The Hindu : National : Vizag’s De Paul wins the Young World Quiz 2007

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Tuesday, Dec 04, 2007
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Vizag’s De Paul wins the Young World Quiz 2007

Special Correspondent

Defeats Bhavan’s Vidya Mandir, Kochi, in a closely contested final

— Photo: V. Ganesan

TOUGH WIN: Nishant Pani (left) and B. Bharath of De Paul School, Visakhapatnam, winners of the All-India final of the Amity University The Hindu Young World Quiz with the chief guest, actor Prashanth in Chennai on Monday.

CHENNAI: Perhaps it was fitting that the final question in the All-India final of the Amity University The Hindu Young World Quiz 2007 had to do with blazing light.

“Which colour light has the longest wavelength?” asked quizmaster V.V. Ramanan.

Down went the buzzer. “Red!” shot the triumphant answer from B. Bharat and Nishant Pani of De Paul School, Visakhapatnam.

“The Vizag team finishing up in a blaze of glory!” came the congratulations from Mr. Ramanan.

Although De Paul led throughout the finals, the team from Bhavan’s Vidya Mandir, Kochi, were nipping at their heels. At the start of the final buzzer round, Kochi was still lagging 16 points behind Vizag. The Bhavan’s team quickly caught up, snagging 12 points, while De Paul lost three points on a wrong answer. Suddenly, it was down to the wire, with De Paul hanging on to a slender one point lead before the last question shot them to victory.

“We were too slow on the buzzer. We should have got 6 questions there,” said a disconsolate Sathyawageeswar of Bhavan’s. In the regional and semi-final quizzes, Bhavan’s had made a habit of buzzing their way to victory after lagging behind through the earlier rounds, but “this time we were too far away,” admitted team-mate Tarun Uday.

They would especially rue their miss in the crossword round, where along with several other teams, they guessed “Beatles” as the answer to the tricky clue, “An entomologist would find these sounding like the Fab Four from Liverpool.” The only girls team in the finals, from St. Patrick’s School, Puducherry, managed to get the spelling right: beetles.

The winning Vizag team was the only one to guess the smallest and largest dog breeds — the Chihuahua and the Great Dane — but they couldn’t quite manage to identify cricketer Shane Warne in an old man’s disguise in a commercial.

“That was our hardest question today,” said De Paul’s Bharat Pani. The Class 9 student has been quizzing for the last seven years, but he intends to quit before he enters Class 10. “It was a good way to go out,” he said.

Bharat, a school captain, quizzes “just for fun” and now intends to focus on the serious business of attempting to get into an IIT. His team-mate, Nishant Pani of Class 7, still has several years to go, and quizzing is in his blood. Nishant’s mother — and the school’s General Knowledge teacher — suggested that the two pair up, after Bharat’s usual partner entered Class 10.

Nishant’s father S. Pani is an ardent quizzer as well — he had won the All-India Management Association quiz and stood third in the Ad Club-Business Line quiz last weekend.

The newspaper formed an important part of the boys’ preparation. “Until he reads The Hindu every morning, he won’t even brush his teeth,” said Mr. Pani of his son.

Google and Wikipedia were also key sources of information for the De Paul boys, as it was for most of the other teams.

All that internet preparation couldn’t help the teams guess that the indigo plantation workers of Champaran bestowed the name ‘Bapu’ on Gandhiji, or that ‘claymation’ is the type of animation used in the Wallace and Gromit films.

Those were among the questions answered by the audience, which was as enthusiastic with its answers, as with seeking autographs from actor Prashanth, who distributed the prizes.

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