Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
All the right answers
|
A quiz whiz reveals that members of the best team had absolutely nothing in common with each other
|
Shrijit R. Plapally, the captain of the Sardar Patel College of Engineering team from Mumbai, the first-ever Indian winners of BBC's University Challenge
UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE — spotlights, buzzers, and near misses. This TV quiz show has been running on BBC (U.K.) for 40 years as the licensed version of the American game format, Quiz Bowl. The Indian version has caught on as well, and is all set to begin its second season. Last year's winners, Sardar Patel College of Engineering (SPCE) Mumbai, were in Bangalore recently for an exhibition quiz against a home team from IIM. MetroPlus spoke to Shrijit R. Plappally, the captain of the SPCE team.
Take us through your UC Campaign...
It all started when a girl in my college noticed the advertisement for UC and sent it to me. I thought it would be an interesting idea, though I didn't know what it was about. We got together a team, wrote the eliminations, and practically forgot about it for a month or so. After that, when I checked the website, I found that we had qualified. Our first round match was against Maharaja's College. After that, we played three back-to-back matches against National Law School (Bangalore), SVCE (Chennai), and NIT (Suratkal). They were all pretty tough teams to beat.
After we won those matches, we started believing that we could do anything. In the finals, we beat International School of Business (Hyderabad), and that was an experience in itself because we were down and out, trailing by 70 points or so. And then eventually, we beat the British team from Gonville and Caius.
What is it about University Challenge that makes it different from other quizzes?
The first factor is the scale. And being televised, it is all the more exciting. The rules are very simple. But it gives you the leeway to show your individual brilliance and also pull together as a team, which I believe we have done all along.
And of course, for me it was the thrill of meeting the one person who I have revered from my childhood — Siddharth Basu. To be able to sit across a table with him asking the questions was an experience in itself.
Tell us about your team.
I had my standard quiz partner, Nirad Inamdar. We have always been a team. We brought together Bharat Jayakumar, our junior, and Nishad Manerikar, Nirad's childhood friend. Between us, we covered a lot of topics and we had, basically, nothing in common. Which is why, I think, we made a pretty good team.
Something very strange about our team is that there are always three who belong to one category and one who does not. For example, three of us have read Catch 22 and one has not. Three others have read Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and one hasn't... the list goes on.
How did you prepare for the quiz?
We didn't really prepare for it. We got together and pooled in some questions and practised a lot of buzzing. Buzzing meant thumping benches or the person next to you, clapping your hand, or whatever. Once a professor asked a question and I buzzed before answering... that was the extent to which we got infected... The four of us are voracious readers. We just read a bit more than usual, got together, and quizzed a bit.
What have you got out of quizzing?
Because of quizzing I have made a lot of friends. A number of people know me because of my quizzing victories, which is very gratifying. And of course I believe that winning University Challenge was a major factor in my getting into IIM (Ahmedabad).
University Challenge has been a long journey. A number of milestones and victories... It has given me a lot of confidence. I have become a more self-assured person. Today, I don't hesitate to take on new challenges, because I believe that I am among the best in the country, in at least one aspect. That's the reason why many failures I have faced later on haven't bogged me down.
SRIRANJITHA R.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
|
