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Q and A, Basu style
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An eager audience and an effervescent quizmaster — the spirit of quizzing was kept alive at the Jansons Quiz, writes SUBHA J RAO
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Basu with the finalists. Pics: K. Ananthan.
THE BEST part about a quiz is the googlies that the quizmaster throws at you.
And, the Jansons State-level inter-collegiate Quiz 2005 had quite a few questions that stumped the finalists on stage and left the audience raring to have a crack at them. They succeeded sometimes and failed some others, but the spirit of quizzing was kept alive.
Even as some people on stage played safe and allowed dicey questions to slip by, those in the audience grabbed them with gay abandon, trying out a variety of answers, till something clicked.
The host, Siddhartha Basu, was a happy man, as few questions remained unanswered. One of the rare questions that the quizmaster had to finally answer was: "... The marine commandos of which country are called Marcos?" People tried everything from the Philippines to Egypt to Israel, but the answer was apna Hindustan.
A total of 184 teams took part in the preliminary rounds, held in the cities of Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Trichy. Of them, 47 were invited for the semi-finals held at the Jansons School of Business. Six — Thyagaraja College Of Engineering (A and B), Loyola College, PSG College of Technology, KCG College of Technology, and Amrita School of Engineering — were selected for the finals.
The beginning...
The first round in the finals was Cross Connexions, where participants had to unravel a cryptic sentence to get the answer.
Clues were allowed and most of them got it with the second clue.
Sample this: The Empress of Delhi is now an Elderly Bank ambassador (key letters in caps) The answer: Hema Malini. She acted as Razia Sultan, the Empress of Delhi, is an Elder (member of the Rajya Sabha) and is the brand ambassador of the Bank of Rajasthan.
HERE'S YOUR QUESTION: A beaming member of the audience with the quiz champ.
Adding local flavour was this one: Shiva's son (Karthikeyan) formulated (Formula I) his way to the Middle Earth (Midland - the company that owns Jordan). Answer: Narain Karthikeyan.
For those used to watching a prim and proper Basu on Mastermind, the Basu on stage was a revelation. Punctuating every wrong answer with an illai, ayyo or ennappa, he endeared himself to the crowd that had gathered in strength on the stands of Nehru Stadium.
The stars of the evening were undoubtedly the audience. Of course, they were ruthless when it came to borrowing others' turns to answer. But, who can sit silent when they know the answer? The generous prizes only added to the excitement. At the end of the audience prizes, people knew one more thing about Basu - that he can throw gifts to the audience as fast as he can frame questions.
Offbeat questions
There were some off beat questions too. And, those who noticed things around them went home with prizes. Take the google logo. They come up with something different on every big day. When Basu showed the logo of google with two frogs leaping from one `o' to another and asked the occasion it was created for, quite a few dithered before they got the answer right - Leap Year.
The Queen of Pakistan also flummoxed many. People's answers ranged from Nazia Hassan to Saira Banu to the predictable Benazir Bhutto. The answer was a real blue-blooded person - Queen Elizabeth, who was official Queen of Pakistan.
Rohit, Coimbatore's own quiz star and a regular finalist at every event, got an audience question right. When asked to choose between the gifts, he cast a look at the calculator and then opted for a pen. Basu gave him both.
The visual round where the participants and audience were asked to march names with the topics chosen was a delight with many cruising through five before stumbling at the final option.
The teams on stage started off on a brisk note, but slowed down soon after seeing the scoreboard. Those in the lead seemed keener on holding on to their scores than experimenting with the questions. Blame it on strategy. Thanks to that, the finals did not fall in the nerve-wracking category. The end was only too predictable.
The toppers from Loyola, Pravin and Balajee was thrilled no end when the final results were announced. Tired after a long journey from Chennai, they had come to the venue with Basu's book on Mastermind. That diligence paid off. They went home with gold coins worth Rs. 50,000.
The second place went to Vinayan and Rahul of Amrita School of Engineering (gold coins worth Rs. 25,000) while the third place was tied between the A and B teams of Thyagaraja College of Engineering. Team A botched up a question, leaving their college mates, Sabarish and Balaji, to notch up the third prize of gold coins worth Rs. 13,000.
Later, Basu said conducting the quiz was an enjoyable affair. Asked who performed better, the teams or the audience, he said: "Both".
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