Word… CrossWord..

Kuppu Arcade was a serene place almost entirely unaffected by the crazy traffic outside it. Inside Kuppu Arcade, at the Crosswords Book Store (the Brio coffee shop to be exact) the IQL met. Samba and myself reached there first, and we were closely followed Vinod, Vijay(2), KN, Ananthu, Sana, Amar, JK, Govind(gerimox), Karthik the fifth (or is it sixth?), Saneesh and the legendary Gopal Kidao.

at crosswords

The quiz started with White Mamba’s cool 20, followed by Subhashree’s teasing ones, and my sitters, and KN’s Wilde at heart quiz, Saneesh’s Biz Blitz and Vijay(2)’s questions. The meet went well with quite a load of interesting questions being shot by everyone. Govind is becoming the recent find of the IQL with his brilliant answers during the start of the quiz. With some experience, he can sure make it big in the Chennai Quizzing circles. Saneesh was enjoying the day both as the quiz master and as a member. the beauty of the meet was almost every question went answered. What more can you expect when Gopal Kidao, Jk and Vinod and KN are firing on all cylinders.

Basically we still had the same problems that we faced at IIT, as people at the opposite end of the laptop weren’t able to view the questions easily. But this place had the serenity of IIT CCD which was what we needed. This shall be our venue until we find greener pastures, which will be announced in a month.

Saneesh conducting his quiz

Landmark Clarifications

We find quite a few doubts being raised in the groups regarding the landmark quiz. It would do us a world of good if people ask queries to the individual people (myself) rather than the group as a whole.

Landmark Quiz for Chennai will be held on August 15th at Music Academy. To register for it, you’ll have to collect forms from the nearest Landmark bookstore. Still official word has not been given regarding this year’s Landmark quiz and we would like people with further queries, to keep track of their site http://www.landmarkonthenet.com for further updates and to not spam the group with these queries. Thanks Vinod for being  really kind enough to answer the queries but it would be better if you send the reply to the concerned quizzer rather than to the groups. Thanks again for your efforts dude.

All the best For the upcoming quizzes folks, Epecially Landmark

Quantum Quiztum

Here are a few questions from the meet (post in your answers in the comments)

1. After the French Revolution in 1789, the King, the Queen and the Jack disappeared from the deck of playing cards, atleast in France. What were the three new names introduced instead? (C: Vijay(2))

2.Corporate Lingo: This name of this strategy has Shakespere’s most frightful and ambitious characters.This is the strategy in which a third party poses as a white knight to gain trust, but then turns around and joins with unfriendly bidders. Name the strategy. (C:Hantan)

3.The word ‘X’ comes from the Medieval English word male (spelt that way until the 17th century), which was the term used to describe a traveling bag or pack. The French have a similar word, malle for a trunk or large box, and in Irish for a bag.(C:Samba)

4.  What is Acute viral nasopharyngitis, or   acute coryza ? (C:Subhashree)

5.We have all heard or read about nano and pico seconds, but what is an “ohnosecond”? (C:KN, was beautifully answered by Gopal Kidao)

IQL Events: Cranial Experiments – Quiz @ Vidya Mandir, Chennai

Mundane details for sober guys:

Quiz for schools of Chennai @ Vidya Mandir School, Mylapore, Chennai.
Date: 5th July 2008
Quizmasters: Vijay and Hantan
Techie: Samba, the White Mamba
Supporting team: Sana, Ananth aka Hero, Achu the bachu, Rajimuth with her questions (sadly she couldn’t make it) and last but not least, two cents from KN.

The Review (by Hantan):

A group of like minded people (as we usually used to call ourselves) met an eclectic group- eighteen kids who had teamed up into teams of three, challenging each other to decide who was the best of the lot. Quizzy? Heh heh. Am speaking of the Quiz held at Vidya Mandir’s culturals today. Today was the second day of the cultural event at Vidya Mandir named Reflections 2008. The prelims were held yesterday and six teams were shortlisted for the finals. The teams were from PS Senior, Chettinad Vidyashram (CV), Shankara, Shivaswamy Kalalaya, MCTM and Bala Vidya Mandir. PS Senior and CV have a long history in quizzing and have been churning out quizzers for a long time and today was no different. The teams that had made it to the finals, all had their chance to win the coveted prize but in the end only the best two came out shining.

