Chakravyuh at Tata Motors

Results:-

1st: Salil (VIT) + Meghashyam

2nd: Ganesh (VIT) + Kunal (FC)

Joint 3rd: Kunal + Sidharth [VIT], Vaidyanathan + Isaac [Kanbay]

4th: Rahul + Mihir [SCOE]

5th: Aditya P. + 1 [MESCOE]

VERVE 2005 Results

1st: VIT [Ganesh, Salil]

2nd: ILS Law College [Ashwin +1]

3rd: MIT

4th: SCOE [Rahul, Mihir]

Joint 5th: VIT [Siddharth, Anupam], CME [Gentleman Cadet 1, Gentleman Cadet 2]

A history of the BC quiz club - III

Part 3 of the story of the BC quiz club according to Shrirang Raddi
(Shrirang pointed out that I put in Vishal's article out of chronological turn - it should follow this one.)

The Start of the BCQC

1993 July- Third Year of Engg.. A new academic year, new crowd. Some overzealous types in our batch started preparing for the GRE at the boat club, flaunting their silly flashcards..for some, the combined desire to 'rag the fresher' and 'improve one's English through constant practice' had unanticipated results - as when during an afternoon ragging session on the Boat Club lawns, one of my friends asked a fresher "So, does your gulphriend have organisms"..

The great Niranjan was no longer with us, so Aniruddha Karve had to hunt for a new partner. There was no shortage of talent. Vishal Dalal was back and there were quite a few good quizzers amongst the freshers, amongst them Akshaya Kamath, Maya's brother. There was never much quizzing in the 1st sem, we generally had only the BJMC intercollegiate quiz, and this year Arun Pillai and I won once again. The Second sem started with the AFMC Silhouettes and continued with Shyam Bhat'94, where we lost once again. AFMC was always a jinxed venue for me, even teaming up with a great guy like Pillai could not lift us beyond second place. But overall, we had a great year, winning everything except the AFMC quizzes.

The Boat Club quiz club was born in early 1994. At one of the AFMC quizzes in February that year, the COEP and Fergusson guys started moaning as usual about the lack of a quiz circle in Pune, how the Quiz Foundation of our schooldays had died out, how someone should do something about it and so on. One of the Fergie guys said he'd organise a quiz in their canteen; one of us said he'd organise something at the Boat Club. Needless to say, no one expected anything to happen.

But something did happen. The next week, on Wednesday or Thursday, Vishal and Akshay announced that they'd be getting some questions the coming Saturday. Word got around, and on Saturday afternoon we had about 15 people - a pretty decent crowd. Everyone had a great time.

This could have ended up as a one-shot event, but we'd had such a great time that someone did volunteer to get some questions the next week - Pillai, who was Debating secretary that year. I don't remember whether he said he'd do it or he was armtwisted into doing his bit as Deb secy, but he did come up with some great questions. We'd also invited the Fergusson guys, so there was some pressure to come up with decent stuff. Once again, there was a decent-sized crowd, everyone ejoyed themselves. The third quiz, I conducted. And things just carried on after that.

Initially there was no fixed day for Boat Club Quizzes - through '94 we had several quizzes on weekday evenings - but Saturday 12 noon quickly became the standard format. Quiz with tea and bhaji - a great combination!

How did the whole thing just come to life, when nothing had existed before that? Much as I have a high opinion of quizzers of my time - the batches of '93, '94 and '95 - the fact is that we were pretty lazy. Most of us didn't realise that setting a good quiz could be as much fun as participating in one. The key was the sheer volume of people interested in quizzing - as against 10 or so enthusiasts earlier, in '94 we had about 20. This pool of good and enthusiastic quizzers was spread across all years. Once Vishal and Akshaya set the ball rolling, it was great - we wondered why it had taken so long to come up with something so simple.

1994-95 - my final year in COEP - saw another good bunch of quizzers come in. For a change, we had a regular stream of quizzes even in the 1st sem. Arun Pillai had graduated, so now it was my turn to hunt for a new partner - I teamed up with Aniruddha, Maya Kamath and whoever else I could get. Boat Club Quizzes continued regularly throughout both semesters. COEP did pretty well in all intercollegiate quizzes that year as well, we won more or less everything except, of course, Silhouettes and Shyam Bhat. The last quiz I participated in for COEP was sometime in Feb or March '95, a week before my IIMC group discussion / interview. Maya and I teamed up and we won most convincingly. I took it as an omen. As it turned out, I wasn't even waitlisted!

Boat Club Quizzing in '94 - maybe it would have started anyway, the critical mass of quizzers in '94 would probably have ensured it. But Vishal and Akshay were the guys to first break the shackles of lethargy, and deserve the credit for lighting a flame that burns to this day.

