The Genesis of Chakravyuh
This is a mail i had sent on the Inquizitive list a couple of years back, describing the birth of COEP's own quiz, Chakravyuh. The mail was written at a time when it looked as if Pune quizzing was dead, and the rejuvenation from VIT and Fergusson had not taken place.
I must be one of the luckiest quizzers in Pune, timewise. Boat Club (BC)
quizzing was in a state of rapid evolution from the time I was in first year
until the time I was in the final year. Those must definitely be the best 4
years (if not among the best) of quality quizzing in COEP and in Pune. There
were great quizzes and quizzers in colleges like AIT, Fergusson, AFMC
(grudgingly, I admit, they make the cut), COEP and of course PICT and a
really good Verve quiz (very ephimeral, driven by just one exceptional
individual - Hirak Parikh). Of late, the zenith has been reached with a
Mastermind from our midst. But all other indicators suggest of a stagnation,
if not a decline. I must wait to see the questions from BCJ and Chakravyuh
2003 before I can pass a final judgement on what is happening to Pune
quizzing.
This is the story behind the birth of Chakravyuh. It was an age where men
were men, women were women, children were children, and so on, but basically
quizzers were quizzers. Every batch in COEP had at least 2 or 3 "dedicated"
quizzers. Most of them were top class quizzers too, but most importantly,
they were dedicated. Wherever we went, we always had the biggest contingent
of quizzers (In fact, I suggest that BCJ registration be at a subsidised
rate for us, since we have always come with at least 6 or 7 teams, even in
the leanest year =-)). I still remember quizzing in my first and second
year( 1999 and 2000). The teams of George and Kunal, Jitendra and Salil
(whatever happened to those two??) and Sujay and Ramanand used to be there
in almost every final of a quiz in Pune. We would either win or come second,
since the only competition came in form of "Bhatta plus 1" from AFMC or the
"big four" of AIT (Kapil, Samrat, Navneet and Shrikanth, for the
uninitiated) in different permutations (I did my bit winning the Mood-I
Conundrums in my Second Year). With such domination of the quizzing (which
was to keep growing), we often wondered why COEP did not have its own quiz.
Domkundwar was the Principal and George told a harrowing story of what
happened when he had made an attempt to start one. When he had gone to Dommy
with the idea for such a quiz, he was met with a barrage of hostile
questions like "What is your attendance?" , "Show me your class notes", and
"I shall speak to your project guide about how you work". Needless to say
that the idea had been vetoed as emphatically as possible.
There was a general sense of resignation amongst us COEP-ians with everyone
believing in the "It's a government college, nothing can change" adage. This
was of course in my first and second year. What made us shake off this
inertia when I reached Third Year (2000-2001) was a noticeable change in the
quizzing culture of the BC that no one has quite spoken about at length.
During this phase, there was a slow but steady paradigm shift in our
quizzing, with the culture moving from a more "quiz oriented" to a "question
oriented" direction. This means that while earlier, emphasis was laid on the
fact that there was a quiz, with the minimal level of competency, now we
laid more emphasis on the quality of questions. Making great questions was
considered as much of an achievement as winning a quiz. While earlier
getting questions from quiznet or the KCircle sites was acceptable, it now
became a sacrilege. So the days of "two people getting 60 questions every
saturday" to the Boat Club were gone, simply because the level had improved,
and emphasis was placed on originality.
Since quizmastering became as reverred as quizzing, there was a renewed
thrust towards efforts for a COEP quiz. Domkundwar was slated to retire and
that helped too. So in my third year, when he finally made way for an
interim Princi, Mrs. Jog, we tried again. This of course was the "Year of
the Grandslam". It started with me and Neeraj winning the Fergusson
Inquizzitions, and later, Sujay and Ramanand sweeping each and every major
quiz in sight (Verve, BCJ, Mensa, Shyam Bhatt, and some more). The list of
COEP quizzing achievements was nothing to be scoffed at. With this
impressive list, I drafted a proposal in February for a quiz to be held in
March, during the college gathering and went to meet Jog.
As is usual in COEP, students are given the last priority for meeting the
Princi. I waited alone outside the office for hours together on many
afternoons before I finally got to meet the grand dame. She took one look at
the letter and shot it down saying "I am just a temporary principal, and
there is already Fervour going on. I can not spare staff". I tried the
arguments "It hardly needs any money, we don't need any staff, we need only
the audi and nothing else", but to no avail. She was firm. She could not
sanction an event at this stage. My frustration reached its peak and it
showed on my face. This probably led to her saying "There is a Gathering
Committee meeting next week, give me this proposal then, and we will think
about it. But don't get your hopes too high".
As I reported this to the then quizzers, i.e, Sujay, Ramanand, Harish and
Neeraj, there was again this general sense of resignation, like "Is college
ka kuch nahi ho sakta". No one had any hopes from the Gathering Meeting
since the committee was not really very sympathetic to our demands,
interested more in spending 20,000 on a crummy music show than 3,000 (yes,
that was our measly demand) on a quiz.
