's world Aung San used Altobeli's time machine or it might be the other way round !!

There are a lot more of these Moronobisms which I would encourage people to share with the world. The ideas & ideals of Moronob, the Shahenshah of the other world, must be cherished !!!

Very recently I attended a very boring quiz at Magicpur University, which was the first bad quiz I attended here. Given the fact that, most of the other quizzes, I attended here, were done by our people, bad quizzes were a rarity. This was an exception.

The questions were either, way too easy for a college quiz or way to trivial unless you were sitting on a computer with internet access. One of my team mates was on the verge of walking out of the quiz before the QM asked one or two decent questions !!

Here is a new entry sent to my mailbox by a friend. I changed some names around and this quiz was seriously awful. The QM was one of those stupid people who think they know a lot. They make the worst QMs.


From Rampat Ray ( Name changed on request)

I want to share my experience of a 'quiz' I attended in March 2010 at a college fest. It was hosted by a official of Nirula Scientological museum.

Some of the questions in the prelims were
'what is the Bengali date today?',
'which peak can be seen from the top floor of Chaterjee International',
'the color of sky of the moon',
'the closest star' and some slides of animals.
The best question in the prelims was a song sang by Rabindra Nath Tagore himself.

You may say questions aren't so bad but it's the answers which left me speechless.

The QM said the Bengali date was 24th Falgoon and not 25th Falgoon ( which was the right date). Maybe he had set the questions the day before and forgot the fact that dates change everyday !!

He said we can see Kanchanjangha from the top of Chaterjee International !!
He must have had an eye transplant from a Hawk !!

Anyway that was all about the prelims but yeh to sirf trailer tha !!
Picture abhi baki hai mere dost!!

Let's switch to the finals where we were the lone outsiders.

The QM suddenly started a lecture about the geographical diversity of West Bengal, which has the ocean at the one end and world's third highest peck at the other, has mangroves to red soil like desert as well. Then he asks name the only state in India which has all these geological diversities?? Amazed!! Already !! Don't be..because there are plenty of other reasons arriving.

He showed a video of a spectacle-cobra and pointed out the spectacle sign in its back as a hint, said its a sign of spectacle, this type of cobras are rare etc etc and then asked which cobra ? The answer he gave away in his speech. It was a spectacled cobra !!

Finally we got a toughie. I think it was left for us only to stop our cake walk and give all the home teams a boost. He showed a farmland of Brinjals with a "kaktarua" at the middle of the field and then asked what plant we are seeing? Due to a little bit of my knowledge in greens I guessed Brinjals. It was correct and even the QM was surprised when we cracked it.

Have you ever heard of Tongue-twisters being a part of quizzing?

Seeing is believing and we got a taste of it in the 5th round when our score was the double that of the second team.

The Tongue-twisters ranged from "Zinc dijoji dhatu" to "teltele chule tul tule tulo" and many english and hindi tounge-twisting phrases.

It was an infinite point scoring round. The more times you say the phrase the more points you are awarded!!

It was the turning point of the Quiz and we ended up second position after this.

There were mistakes committed by the QM and scorers throughout the quiz. Sometimes the scorer added an additional marks to a team or the quiz master forgot in which direction he had started the round and sometimes he even forgot to ask the question after a long and tiring speech on his yet to be asked question!!

That's all from my side. Can't stop myself from sharing this experience.

Science Sanskriti General Quiz 2010

The Science Faculty Sanskriti General Quiz was held on the 19th of February, 2010 and hosted by Gautam Ghosh. In the previous 2 editions I had been the quiz master so for a change I participated.

Despite being a General Quiz, around 18 of the prelims 25 questions were Biz. Anyway, 5 teams from Enquiry & 1 team from JUDE made it to the stage and within a span of 10 minutes, we were wishing we hadn't qualified. The quiz started with a barrage of questions about NRIs & Indian CEOs & hardcore Biz Trivia and in the middle of these questions there were some absolute sitters. The questions in the latter half of the quiz were a lot better, although most of them were old chestnuts. But I would much rather someone ask old chestnuts than a history of CEOs.