AFMC Silhouettes

Sports Quiz

Winners: Rohits Bahulekar and Chandrachud

Second: Siddharth Dani and Anupam Akolkar (VIT)

Third: Vasukeshav and Chandrakanth (AFMC)

Also: Vishwadeep + 1 (AIT), Srinivas and Aditya (MESCOE)

Trivia Quiz

Winners: Shivaji Marella (BJMC) and Ashish Chauhan (AFMC)

Second: Kunal Sawardekar and Puranjay Parchure

Third: Vasukeshav and Chandrakant (AFMC)

Also: Kunal Thakar and Ganesh Hegde (VIT), Siddharth Kar and Anupam Pande (BJMC)

India Quiz

Winners: Ashish Chauhan + 1 (AFMC)

Second: Salil Bijur and Ganesh Hegde (VIT)

Third: Vasukeshav and Cahndrakant (AFMC)

Also: Harshavarshan Ketkar (VIT) and Abhishek Nagraj (PIET), Ashish Thakre and Sangita Subnis (FC), AFMC.

Entertainment Quiz

Winners: Kunal Sawardekar and Puranjay Parchure (FC)

Second: Aditya Udas and Harshavardhan (MESCOE)

Third: Salil Bijur and Kunal Thakar (VIT)

Also: Vasukeshav and Chandrakant (AFMC), Aditya and Nitin (MESCOE), AFMC

- Please feel free to point out spelling mistakes and omissions.

- The analyses of these quizzes can be put up on demand.

A history of the BC quiz club - IV

The story of the BC quiz club continues, but this time by Vishal Dalal

This takes over from Shrirang's third article on the Boat Club Quiz . Most of it rings very true except the part on me being rotund. Vishal Dalal = George Thomas * 2 is taking things a bit too far. 1.5 is more like it.

Shrirang , Maya and Aniruddha left the Pune quizzing scene in 1995 to Pune quizzing's infinite loss - Shrirang to IIM Bangalore , Maya to IIT Powai and Aniruddha to Penn State for his PhD . I still remember Aniruddha (Ana for convenience) receiving news of his acceptance to Penn State in the midst of a "bakaayda" Saturday quiz. After he finished jumping up and down we managed to get the quiz back on track . He paid for the bhajjis and the Pepsi that afternoon.

What COEP did have in Mid-1995 was a regular Saturday quiz and a strong stream of emerging quizzers from SE and TE in additon to the veterans from BE. George Thomas , Kunal Vaed and Sanjeev Chandran (Sancho) from FE/SE were regulars. Maya's quizzing genes manifested themselves in her younger brother Akshaya from TE . Anand Aravindan joined me and Akshaya and voila - we had two serious teams fully primed for competition !!

We did not lose any quiz that year.

Insynch , Verve (COEP's first home quiz sponsored by Indian express - more on that later), Shyam Bhatt and the BJMC quiz all fell under a determined assault from COEP (sounds very heroic no ?). More importantly , attendance at the Saturday quizzes went up significantly - even the E&TC guys started attending !!!

We also finally got our own quiz - Verve had it's inaugural run that year after Indian Express decided to see things our way. It was a smashing success - we beat AFMC to second place and Fergie to third. To me however , quizzing as an exrecise in marketing will have been truly successfully only when we get the canteen to sponsor Bhajjis and cold drinks for the Saturday quizzes :-))) Any chance of this happening ?

I went off to IIM Calcutta at the end of the year . Yahaan pe quizzing took place at a very different level - very cut-throat, very intense , full of drama. Relationships were made and broken on the basis of quizzes. I swear guys , I actually saw a guy and a girl who were on different teams fight and break up after a quiz. I also appeared on my first (and last) Bengali quiz on Doordarshan Calcutta. This was based on the life of Rabindranath Tagore. The invited teams were us , Presidency College and ViswaBharati (Shantiniketan). Needless to say Shantiniketan thrashed us black and blue. I remember stealthily removing my IIM Calcutta sweatshirt and slinking away after the recording.

Our "Puneri" team from IIM Calcutta (me and Amit Joshi - a classy quizzer from COET) managed one last hurrah. We took the Presidency College annual quiz right from under the noses of our hosts. I then spent the rest of my time at IIM repairing my grades and bruised ego. So that was that - the end of my short lived quizzing career

In subsequent years Akshaya and Sancho went off to IIM Ahmedabad - not much of a quizzing City. Shrirang and I did meet subsequently and we along with another George Thomas wannabe (weight-wise) called S J Prasanth managed to regularize quizzing at Infy - more on this in another article.

It would be great to have another re-union style quiz with the old guard (Shrirang , Maya , Akshaya , George , Aniruddha , Niranjan , Arun Pillai , Kunal Vaed , Sancho , Anand Aravindan et al) at the Boat Club. Anyone in touch with the guys mentioned above are requested to ask them to contact me/Shrirang

As always , I'll do the questions.

:: Vishal Dalal