The Quizmasters for the day were Vijay (you might know him as the co-founder of IQL) and Yours Humbly. Samba Shiva was the techie at the computer. Questions were contributed by the entire IQL team Mapla Karthik Narayan, Amar, Samba Shiva, Raji Muthukrishnan, Sanandan, Ananthu and Achu. The day started well with we being featured in Times of India (that deserves another post). The quiz took place in the AV room and it had great speakers and OHP and things looked professional.

We started the quiz with the usual rounds- Infinite Bounce clockwise and Infinite Bounce Anti clockwise. The level of difficulty was designed by the IQL team to increase gradually but the scoring rate of the teams was almost constant. Eventual winners PS Senior started with a bang and were into business right from the word go. Eventual runners up CV didnt open their account for quite a long time and it made me wonder if they weren’t at the best of their form.

Round Three was the grid round, where we had 26 questions and teams could choose their pick. the grid had a mix of easy and tough questions with a few audios and videos interspersed, courtesy Samba Shiva who did a brilliant work in turning ordinary visual treats into perfect quiz questions. CV regained lost ground and were on par with the others in no time. Thats what i call coming from the behind to beat the odds. Then came the six degrees round. PS senior leap frogged everyone in this round to win the quiz comfortably with a whopping 90 points. the only downside of the round was that since each team had its own individual questions, the other teams were starting to become restless. Lesson had been learnt and from now on all IQL quizzes shall have 6 degrees questions interspersed between rounds, with the questions open to everyone. At the end of the round three teams were tied on a score of 50 for the secnd place and three tie-break questions were given to them to decide who’ll be the Second to One. CV got 2 right and came second, thus bringing an end to a remarkable quiz.

VJ did a good job in compereing the quiz and i’m yet to receive a review about my show. (Team, u can put that up in the comments 🙂 ) Samba was impeccable with his fingers at the computer, a flawless job, one would say. In the end it was teamwork that made the quiz a success. An ordinary leader would’ve easily said that he wanted to host the show and take away all the glory, but Karthik Narayan is made of different material. He did the groundwork and let his team shine. i couldnt find a better way to thank him and hence asked him to give away the prizes to the winners. He was an active observer giving VJ and myself tips to fine tune the entire thing. Achu, without his questions and lappy, this quiz is non existent. Ananth was in his element yet again and kept us cool and composed. Sana is the lubricant of the team. He took care of all the unobserved stuff, behind the scenes job and was helping in ways more than one. Brilliant Sana.Last but not the least- Jaydev and Aslesh of Vidya Mandir. They were the ones who made the entire things possible. Great job kids. A great future awaits you.

Looking forward for more quizzes to entertain the city and its future,,,

Yours Humbly,

Hantan

P.S: photos & questions to be uploaded shortly

Quizzing in Wonderland – Roundup of June 28th meet

Two people entered the IIT -CCD at around 4, to find the eighth wonder of the world – an empty coffee day!!!

never seen Coffee Day this empty on a saturday evening and shall never see. Soon beautiful girls started coming and Ananthu started becoming restless. we couldnt wait to start the quiz meet, and we didnt let other feisty temptations catch our imagination 🙂 The meet started at around five and went on to become one of the most memorable meets of IQL.

We forgot to take attendance, but i remember clearly well the people who turned up – (in the order of arrival) Ananthu, Hantan, mapila KN, Amar, Achu,  Samba Shiva, Karthik, Vijay G, (n00b) Vijay, (n00b) Hari ganesh, and royal late comer Prashanth, with guest appearances by Anand (of IIT) and Brighton. After the meet, Hari rued the fact that he had missed the previous meets.

The meet started with a lovely quiz from Raji aunty, and was followed by a good one from KN. Then we had quizzes from JK and the quiz by Amar was the highlight of the day. The quizzes were topnotch and many were applauded. Many a funny joke was cracked. A pseud baptism ceremony was started with Ananthu being labeled HERO for the last week heroics. As the meet was gaining momentum, Samba started displaying moments of brilliance by giving the wierdest of guesses. I was waiting for Samba’s turn to come so as to have another dose of laughter, but it was overshadowed by Vijay, those rare moments of brilliance where even wierd seems too short a word to describe the incidence. This was what happened.

The question was to identify the pic and its connection to the oscars.

The only guess Vijay could come up with was “Alice in wonderland” and the confidence with which he answered it sent us into peals of laughter. A mere look into the picture would’ve said it was “beauty and the Beast”, but a shocker from Vijay beat all the gimmicks we could ever come up with. And the second part of the answer to the question was that this was the only Animated film to be nominated for the Best film in the Oscars..