Me, Boss & Sarba tied with Titas, Sid & Panda for first. There were 3 teams tied for 3rd and Shabbir, Neil & Sumantra, on a wretched afternoon, managed a duck !!! I encourage the readers of this blog, to please pull their legs about this. It's not everyday that a team scores a duck !! But to be fair to them they did get some stinkers, most of the dreaded CEO stuff !!

Unfortunately, the one man, who would have lapped up the CEO stuff like a wolf, our very own CEO Kunalda, gave this quiz a miss.

Some of the better questions :

Q Who were the first 2 scientists to translate Einstein's Theory of Relativity into English ?
Ans : SN Bose & Meghnad Saha

Q Which brand gets it's name from Arabic for hot spring ?
Ans : Hamam

And the question that almost made Boss walk out of the quiz

Q What were the names of the 2 business families in the movie Corporate ?
I won't even bother with the answer

Kritansh 2010 General & Biz Quiz at KIT Bhuvaneswar

In a crazy quizzing month, during which I had already been to more than 10 quizzes Titash, Rahul & myself climbed aboard the Puri Express on the night of 13th February, 2010 to attend the General & Biz quizzes at KIT Bhuvaneswar next day.

Before I get to the quizzes I must mention some of the crazy things that happened on the fateful Saturday night of the 13th.

The 3 of us had got sleeper tickets but unfortunately while two of the tickets were in the same compartment one was not. So I made my way to the solitary seat at around 12 A.M. There were a couple of guys sleeping on my seat, huddled under a common blanket. I nudged them gently but they wouldn't budge. So I nudged harder & shone my torch into their faces. They woke up & I told them they were in my seat. They moved down from my seat and promptly settled down on the floor of the train & were snoring within minutes. I lay down on my seat & closed my eyes. Presently a TT came along, having been informed by some of the people sleeping on berths that somehow people sleeping on the floors below them, were causing a disturbance. He woke up the people sleeping on the floor. There were around 9 including the two who were in my seat before. There was a huge ruckus because the 9 did not have sleeper tickets & the TT made them leave the train at the next station which was Kharagpur. The 9 then went to one of the overcrowded General Compartments, where you would be lucky to find room to breathe, got around 20 more people and came back to board the same compartment again. The TT rushed off to get the Police.

He came back with one policeman !!! ONE !!! And he too was half asleep !!!
There were around 30 people without tickets !!!

Majority wins & the TT could do nothing as all of them moved in and occupied every inch of free floor space in the compartment.

Now the people who had complained initially started protesting from their berths. The lazy mutts didn't even have the guts or energy to get down & see some action. I, on the other hand, was watching the drama unfold, wishing I had a tub of Popcorn to munch.

One of the protesters came up with the corny line, " There are Ladies here !!"
To which the reply was even cornier, " Babu! Hum garib hain par hum mein insaniyat hain !!"

I almost fell off my seat laughing. After around 20 minutes of the TT & some people trying their best to get the alleged miscreants to leave, I stepped in.

"There is no point squabbling like this. They won't leave. You shouldn't have complained in the first place. So we just have to put up with 20 more now."

And put up we did.

Somehow more people from the general compartments got wind of the situation in our area. They started flooding in. At 2 A.M I was lying on my seat with 4 people sitting almost on top of me. I couldn't get a minutes rest !!

Just before reaching Bhuvaneswar, I went to the Toilet. I took off my glasses to wash my face. The train suddenly jerked a bit, my glasses slipped out of my hands and fell right through that dreaded circular hole where no man dares to go !!!

What a night !!

We got off the train at Bhuvaneswar at 6 A.M & went to the Lingaraja Temple to spend some time. After a few hours there we went to KIT where the quiz started after a long wait.

