Of Ducks, Dons and Detergent

It was a most exciting Quiz Adda in Calcutta! I had to share this with everyone, a quick round--up of the spoils of quizzing.

The thing about the live ducks is true. Dalhousie Institute. Mid 70s. Confirmed by Mr. Neil O'Brien.

The "Calcutta Gharana of Quizzing"

The short and short of it

The first year of Mastermind India was exciting. the rush, the black chair, the completist slogan "i've started so I'll finish" and the amazing diversity of interests of a diverse range of people. I am proud to personally know so many who sat in the black chair. The first finals had a gentleman who over the years became someone I grew to revere. Over a decade later, it's an honour to shoot in his house. He called the Calcutta style of quizzing with short pithy questions the Calcutta Gharana.

Jayshree di, one of the best quizzers in the country, agrees and Shouvik da, again , one of the best quizzers in the country provides an example of a question.




Many of you have asked me the answer: I left it for you to find out, but here goes: It's The Yugoslav Partisans under Josip Broz Tito.


"I wish there were more women quizzers!"

There's no reason to believe that men are better quizzers than women. While there are few women quizzers, the ones who do quiz regularly are exceptionally brilliant. In fact most of the winners of the Mastermnd India were women!





Quiz Moms!

Soubhadra da invents a new term - the Quiz Mom

Seattle Area Quizzers

ok so the other day I was chatting with an avid quizzer from India who now is a software engineer in Seattle. We were using Skype. And I for a second, wondered , lucky bugger, gets to use Skype in office.

He works for Microsoft.

Anyways, a bunch of Indians have started the Seattle Area Quizzers and they meet in the Microsoft Office on Wednesdays at 6:30pm. One yawnful morning I will catch them over Skype at one of their sessions and film what kind of fun they have!

It seems they do an India Quiz and a Bollywood Quiz. Subroutine homesick blues anyone?

Generously Curious!

2 generous gestures in one day!

QFI & SEQC.

If you thought the former was the Quest For Immortality and the latter a spelling mistake, then I can safely say you haven't been quizzing for too long or don't at all. ( If that is the case, you are on the right blog, this is where you 'll get a glimpse of a sub-culture! )

Thanks to the Quiz Foundation of India from Chennai and the Sunday Evening Quiz Club from Goa, the progress bar has taken that perceptibly gleeful step ahead.

Marriage Wows! Christina reconciled to Konga's quizzing addiction

That's true! See what Christina has to say about when they're getting married... more on this very soon

Francis , A Quizzer gets married!!

Francis dances with Chelsia!
Being May 14th its truly a Midsummer's Night's Dream...




while The Earl gets slightly drunk on good ol Goan port ...


When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
-from Monty Python's Life of Brian

The Duke, the Earl and the Baron

This team is hot! Qualifying for Landmark Mumbai after like 3 attempts, they won! They were rather surprised by it. Shubhankar ( The Baron )recalls the almost divine joy with which he released the inordinate pressure on his urinary bladder during the last round. "I knew we'd win when some other team got an answer correct and so I let him go", said a beaming Abhinav ( The Earl )

Srinath, The Duke, was wildly excited and apparently ran home to have dinner with "my folks". He ran away with the trophy. The other two didnt even get to see their beaming reflections in it.

The smiling gentleman is The Earl and the man on the top right is the leader of the team, The Duke. This was at the Mahaquizzer on 29th May, 2011 at Landmark bookstore in Mumbai. Where then was their third member, The Baron? Its not that he's shy and doesn't like smiling for the camera. It was so hot the sweata nd therubbery material sort of coagulated and the helmet refsed to come off. Finally after reaching Mount Abu, Shubhankar was able to finally scrath that horrendous itch at the back of his head. That's him posing true to his philosophy, "A life on two wheel is twice lived."


( Marvelous photographs courtesy Madhuri Agrawal )

The Philosophy of Quizzing

Let’s face it, randomness is overwhelming. We need patterns, we need meaning. And we need a narrative. In fact, storytelling appears as an anthropological “universal”.

In this context, everything has a history. Even words. Unless it’s say Ernest Hemmingway’s, a pencil can be a dull everyday object. However, the pencil has a story to itself. Around 1565, large deposits of graphite were found in Cumbria, England. They discovered it was good for marking surfaces and was easily cut into sticks. However, chemists thought it to be a form of lead and it was called plumbago (Latin for “lead ore”). Ah, so now you needn’t wonder why it’s called lead pencils when it’s actually graphite.

But wonder has not been reduced. Indeed, it has emerged like a pearl from investigating an oyster of ignorance. Curiosity lies at the heart of knowing the universe. Questions are raised like flags half-way. Answers take the flags to their full fluttering height. And quizzing is interesting presentation of knowledge via questions and answers. It is therefore at the very heart of what makes us human. Yes, it reveals knowledge and ignorance.

Go ahead, sharpen the pencils of your minds.

To Begin at the Beginning

Over the years of quizzing and having quizzer friends, I realized, that many of them were and are characters. And when characters get on stage, anything can happen.

If you've quizzed long enough, you 'd have seen it all. Upsets, downturns, the fast and the furious, the cool and the perturbed, the esoteric and the banal, the camaraderie and the intense rivalry. Ah the sheer drama of it all.

And that's when it struck me.

But there's a lot happening off-stage as well. And through the documentary I intend to peek into the lives of some quizzers so that we may have a better understanding of what makes them the characters on-stage. Whether its a sport that actually builds character is a different issue.

I hope it ends up being a fairly enjoyable documentation of a rather quirky sub-culture. its been over 40 years and the stage is now inhabited by a wonderful spectrum of characters. It is the right time for a documentary on Quizzing in India.

I've chosen the name 'Furiously Curious' as it goes direct to the heart of the psyche of any quizzer. Knowledge obtained through the internal mechanism of an over-powering curiosity is well-remembered and well-enjoyed. the moment you Test this knowledge, a certain competitive potential is set up. Soon enough sparks are bound to fly!

This blog will have regular updates on how the shoots and interviews are going and I plan to post pics and some clips. And of course how can a blog about quizzing not have any trivia?