Out of the question!

These days, the quiz bug has bitten me and a few friends. With lunch, we also chew up year after year of the Karnataka Quiz Association's (KQA) 'Mahaquizzer' question banks. Which takes me back to the times when I did a decent amount of quizzing.


I was in Std VIII when somebody sponsored this quiz in Chowdiah Memorial Hall. Every school could send as many teams of two as it wanted. My school sent 24. Yes, that's right. 24 teams. 48 students. With yours truly at the helm. Unbelievably, none of the 24 entered the final round; we were all eliminated in the written prelims. After this hiding, the feeble hearted gave up seeking answers to even existentialist questions like 'What's your name?'.


Some of us quizzed on undettered, even giving our teams fancy names. Two of my friends and I set the stage on fire during the prelims of the Std X inter-class event with the name 'Thunderboys'. In the finals, before we knew what was happening, we were bringing up the rear, prompting an unprecedented, mid-event change of team name to 'Blunderboys'.

When I walked into my first quiz event in the National Law School, Bangalore, as a member of the audience, I heard questions like, 'What do you call the plastic-protected tip of a shoelace?', 'What is the name of the canal connecting the nose to the upper lip?' and so on. After that, I thought it wise to forage for glory elsewhere and did not quiz even once in Law School while I was there.

It was safer to quiz in Sasken. In 2002, we were right at the top till the rapid-fire round, at which point we lost our wits and with them, the first place. I remember that quiz for the most innovatively named teams. The one that got the prize was called 'Quizbul Mujahideen'. Come to think of it, with a name like that, they could not have had much competition coming their way.

I am sure one of the most looked-forward-to events in quizzing these days is KQA's 'Mahaquizzer', the solo written quiz held simultaneously in several cities. If getting 'Mahaquizzer' is not easy, not to worry. The interesting questions give you a good enough kick. This time, the event is to be held simultaneously in ten cities, Guwahati being the latest addition to the venues. The tentative date is May 24. For all the 'Mahaquizzer' papers from 2005 to 2008, visit http://members.tripod.com/~asimha/.