And all I can say is, the trouble was worth it !!!

Mitesh Agarwal conducted two wonderful quizzes. The format was innovative & it was the fairest format we had ever come across at a quiz. We were quite angry in the General Quiz prelims when we received a negative for an answer we were convinced we got right but in the end we realized where we had gone wrong.

The format which Mitesh Agarwal told us was becoming quite common down south was very fair. We were surprised to hear it wasn't Infinite Bounce but then he revealed a format where if you knew an answer you would always get points for it, and if the question was a workable one you did have a chance of guessing it. It worked like this. When any team got a direct all other teams were given a few seconds to write down the answer, if they knew it. If they got it right they got full points else negative. After this writing period was over the question passed like a normal quiz for all those teams who did not write. It was a very fair format.

After two excellent quizzes in which we finished 2nd in the General Quiz & 3rd in Biz, it was time to head back. The return journey unlike the previous one was quite uneventful.

Here are some questions :

Q After the Saddam era, Why did people in Iraq refer to their situation as the "Purple Revolution" ? Because purple is the colour of voting ink

Q Which sport was developed by Venetian punters to land quickly ? Pole vault

Q Why did Colgate takeover the Mennen Talcum powder company in 1992 ? They made the Teen spirit deodorant

Q Why did AMD codename their chips Kryptonite ? Because Intel was nicknamed the Superman of Silicon Valley

Sanskriti Arts General Quiz

Boss & Sid conducted the Sankriti Arts General Quiz on 12th February 2010. They did a good job & it was also great to see a projector at a Sanskriti Quiz. Quizzing at the OAT with teams crowding around the laptop is troublesome, so it was nice to see the Quiz in an indoor auditorium.

Around 15 teams sat in for the prelims & 8 made it to the finals. Almost all of us in the finals were from Enquiry & so the quiz was like a quiz club session. We enjoyed ourselves haggling & bullying the QMs every question !!!

Questions from both Boss & Sid were excellent though Sid did get some flak for Chariots of fire ! The Weasley family theme was good fun.

We won the quiz with Titas & Co in second. Sumantra's team was third.

Some questions :

Q. The British Overseas Airways Corporation introduced a new technology in May 1952 which also gave rise to which phrase in the English language ? Jet set

Q.

Kshitij 2010 Biz Quiz

On 3oth January 2010 me, Boss, Kunalda & Titashda went back to IIT-KGP a week after Springfest for the Biz quiz at Kshitij to be conducted by Arul Mani.

We qualified from the prelims which saw close to 40 teams taking part. It was a pretty short quiz with 2 short written rounds, 1 theme & around 2 passing rounds of 8 questions each. IIT-KGP went into an early lead with us breathing down their necks. And that's how it finished. A mere 5 points between us & IIT who won the quiz.

The questions were framed nicely & very workable. A couple of rounds more would have been nice.

Some of the questions :

Q The fact that outside businesses in the UK are doing so much better than home businesses is being referred to as what by the British media ?
Wimbledon effect

Q Connect Lucent, Apple, Lays, Vodafone, Pepsi etc.
All of their logos have been criticised by the church for having satanic interpretations

Carpedium 2010 Football & General Quiz

Carpedium 2010 saw the introduction of a Football quiz for the first time and all of us Football buffs flocked to IIM-C on the 7th of January 2010 for the quiz to be conducted by Kaushik Saha.

The prelims saw around 20 teams with 8 making it to the stage. Kaushik asked some great questions most of which were answered. The level of knowledge of all the teams was extra-ordinary. The theme was also well thought out but it would have been very difficult to answer if asked a few months later. Gaurav's team won the quiz with me,Boss & Sarba finishing 2nd. And it was no surprise seeing Sid, who had been finishing 3rd in every quiz since last year, finish 3rd again with Panda & Gairik.

