Badhai ho

(My take on the India quiz 2014 – Jai Ho conducted by IQL)

Badhai ho! To the TEAM JAi Ho, namely QM Kartick, Hala & organizer Shiv Iyer for putting up a fantastic show. 

Having attended many quiz contests till date, for the first time I felt that I thoroughly enjoyed the contest. Because many a times after attending a quiz contest, I have come home with ‘bruised’ and ‘deflated’ ego  

because the QMs have either raped my intellect or knocked off presence of my mind. These kinds of QMs are on a different ego trip; who are hell bent to prove how intelligent they are and how stupid the participants are.

However yesterdays QM Kartick (who conducted the Quiz) & QM Hala, the techie Backbone of event had given us perfect ‘batting’ wicket, however they also exploited few bowling marks on the pitch with some nippy and unplayable stuff, hats off to QMs.

Organizers also did a fantastic job with limited resources. The presentation, graphics, toggling between quiz screens & scoring laptop were of international class – kudos to the team.

If one wants to nit-pick few glitches, then one can say that audio quality was rather poor, since it was 3 hour long session, few basic things like drinking water & hot refreshments (Tea / coffee) could have pepped up the mood, the fillers in between rounds could have been seamless, no doubt that buzzers added a ‘zing’ to the proceedings (Kudos QM Hala) but too many wires dangling around made the ambience bit clumsy, the names of the rounds were typical ‘bambaiyya’ and were very catchy, however the graphics and the questions which followed were not in sync. (Eg. Talliva round gave impression that there would be some rajni questions, similarly was Kharcha paani round)

As regards quality of questions, I would give full marks to the QMs, it is not because we could crack most of it, but simply because you could keep the everybody interested in the proceedings. Few of the good questions (from prelims & finals) which I was impressed with are as follows…

• ü  Never knew Masala dosa was one of the “must eat” dish before you die.
• ü  Tiger, Rhino, Tractor, parliament house, Andaman & Niobar Island, Himalayas, quit India movement – these are the few graphics found on Indian currency notes.
• ü  Soldiers for women – impressive ad was made by Gillette
• ü  Connect between Bombay jayanti & Travancore flag was just out of the box.
• ü  Laxmi the bitcoins Indian version.
• ü  Aurobindo Ghose translated Vande matram in English.
• ü  J&K has a state flag
• ü  Full name of the Indian character in Big Bang theory.
• ü  Lok pal bill – its history
• ü  Three east India companies logo – British, French & Dutch
• ü  Akshay Kumar the singer
• ü  The Gandhi Font – Leo Burnett’s  gift to the nation on Bapuji 141 Birth Anniversary
• ü  Satyajit Ray’s audio
• ü  Umpires of the Chennai tied test
• ü  Lata and world cup winning Indian team’s peppy number.
• ü  Narendra Modi’s Saffron Smartphone.

QM Kartick did a good job as a quiz master, however at times his ‘comprehension’ regarding the rounds was confusing, especially during the buzzer round. May be the poor audio system made him sound less articulate. Secondly there were few ‘written’ rounds in the finals, which could have been avoided as they were time consuming as well as high scoring ones. Round with sportsperson plus a film star sounded challenging, but came out to be a lame round. Otherwise QM kartick’s crowd management skills are enviable, something I would like to imbibe.

Me and my team (late latif’s : Harish +  Murali + Murali’s daughter) thoroughly enjoyed the quiz, not because we went home with a runner’s up trophy, but simply because we were kept on our toes till the penultimate round by the team which overtook us in final buzzer round. Buzzer round has been our Achill’s heel for quiet sometime now, maybe participating in quizzes like this we may overcome our shortcomings.

The entire team of QMs & organizers deserve a bow for their maiden venture. I am sure this may become an ‘annual’ feature on quiz calendar of Oman. I am ready to offer any kind of service to this fantastic gang of “knowledge injectors” of Muscat Quiz League.

Guys you all rocked

Jai Ho !!!

Hari bhau