But the morning before the meeting as I was about to leave for college, I
had a brainwave. I decided to redraft the covering letter for the proposal
and rely on emotion to get us through. Earlier it was waxing eloquent on our
achievements, like the long list of wins that year (about 10 or so,
including smalltime quizzes). Now I decided to go for the lady's jugular. I
filled it with a lot of emotion. I don't have the letter right now, it must
be on my computer at home, but this is basically the gist of it -
"We have been dedicatedly practising our quizzing every Saturday. We work
hard to maintain our standards. And this hard work has been rewarded with
great results. We have won each and every quiz in sight, even done well in
quizzes in Mumbai despite no financial assistance from the college. There is
NO OTHER sport or field, be it debate, rowing, football, drama, in which the
domination of COEP is so complete. Because of us, COEP's name is synonymous
with success in the quizzing scene. Our list of victories speaks for itself.
We do this despite having no annual budget allotted to us. Whatever is
sanctioned is usurped by the Debate Club for their travels. Inspite of zero
assistance from the college, we are doing so well.
And now we just wish to have our own quiz. We don't ask for any vast amount,
just 3000 rupees. Is that too much to ask? When 20,000 are spent on an
internal music show, 3000 is less than peanuts. We don't ask for any staff
to help us. We will manage on our own with the small number of volunteers.
All we want is the auditorium for some hours. And we are utterly dejected
that such meagre demands are summarily rejected.
It is as if the college does not care whether we do well or not. There is no
appreciation of our wins, and we get a step motherly treatment. We are very
disappointed and the whole zest for quizzing may die out......."
blah blah blah, I whined on and on, hoping it would have an effect on the
lady.
What happened in the meeting (I was not there) was that after all matters
were discussed, Sujay, who was present there being the Football Secretary,
said "Ma'am there is the matter of the quiz..." and she interrupted him.
Then she spoke, under the effect of the letter, apparently, telling the
committee about the "poor quizzers" who do se well despite the lack of any
support and how they deserved to have the quiz since they were asking for
just 3000 rupees and all. The committee of course agreed. In fact Jog talked
of drawing up a resolution so that funds from the money that the college
makes for transcripts be allotted to the quiz so that it will not be
dependent on the Gathering. Wonder what happened to that.
So anyway, a friend of mine, who was the HAM Club secretary called me up
from the college and conveyed the good news that the quiz had been
sanctioned. After this we started working on war footing. Questions were
never a problem, but we had little experience of how to publicise it
properly. We decided that all five of us senior quizzers would make
questions, i.e, Ramu, Sujay, Harish, Neeraj and moi so that we could not
participate, and COEP winning would be unlikely (like AIT and unlike AFMC,
we were wary about even the smallest hint of the R-word). It was decided to
have an intra-COEP Mastermind like contest ( indicator of the future glory?)
during the time when elims were checked so that COEP-ians did not feel
excluded from the participants scene. We did all the running around, like
getting an LCD projector allotted (no easy job, though the college had 3),
getting the auditorium set up, the sound system working, and all.
It was decided to make it a seamless quiz, with nothing like a separate
"audio" or "visual" round. That would be our USP, everything mixed. Each of
us five made 30 questions and finally integrated it one midnight in the
august company of mosquitoes on the Boat Club, where the Punt Formation
practice was taking place. Getting a computer assigned from the college
would have been a full day job and we were so sick and tired of all the
bureaucractic hassles we had endured till then that we decided to use my
comp. Neeraj got his car all the way from Vimannagar early morning and we
lugged the PC to the college. The publicity could have been better, but
really did not get much help from the FE and SE kids(indicators of the
future non-glory?) except for the ever sincere Bimal and Nupur . Credit must
however be given to Manish mahajan for coming up with the name - Chakravyuh.
Just the five of us handling the questions, red tape and the publicity was
too much. Still, about 40 teams turned up. This is where the difference made
by the freshers helping out at BCJ shows. Anyway, March 16 dawned, and the
quiz happened on time.
The quiz went pretty fine and a detailed report of the finals can be found
on the inquizitive archives. The compering was shared by Sujay, Ramanand and
Harish, and Neeraj and I handled the computer and other off-stage things. I
don't exactly remember the entire line-up for the finals, but here's a shot
at it. There was the Infy team of Shrirang and Amalesh, there was an ex-AIT
team of Samrat and Navneet, we had Niranjan and Swapnil teaming up, and
there was a COEP team of Amrish and..someone. The Infy team won it with a
vast margin, and the ex-AITians came second, with Niranjan and Swapnil
(named "Suvarnagram", a combo of the names of us 5 organisers, a great
gesture) came third. Rahul Srinivas won "Abhimanyu",the intra-college
Mastermind contest with the topic "Harry Potter Books".
By this time, though the interim Princi Jog had left, and the new Principal,
Ghatol had just taken charge a day ago. We sent someone to invite him, and
he actually turned up, stayed for the whole quiz, and was apparently loving
it. When we invited him on stage to give away the prizes, he gushed a lot
about what a great event the quiz was and how he was thinking hard for every
question. He complimented us on having the best event of the gathering (he
said this some days later at the closing ceremony of the gathering too).
Chakravyuh 2001 ended with the new Princi in the saddle being an admirer of
the quiz (a fact that helped things the following year). Everyone
appreciated the questions, the punctuality, and the organisation. Finally,
COEP's own quiz had happened, and it was a smashing success.
It was great coming back to Chakravyuh in 2004 as a participant, and win it teamed up with Neeraj. Looking forward to Chakravyuh 2005