After a couple of hours it was time for the General Quiz conducted by an IIM-C student. The quiz was alright with some nice questions but it was a trifle too long & it had 3 written themes which were quite tedious. Teams from IIM finished 1st & 2nd with us tying for 3rd with Panda, Rahul & Prashnik.

Here are some of the questions i found interesting :

Q What was a schoolteacher called Humberto Munoz Castre's "Contribution" to football ?
He killed Escobar

Q Which team has the record of the biggest win, 6-0, in a FA cup final ?
Bury FC

Q Connect

• Greenland (an autonomous region of Denmark, and under the control of the Football Association of Greenland)
• Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (an unrecognized state, under the control of Cyprus Turkish Football Federation)
• Zanzibar (historically a part of Tanzania, but with membership of CAF)
• Gibraltar (The Gibraltar Football Association has applied to UEFA for provisional membership. Yet Spain has blocked the application)
• Tibet (an autonomous region of China)
• The Republic of St. Pauli (representing the St Pauli area of Hamburg, the host city)

Participants at the FIFI WC, The FIFI Wild Cup is the Alternative World Cup of Association football run by FIFI (Federation of International Football Independents).

Q Connect Saeed Owairan with Gheorge Hagi.
Maradona. Owairan was called Maradona of the Arabs & Hagi Maradona of the Carpathians.

Q After WW2 the Deutsche Schaferhund was renamed as what because of anti-German sentiments prevailing at the time ?
Alsatians

Q Which is the 1st mass produced electric vehicle with dimensions of 6 feet by 8 feet ?
The golf cart

Q What sobriquet was coined by Jyoti Prasad an Assamese journalist during the time of the Bangladesh war of 1972 ?
Seven sisters




Q Why was this movie poster withdrawn in December 2009 ?
After the death of Brittany Murphy

The 25th Inter University Youth Fest Quiz 2010 at Rohtak

A team of 6 participants in quizzing, debating, music & poster making, set out from JU for the National Finals of the Inter University Youth Fest 2010 at Rohtak. The Maharshi Dayanand University, soon to be the site for the IIM-Rohtak complex hosted this year's event and did a fantastic job.

The Quiz was slated on the 4th of February 2010 and Sid, Kunalda & myself were not expecting much after having witnessed the level of the East Zone round of the Quiz just a month back in Manipur.

So we were pleasantly surprised when the Quizmaster Mr. Shirodkar announced the rules of the Quiz & the very mention of Infinite Bounce & a Theme lifted our spirits. The QM in a very dignified manner conducted a marvellous quiz. In the early stages Bombay University & us were going neck & neck with good answers coming from both of us. Benaras Hindu University were a little way behind in 3rd. In the middle part of the quiz we got into the lead after cracking the theme early & were looking good. But towards the end we messed up a few questions & the luck of the draw saw both Bombay University & BHU pulling clear.

The last round was the speed round & we were out of it by then but were still comfortably 3rd. All 3 teams did well in the speed round after which Bombay University finished 1st, BHU 2nd & JU 3rd.

The quiz was very enjoyable and even more so because we were not expecting it to be done so well. Here are some questions :

Q Why did the USA change the codename of their Iraqi opearations from Operation Iraqi Liberation to Operation Iraqi Freedom in a last second decision ?
Because the acronym for Opearation Iraqi Liberation was OIL !!

Q In the days of the highwaymen in England, robbers on horseback would stop carriages and say ".............................., your money or your life." Complete the blanks to form a 3 word phrase often used by commentatos of a certain sport.
Stand & Deliver

Q They were mercenaries working without pay for the Marathas comprising hindus, muslims & sikhs who were allowed to loot from the enemies of the Marathas. Who ?
Pindaris who featured in the horrible movie Veer !!

Q Hanuman couldnot understand the Bhagvad Geeta although he heard it all from the top of Arjun's chariot. What practice followed especially in primary schools of rural India arose out of this ?
The Guru sitting at a higher ground than the students or Upanishad which means at the feet of the master.

