| My experience in the quizzing circuit |
by A H Kesari Prasad
Vice President- Marketing, Sanmar Engineering Corporation Ltd |
| This piece is being written in the backdrop of the Sanmar team consisting of my colleague Ramkumar Shankar and yours truly winning the Ad Club- Business Line Quiz, the final of which was held on May 7, 2004. |
| Before I start relating my experiences in the quizzing circuit, I must tell you a little bit about Ramkumar. He is the quintessential quizzing guy-with a terrific sense of humour-and a great favourite among the quizzing crowd and quizmasters. Audiences love his habit on stage, when not sure of the answer, of thinking the answer through aloud, when everyone can hear his (mostly!) logical thinking process. He is a voracious reader, but by his own admission, his passion for quizzing has diminished his enjoyment of reading since he looks for quiz trivia in everything he reads. I have not yet reached that point, but I know that I’m getting there fast! |
| My entry into the quizzing circuit in Chennai was rather late. The first competition Ramkumar Shankar and I entered was the National Management Quiz 2003 conducted by AIMA in March 2003. As soon as we reached the venue, Ramkumar was hailed by one and all like a long lost friend. Ram introduced me to some of them and I soon learnt that they were all “quiz junkies”, i.e., people who were crazy about quizzing. How crazy, I was to learn soon enough. |
| Anyway, this was the first quiz contest in which we topped the regional final. Soon we winged our way to Kolkata where we came third in the national final. Our quizzing career was now well and truly launched! |
| The next quiz we entered was the CRY quiz held in April 2003 at the Vani Mahal auditorium at T’Nagar, a Chennai suburb. The quizmaster was the inimitable Derek O’Brien. We finished 4th in this quiz, which was memorable for a different reason. My wife Sudha had accompanied me. As soon as our name was announced for the quiz final, Sudha let out a “Wow” that could have been heard in distant Mylapore. Derek stopped in his tracks and wanted to know who was the lady who was so enthusiastic. Pretty soon, every correct answer from us elicited the same “Wow” from Sudha, till Derek could no longer contain himself and wanted to know how long we had been married. Her “27 years” had me squirming in my seat. I squirmed a little more when this episode was reported on Page 2 of “The Hindu” next day. |
| Preliminary rounds |
| Just as interesting as the main quiz rounds are the preliminaries, comprising a set of questions (usually some 20 to 30) answered by all participating teams and used to select the top 6 teams for the finals. |
| It has often struck me how knowledgeable we become five minutes after the prelims when we start exchanging answers with the other participants. This is the period when there is much groaning and forehead slapping when you realise that the answer to a particular question is wrong or that a correct answer was first written, then scored out and substituted with an incorrect answer. |
| Then comes some Hitchcockian suspense as we wait for the names of the finalists to be announced. The adrenalin surge you feel when your name is announced is an unforgettable experience. For some odd reason, we usually find that we are one of the last groups called on stage. On second thoughts, it may not be so odd. It could be due to the fact that we just about managed to qualify! |
| Ramkumar is our internal scorekeeper whenever we get to the final and his scorekeeping decides our strategy in the various rounds of the quiz final. I realized the importance of scorekeeping during the regional final of the AIMA Quiz-2004. |
| We were lying third and less than 10 points separated us from the team in second position. It was the last question of the last round and a buzzer round at that. We knew that we had to go for it and Ramkumar pressed the buzzer even before the question was completed. The question, thankfully, was a sitter and Ramkumar’s “Konkan Railway Corporation” was the correct answer to the question “Which organisation has come up with the Sky bus, a train that runs on suspended rails?” That’s how we came second in the regional final and then went on to bag third place in the national final! |
| Quiz junkies |
| The quiz that really brought us a lot of publicity and made us Page 2 celebrities was the Ad Club-Business Line Quiz I referred to earlier. It was nice to receive calls from places as far apart as Pondicherry, Kodaikanal, Bangalore, Mysore and New Delhi, after our mugs were splashed in “The Hindu”. |
| Back to the “quiz junkies”. This is a band of people who eat, live and breathe quiz. They are aware of all the quizzes taking place all over the country and some of them usually fly down to the quiz, take part, win enough to cover the cost of their travel and have enough left over! They also religiously note down all questions and by next day, post these questions (along with the answers) on the net for the benefit of other quiz junkies. There are even Yahoogroups called Quiznet and Quinkies (short for quiz junkies, what else)! |
| One team that came fourth in the Bangalore round of the recent Ad Club-Business Line quiz, flew to Hyderabad but didn’t have any luck there. Finally, they flew down to Chennai also. Talk about dedication! Talk about craziness! |
| I have always maintained that this is a rather incestuous crowd since one keeps meeting the same people in every quiz event. The interesting thing is that it also includes people whose only interest is to attend quizzes, not participate in them. |
| What makes a good quizzer? For starters, you have to enjoy your reading. Read whatever comes into your hands. I remember one winner of the Landmark Quiz stating that he used to read even the paper wrapping the bhujjias he bought on street pavements. However, if reading were the only factor, all voracious readers would be good quizzers. The ability to dredge up information from the darkest recesses of the mind in the given 15 or 20 seconds is what really separates the men from the boys. |
| Some logical thinking and a fair bit of luck and there you have it. Happy quizzing! |
