The second instalment of Mahaquizzer, the Karnataka Quiz Association’s All-India Written Quiz is just two days away. I was in Bangalore the last year when it happened, and was made the coordinator of the Hyderabad segment of the quiz. The day of that quiz was one of the worst Sundays ever. there was some political rally going on, so all roads to Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, in King Koti were blocked by policemen. I could reach the venue myself only because I knew some of the gullies that led from Liberty circle. The turnout was pretty decent. But I cannot but help wondering if more people would have arrived had it not been for those road-blocks.
This year, the Hyderabad venue is St Francis College, just a stone’s throw away from my regular haunts. I used to stay very close to this esteemed ladies’ college two years ago, and the K-Circle would hold their monthly league quizzes in the classrooms of St Francis. One fine Sunday, it was found out that there was, of all things, a recruitment thingie going on, because of which we people weren’t allowed to enter the college. Instead of scuppering a well-made quiz, we ended up doing it in my flat. Yeah, it was a fairly big house, with a huge hall, and all of the participating members could squeeze in somehow and lounge on the somewhat-dusty floor answering questions. I remember the flat watchman getting rather nervous as a number of nattily dressed young (and middle-aged) people strolled into my house, with much enthusiasm – later he told me he thought I was about to be beaten up or something.
Well, I digress. Like I was saying, St Francis is hosting Mahaquizzer this year, and I hope participation is good. I won’t be here, though – I am supposed to be coordinating the Delhi chapter of the quiz, but bsing, I wish you all the best. I hope you buy a cellphone by the time you’re here, you lazy dog, because I’ve been taking calls from Delhi AND Hyderabad, pah.
And as for you quizzers/quiz-dabblers reading this, in case you’re wondering if it’s a good idea to wake up early on a Sunday morning and waste your beauty-sleep for some shady written test-thingie, here are a couple of words of advice. Because I am a coordinator, I’ve had a Sneak Preview of the question paper ( If you’re about to ask me a question, the answer is “No, I shan’t. You will see them on Sunday morning.”), and tried it out under stringent Mahaquizzer conditions. Well, I had more fun last year, when Arul had gotten all the coordinators together to Koshy’s and read out the questions one by one, and we had made a combined score that would have beaten the Mahaquizzer Maximum by quite a few points, heh. I attempted this last night, having taken a copy of the questions home from the office. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a print-out of the key, so had to come verify the answers and scores at the office. I scored quite average, let me assure you, about 44 or 45. I would give myself 45, as I didn’t write the name of a TV series when I was supposed to, inspite of going “A-HA! This is what it should be!”. The line that came to mind immediately after this was “Oh, bummer, but it can’t be this, can it?”, and yeah, I didn’t write it down. But still….)
It’s a brilliant quiz. I am not saying this because I know all of the people who set it and because two of them are on LJ ( take a bow, al_lude and kvk. The other two quizmasters are Dibyendu Das and Ochintya Sharma), but because, seriously, this quiz totally, totally made me sit and pull out my hair when I read the answers. NOT a bad thing. Every question I didn’t get made me feel like I should have gotten the answer, IF ONLY I had thought for ten seconds instead of dismissing it as something too obscure or obfuscated. This in itself makes it a perfect quiz in my opinion. A crib I had with last year’s instalment of Mahaquizzer was that some answers left me completely clueless even after knowing them, and that crib no longer applies this year. The weight given to various topics, at first glance, appears really balanced – I need to take a careful look at it later if I have the time, though, so don’t quote me on that. Some of the topical questions seem clustered on one page ( especially the Hindi movie questions on page 6, pah! )
Right. So if I have managed to pique your interest, here’s one more tip for you. When you have the paper with you, make sure READ the questions carefully. Don’t just hop, skip and jump around, go through them in order. Each of these questions have been framed really well, with just the correct amount of information that could trigger an answer from the depths of your tormented quiz-memories. Oh, tormented you will be, for sure. 150 questions in an hour and a half is no joke!