BESU Shibpur General Quiz

Me, Kunalda & Sid were returning from Rohtak after having secured 3rd place in the Quiz at the 25th National Inter University Youth Fest. We arrived at Howrah & immediately hailed a cab to BESU Shibpur where Vijayanand Menon would be conducting a general quiz shortly.

The prelims saw close to 40 teams taking part from which 2 teams each from BESU & JU along with teams from CU & Xaviers made it to the finals. Menon hosted a fabulous quiz. CU ran off to an insurmountable lead with Xaviers quite a way behind in 2nd. Then came the 12 question theme round. The theme in particular was wonderfully conceived although my Xaverian friends might beg to differ. They lost a lot of points because they cracked the theme late & thus finished 4th. The 2 JU teams finished 2nd & 3rd & were separated by a margin of just 2.5 points !

Some questions from the quiz :

Q In 2004 which domain name used for receiving fan-email did Garfield.com relinquish ? gmail.com

Q Connect Tarryn Page, Stacey Rethman, Rea Rangaka, Anushka Life and Yolande Breedt.
Some of the actors playing the Vodafone Zoozoos

Springfest 2010

A team of around 15 people from Enquiry made the short trip to IIT Kharagpur to take part in the quizzes of Springfest 2010.

We had to get up in the wee hours of the morning to catch a train from Howrah. We all got up on time except the one who had the tickets !! The great Kunalda !!

We had a train to catch at 6 A.M & Kunalda calls me at 5:40 in the morning asking "Are you awake yet ? I just woke up. I don't think i will get to the station on time."

"You moron, I am 5 miutes from the station & you are asking me if I am up yet ?" is not entirely what i said but it's all i can reveal here from my curse-riddled, foul mouthed rant in reply to his query.

I don't know how, maybe my curses did the trick, but Kunalda made it to the station just in time, along with Titash, who must have been waiting more than half an hour for Kunalda on a bitterly cold January morning, poor soul.

Coming back to the quizzes. First in line was The Sports Quiz conducted by Kunal Malhotra
(This is a different Kunal from our Kunalda) on 22nd January 2010. All of us made it to the stage with Boss, Panda, Sarba & myself winning followed by Titash, Nrisinga, Nironko & Sumantra in 2nd. IIT KGP finished 3rd. The quiz was good and some might say I am being overly critical if I say some questions were old chestnuts.

The fact is, and I am not being even a little pompous when i say this, almost all of us in Enquiry are excellent Sports quizzers which is why we find a lot more old chestnuts than most.

The Sports quiz was quickly followed by the Cyber Quiz again conducted by Kunal Malhotra. We changed teams for this and once again most of us made it to the stage. This time around we were left clueless as other teams seemed to find one old chestnut after another whereas we fretted over missed opportunities and stuff we felt we should have known. The quiz was good. I am not sure of the results but i think a team from NIT won with IIT KGP tying for 2nd with a team comprising Panda, Raktim, Sarba & Sumantra.

After the Cyber Quiz I realised something we all know but often forget. "What you know is easy, what you don't is hard". The Sports Quiz was an example of the former and the Cyber of the latter.

I heard somewhere that Kunal Malhotra had been forced to make the Cyber & Biz quiz in a day. If that's true, Hats off to him !! I know how difficult it is to make even one question at a college level quiz in India. To have made 2 quizzes in a day is phenomenal.

The next day Kunal Malhotra did the Biz quiz which IIT KGP won and Boss, Kunalda, Titash & myself finished 2nd.

Then followed the General Quiz conducted by Dr. Bhattacharya from the Qutub Quiz club in Delhi. He did a great quiz and Boss, Panda, Sarba & myself won followed by Debanjan, Priyanka, Jishu & Arindam in 2nd.

Most of us left after the General Quiz but those of us who stayed back took part in the Movie Quiz the next day.

