IIT Madras has been my quizzing pilgrimage for the six years now. I was kindof depressed because I could not make it to Saarang<\/i> this year, partly because I was trying to convince myself that it was time to come out of the college-quizzing mode and partly because of work, loads of it. I was in Madras the last day of Saarang, for the Odyssey quiz, but I didn’t go to the college. Maybe someone up there was trying to keep my record intact – two weeks ago there was a personal mail in my inbox, and an official quiznet mail, both saying the same thing – an open<\/i> quiz at IITM. In adherence to my no-arguments-with-Fate policy, I decided to attend.<\/p>\n
The train journey was the same as most train journeys are, when you have a good travel-companion. The only problem was that our tickets, mine and Anil’s weren’t confirmed, so we had to use the same berth. At one AM, the TTE wakes us up from our heap-y slumber and directs us to proper berths. As I drifted off to sleep again, I could hear a lot of ticketless dumbheads, the ones who had been happily occupying the berths we were sleeping in, arguing with the TTE, and he saying things to the effect of “Naansense!” <\/p>\n
I woke up twice in the night, once when a lot of coins in my pocket fell out, jangling to the floor, and the other time when my cellphone fell out of my other pocket and got stuck between berths. <\/p>\n
IIT Madras ( The heat! ) was fun. The quiz ( The heat! ) was held in the SAC which is short for the Students Amenities Centre, and I had this mental image of how the SAC of an institute should be, based on my four years hanging around an SAC in my<\/i> college. (Oh, the heat! ) Well, the IITM authorites certainly know that a fully equipped auditorium is a Student Amenity. Here I was, expecting a slightly-bigger-than-normal room where you would need to sit crosslegged on the carpet and answer questions, and here was this gigantic hall that’s bigger than the (Oh, the heat! ) average college auditorium. <\/p>\n
It’s a little hot in Chennai this time of the year. <\/p>\n
Beatzo – redefining understatements everytime. Any time.<\/font><\/p>\n Five minutes before the quiz was due to start, we find out that Dhaaji, our third teammate and the only guy who knows our fourth teammate, is in Hyderabad instead of Madras ( where he’s supposed to be doing is summers) , and the guy who was to be our fourth teammate has a team of his own. Freakin’ cool. Thank God for errant IIM Calcutta passouts who come to quizzes Just For Fun, we got ourselves a third partner just in time.<\/p>\n Yeah, the quiz was good. Except for the brief power struggle in the middle of the prelims, that made the students go gaga trying to shout out questions aloud. (Oh, the FRIGGIN heat! ) The finals began well, with a 77-visual connect ( which we cracked midway ) Loads of sitters interspersed with fundoo questions followed. The quiz ended at about 9:30, with us getting the third prize. A firm belief – it’s only in IITM that you find questions with words like macha<\/i> and hajaar fundaes<\/i> popping up from time to time. It’s the only place where the preferred mode of questioning is “modified” infinite bounds ( the scheme by which if team X gets a question and none of the teams answer it, the next question goes to team X again. ) Did I tell you that there was a Hattori Hanzo sword on the poster advertising the quiz? We loves IITM quizzes. We also loves hanging around in IITM campus after missing all trains to Hyderabad, swigging Appy and coffee and talking fundaes. <\/p>\n Amusing Anecdote from the IITians: The logo for the quiz was a question mark and an exclamation mark, arranged as your familiar communist symbol – the question mark as the sickle and the exclamation the hammer. The usage of this symbol caused some priceless moments with the Dean ( “If you want to express your political idealogies in a quiz, you can go look for sponsors yourself!” ) and other IITians ( Somebody scratched the words “Headquarters, CPI(M)” on Shamanth’s door, Shamanth being one of the quizmasters ) <\/p>\n Menacing voice calls Siddharth up just before the quiz. Monday was Landmark-and-Ritchie Street day. The Day Kill Bill Volume One:The DVD was bought. You know what? It’s not like I am a pirate by choice or anything. I wanted<\/i> the damn thing, and it wasn’t on sale in a normal outlet, so I had<\/i> to go buy it at a shady place in a shady street. <\/p>\n True to the IITM quizzing spirit, I did not opt for a reserved train ticket while coming back. Bought a general class ticket, paid a coolie 20 rupees to “reserve” a seat for me, and sat on a wooden chair for fourteen straight hours. Finished T Coraghessan Boyle’s Road to Wellville<\/i> and Gaiman’s Coraline<\/i> on the way. <\/p>\n A weekend well-spent!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" IIT Madras has been my quizzing pilgrimage for the six years now. I was kindof depressed because I could not make it to Saarang this year, partly because I was trying to convince myself that it was time to come out of the college-quizzing mode and partly because of work, loads of it. I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMV: Hello!<\/i>
\nIITM Guy: Yes?
\nIs this IIT Quiz?<\/i>
\nYes, we have a quiz on Sunday.
\nWhat is the subject of your quiz?<\/i>
\nIt’s a general quiz, sir.
\nNo, no, what is the subject?<\/i>
\nIt’s a general quiz, open to all.
\nIs it Communist party quiz?<\/i>
\n*Blink* Oh, no, no. That’s a question mark and an exclamation mark.
\nOh. <\/i> *click*<\/p>\n