The Quiz at BMCC

Today the Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce, a sister institution to our great college (FC College, as I believe they call us) conducted a quiz as a part of a larger inter college fest. I think the quiz was the event in the fest, because as we came in, the Principal was speaking. After that august personage had finished his discourse, the quiz began. Ominously, however all the participants were from colleges like FC, Gokhale Institute. It may even be that these colleges were the only two to come to BMCC. What could we expect from a quiz that couldn't even attract colleges from more that 100 meters away?

Well, it began. For the first time my life, I saw an elim sheet printed landscape style. There were 25 questions, with 10 minutes allotted for the solution thereof. The questions ranged in difficulty from "Who won the 1992 Cricket World Cup?" to "Which was the first bank in India to introduce Visa cards?" (Andhra Bank). Also, perplexingly, the elims had half a mark per question, making for a total of 12.5 for the elims. The spine chillingly boneheaded reason for this did not become apparent till later, after the quiz was over.

The elims finished, and it transpired that Rohit Bahulekar (ESPN Sports Quiz 2004 winner) and I had made it to the finals, the other four finalists being BMCCians (it was a lone ranger quiz). There were four rounds, all with the stupidest format ever. The first round had two questions per participant, which did not pass, and with a mind numbing 45 seconds per question. The questions again ranged in difficulty from "From where did Alexander the Great hail?" (they accepted "Greece" as an answer) to " In what year was Citibank established in India?". There were a lot of questions involving new appointments to post like the Attorney General, National Security Advisor and CEC, which largely went unanswered. Then there was the audio visual round, where we had to draw lots for which picture/clip we answered, which was easy to the point of childishness (eg A picture of John Kerry, who we were asked to identify). Then there was a really screwed up speed round. One of the questions was "What does the Mercedes logo refer at (sic)?" After 10 seconds of trying to figure that one out, I blabbered something, just praying for the fiasco to end. The last round was a speciality round. On a geography speciality, a guy who was asked, "Of what is Silvassa the capital?" answered Dadra and Nagar Haveli. The QM answered, "No, its Dadra and Nagar Haveli". It was horrible.

Finally it finished. And now for the piece de resistance. "The score of the finals will be converted to a score out of 12.5 and then be added to the score of the elims to give an aggregate out of 25 which will determine the winner." What?!

In conclusion, the quiz was as the immortal Swati Joshi (who is regrettably not with us anymore :)) put it, a "highest mountain quiz". In fact, they asked that.

QM: "What is the second highest mountain in the world?" Participant: "Kanchenjunga." QM: "Actually its K2, but I'll give it to you."

I think if Abhishek goes ahead with his plans for a Quizzing Awards ceremony, this should definitely be nominated for the quizzing Razzy.