About the Movie Quiz. Perhaps you will not hear this kind of a review for a quiz again so read the following text carefully. To sum up the quiz, it was a waste of good questions !!!!

We have all been to quizzes with stupid formats. They NEVER have good questions. But in the words of Micheline Roquebrune the 2nd wife of Sean Connery "Never Say Never Again".

This quiz had some wonderful questions. But the format. It was so complex, it was ridiculous. There were questions when the only teams to answer got no points. Half the teams were asked 30 questions whereas the other half got only 25. The scoring was so complex it needed a top notch accountant to tabulate. After a tiresome, long, gruelling quiz Debanjan & Co. won with NIT Rourkela 2nd followed by IIT KGP & us tied for 3rd. If only the quiz had been done in a straightforwrd way it would have been immensely enjoyable and we wouldn't have had to return home late in the evening, in a crowded train with all of us carrying severe headaches.

Over all the Springfest quizzes were excellent and we had a good time. The accommodation was fair. I have been to far worse. This was the first time I went to the Springfest & might be the last. I wish I had been here the past 3 years.

Here are some questions from the Sringfest you might enjoy :

Q What did opponents claim players like German goalie Harald Schumacher & Arthur Ashe do in order to distract them ? They tried to hypnotize their opponents

Q Connect Mohammed Yousuf with AG Kripal Singh ? Only test cricketers to have converted religions

Q Where would one use the monetary unit Linden dollars ? In the Second life

Q What was shipped part by part to Lake Havasu Arizona and re-assembled in Oct 1971 ?
The London Bridge

Q In poker what is a hand containing pairs of black 8s & black Aces called ? Dead man's hand

Q 2 parts marble chips to one part cement along with goat milk to act as a glue is used to make what in the world of entertainment ? The terrazo squares on the Hollywood walk of fame.

Ranajay Karlekar Memorial, Jadavpur University Inter Departmental Quiz

On the 16th of January 2010, a day when people on the streets of Kolkata were talking of only one thing (the passing away of Jyoti Basu), I reached the venue for the Ranajay Karlekar Memorial Quiz, fearing the worst.

We had to come in early to set up the venue for Joy da & Debkumar da to conduct the quiz. The venue was locked and the four of us who had made the grave error of arriving on time thought for a while "Today's gonna be a no show".

But better late than never, people started coming in, the venue opened, we set up the place and the quizmasters arrived.

Around 20 teams registered for the quiz & 8 teams made it to the finals. The Department of History topped the prelims. There were 4 teams from English. Teams from Electrical, Civil & Economics completed the Top 8.

Electrical raced into an early lead, with teams from English, Eco & Civil following. But towards the end English & Civil picked up the pace & the quiz finished Civil 1st followed by English & Electrical.

Joyda & Debuda did a wonderful job. Here are some questions which i found interesting :

According to the Peter's principles if the ABCs of public speaking are Always Be Confident what are the XYZs of public speaking ?
Examine Your Zippers !!!!!

Who was Cuppola's original choice to play Godfather ? Mario Puzo

Whose election slogan was this : Na nar na nari, Indira ka pujari, Sanjay ka savari ? ND Tiwari

Where would you see a failed whale ? Twitter

In the 194os people from which profession began to call themselves Ecdisiasts a term used for snakes and other creatures who shed their skin ? Strippers !! Awesome question !

The inventor of an early form of the Lie-detector gave the idea for what in the world of comics ?
Wonder woman's Lasso of truth

Which useful product is made of hooks & lubes ? Velcro

What are chicken fillets ? Implants used in cosmetic surgery

Which place dropped the letter "L" from it's name when the pope visited ? Hollywood. Another great question, very workable & was glad to see this answered direct. Shows we have not lost the power of deducing stuff.

It was wonderful to see people sitting through the length of the quiz and plenty of our friends who did not actually take part, also came in to enjoy an excellent Quiz.

Hope next year's quiz is as good as this, if not better.