Vijay didnt try to prove his innocence after that and passed every other question that came his way(save a few)  and was rechristened as “Pass Pass”. Another highlight of the day was when Amar kept bugging Ananthu to go for the obvious, when nothing was obvious. Innocent Ananthu was cornered and one couldnt help but laugh when they saw his child-like face tense and worked up. The newbies had great fun, and Hari promised that he’ll never miss another meet again.

Special mention must be given to Manas Nayak for his Bollywood quiz. Amar cracked most of it while others (save KN and Ananthu) were just mimicking vijay’s Pass Pass 🙂 . The quiz was great and informative. Thanks Manas, clap clap clap.

We forgot to keep track of the scores but it was Amar’s day yesterday. He answered most of the questions, and the ones he left were answered by KN and me. ( I’ve been improving, the meets are a fun way to become a pro quizzer for sure). Samba wanted to commit suicide there itself but he spared himself by coming up with some brilliant answers towards the end of the quiz. Karthik(from Loyola) was still silent but he too enjoyed. the N00bs had a terrific first meet and Prashanth came too late to make an impact(he is really a good quizzer having one quite  few in his college days).

As India was mauling Bangladesh, we were at IIT CCD laughing our way to glory. Shall cherish that day for a long time to come.  Next week looking forward to the quiz being hosted by Samba and Vijay.

A few questions from the meet.. drop ur answers int the comments..

Quantum Quiztum 1

1. Where is the River Chitra and what is its claim to fame? (Raji aunty’s beauty)

2. ________ _______ was born in Copenhagen (Denmark) in 1986 to badminton legend ____ _____. Her family moved to Bangalore when she was just 11 months old. ______’s mother Ujjala is a travel agent.
Her first words on screen were: ‘Kutte, kameene! Bhagwan ke liye mujhe chhod de!’ . who? (KN)

3.This company started off by exporting Cray computers before turning to other fields. Its ideas for an enormous theme park wound up in smoke when the park had to be shut down even before opening. Name the company. (amar’s opener)

4.Which Hollywood film is loosely based on the book ‘ The Hand Of God ‘ by Arthur . C . Clarke ? (Amar’s: was proud after i answered this one)

5.She was working as a TV news reader and was also an accomplished photographer when Shyam Benegal discovered her. She was an alumna of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. In 1977. Her arguably greatest (and unfortunately final) role came when X re-teamed with Ketan Mehta to play the feisty and fiery Sonbai in Mirch Masala (1987).Identify her?  (Manas)

have fun quizzing

Hantan

Invite For the IQL meet on 28th June

June 28th is a day no one will forget, for two reasons. It was the day
when Franz Ferdinand, the Archduke and heir to the Austrian throne and
his wife, Sophie, are assassinated in the Bosnian town of Sarajevo by terrorist Gavrillo Princip.
The prime reason for World War I. It was also on the very same day that truce was
announced as the treaty of Versailles was signed. To commemorate those
brilliant events which changed our world the IQL would like to pay its
respects in its own way – by quizzing. Curious about how we do it? hit
the meet. Be at CCD at IIT Madras, our favorite hangout, this 28th of
june.

With Ananthu having stolen the show last week and Vinod doing a great quiz, its time for others to come up with and show why this congregation is such a great thing to be a part of.  With quizzes from Ananthu, Amar, Vijay and myself we are expecting inputs from our other city counterparts also .

The most important part of this post. It is with a sad heart we say
that this shall be the last invite that shall be sent to the groups
(read qfi, quizkrieg,quinkie,ibq).. If you avid quizzers wanna know
more about the updates you can check iquiz.wordpress.com or join
quizakn@yahoogroups.com . and it is with a happy heart that i shall
announce that we ll be starting “Quantum Quiztum” series –  a
collection of well crafted questions fromt the previous meet. all these
will be available (of course for free) by just joining the
quizakn@yahoogroups.com . It will be a pleasure to have you all on
board.

p.s. Only the very imporatant events on behalf of IQL(such as
corporate/ college/ school quizzes we may conduct in the future) shall
be announced in these groups.

Here are a few questions that shall tickle ur brains

1. My uncle was the personal cook to both Lenin and Stalin. My father was a “militant atheist”, and my mother “was a devoted Orthodox believer”. I’m a black belt (6th dan) and is best known for my Harai Goshi, a sweeping hip throw. All this speak little of the current position I hold in Russian politics. Who am I ?

2. The idea first formulated in 1865 by Sir Francis Galton, what name, derived from the Greek for ‘well born’, is given to the social philosophy which advocates the manipulation of human reproduction to improve the human species over generations in regards to hereditary features?

3. The epicenter is the point on the Earth’s surface that is directly above where an earthquake originates. What is the point inside the Earth’s crust where the earthquake actually originates?

4. Ashok Kumar Chauhan – is wanted by Interpol for financial frauds committed in Germany many years ago. This report was brought to limelight by Tehelka. Which educational group of institutions does Ashok Kumar Chauhan own?

5. If RGB stand for red green and blue, then what does HSV stand for?

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Answers

1. Putin

2.Eugenics

3.hypocenter

4.Amity university

5.Hue saturation and Value

regards

Hantan

IQL Events – Chote Ustad ’08

Event Name: Chote Ustad ’08

date:15/06/08

Chote ustad ’08 was an event conducted by MART 100 & MALC 92. It had a lot of events like elocution, plays etc culminating in the Quiz that was hosted by the IQL. The quizmaster for the day was Sana, a serene looking guy with a brilliant smile and an overdose of patience that belies his awesome quizzing talents. A perfect Quizmaster for the day you could say. Mapla Karthik narayan was at the computer ensuring there were no goof ups in the display of questions and yours truly(hantan) was the scorer for the quiz

Hantan (above)

Kids Quiz is not an easy affair. And I found that the hard way. We had done our homework, yes, quiz wise it was pucca, but the moment you saw those cute little kids running around, one didnt know whether to sit back and admire them or carry out the job at hand. The way they were playing, the look of success after answering on one adorable’s face after another and the disappointment they had on not answering being shown on their faces that wrenched our hearts was a memory i shall personally relish for a lifetime. The crowd was very supportive, even professional quizzes wont see such appreciative audience

The Quiz was exactly of the kind that would encourage twinklers to enter the world of quizzers. it also had its share of mythology, thereby reminding the kids how important their culture was. It had four rounds namely

Spelling Bee

Sports Round

Entertainment round

Mixed bag round

Spelling bee went on smoothly. even the quiz master couldnt hide his sorrow when a twinkler missed a letter or conceal his joy when they answered it correctly. Sports round was where the real quiz began. Six teams participated, each of the teams containing three twinklers (each one more beautiful than the other). By the third round we had a clear winner on our hands. team two was awesome right from the word go. Finally when the quiz got over, we had no doubt that quizzers were born.

If only we had more time granted to us.. With the other events eating onto our time slot, we had to prudent while conducting the quiz. we were right on the dot, with the quiz starting at 7:55 and ending at 8:30. one kid asked “What the quiz got over ?” had we been given more time, we could’ve entertained them more and enjoyed more. The very fact that the kids wanted more suggested the enthusiasm they had.

I hate technical problems. more so when it happens at such an important event. (for an outsider the event may be of very small scale, but for us at IQL every event is important) . we were half an hour behind schedule as some of the events had exceeded the time limit, but that was unavoidable and none of us had qualms about it. But there was initially some problem with the projector, which made us run helter-skelter. none of us knew how to set it right, no not even the backstage ppl. but then God sent a debugger, and he got the projector to display the ppt.. lesson was learned. even if we are behind schedule, we should check if things are technically working before a quiz is done.

Mention must be made about three people, without whom the quiz wouldn’t have been a success. I take this opportunity to thank Achu for his help. He sponsored his sleek Laptop which was the backbone of the quiz. to conduct a good quiz we always need as less technical glitches as possible and a good lappy is a must. Achu was God in disguise in this aspect. It was his last minute suggestions that helped us the most. Karthik and I were relived and grateful to Andy when he decided to be sober through out the event 🙂 Mention must be made about Vijay who was responsible for calming us down during the minor glitch we had.

Sana and Achu (above)

On the whole it was a fulfilling experience for the soul (not for the stomach ‘cos the food got over even b4 we could taste a morsel). Its one of the first quizzes organized by IQL and one that shall forever stay in our minds courtesy the beautiful kids. Again great job by Sana, kept his cool and wits around.. 18 kids are more than a match for a normal quiz master. Bringing about a change to the quizzing world in every way possible has always been our passion and we shall relish doing it..

We the Quizzers (above)

love you all kids