The Pune Season Ender Quiz 2004-05 14th May 2005
Results:
1st: Niranjan Pednekar (TRDDC) & Sudarshan Purohit (PSPL)2nd: Amit Varma and Leslie (Wisden Cricifo)
3rd: Rachit Lahoti (GSSL) and Abhinav Sharma (IIM Lucknow)
Joint 4th : Aditya Udas (MESCOE) & Meghashyam Shirodkar, Ganesh Hegde (VIT) & Shivaji Marella (BJMC)
6th: Vivek Venkataramani (BJMC) and Abhishek Nagaraj (COEP)
Organised by: Gaurav Sabnis, J. Ramanand & B.V. Harish Kumar
QM: Gaurav Sabnis
Report:
The Season Ender Quiz (thats the official name) had all what everyone desires in a perfect quiz. The elims had fine audio questions spanning a variety of music genre. The finals were formatted as a basketball game with 4 quarters with a round reversal after each (with no change in positions). The scoring was 2 points for a correct answer and 1 for half, doing away with the usual multiple of 10s scoring pattern. This made the final scores rather close: 20 for the 1st upto 9 for the 6th. A new 'pole position' system was introduced where the 3 toppers top of the elims were rewarded with 3,2,1 points to start.
The top 2 teams that won led the quiz neck-to-neck upto the 1st half of the quiz. Amit & Leslie maintained their lead till the 3rd quarter capitalising on all the cricket questions. Finally in the last quarter, Niranjan & Sudarshan managed a stunning breakthrough by cracking the visual connects on Andrew Lloyd Webber and Savarkar. The unique 'Kekule' connect (with APJ Abdul Kalam at the root node and 5 audio pieces) was particularly the highlight of the quiz. And yes, Gaurav did ask a football related question.
The Pune Quizzing Season of 2004-05 has ended dramatically with one one of the best quizzes we have seen so far. We hope to have a similar great year coming up.
25 comments:
yes - a job well done,
personally i thought 'The Batman Q' was also appreciable. The quiz scored on Pique in the fact that it was longer - the right length. Also we had different and more varied competition
And a very interesting member in the audience too!!(If i do not qualify,theres something wrong with everyone else)
Crowning glory of the Pune quizzing season for sure. The 'kekule' connect was the highlight as rightly pointed out by Salil and was really exciting.
Gaurav Sabnis ,Ramanand,Others involved take bow!!!
Hope another interesting quizzing season awaits us next year.
eggzellent. am almost ready to bet my money that the Pune Quizzing scene with survive (*cues up Aretha ammaa's song*)
yes, it was definitely one of the best quizzes, esp with regard to the mix of questions. Particularly loved the Savarkar n Wonder yrs q. Brought back some memories of that amazing show, wish I could see it again...Its right on top of that long list of things I'm gonna buy with my first salary.
Forgot to do some serious flattery:)...But seriously, Gaurav Sabnis is now my favourite qm alongwith Ramanand n Sid Natarajan. Cheers to all involved.
Hmmm Ramanand! I miss being in India for just this reason!
Btw.. comment spamming on Blogger? Now that's a first!
Went thru the questions , really interesting ones. Keep it up
some comments about the year-ender:
- an admirable feat by gaurav, ramanand and harish: holding a BCQC quiz, at a non-BC place, with a decent turnover, with real-life prize money ;))) thanks to them.
- some really nice questions. the ones i liked most were 'batman', 'grateful dead', 'andrew lloyd webber', etc.
- was nice to meet amit varma, another old timer. was good to see some faces not seen before.
- after a long time, had a 'proper' partner in sudarshan, one, with whom sharing the prize money would not look like a crime against humanity ;)))
- about the connects: contrary to public opinion, i really HATED the kekule connect. some links were trivial and some were based on 'relational' knowledge (gaurav likes them - x being y's son and y being the x-mistress of z, etc ;)). a connect, IMO, should be as comprehensive and abstract as 'batman' or 'andrew lloyd webber'. even the leonardo connect was a giveaway, given the frank abagnale's well-circulated photo. 'mrs. doubtfire' SHOULD have appeared twice, given the funda behind the connect. the tibet-taipei one also was somewhat lacking in clues. therefore, i feel, in general, our connects need to be well-polished. we need to go over them again and again till they become 'perfect'.
Maybe what u say is right Niranjan.But it was the first time(I am not a BCQC guy) I actually saw a 'kekule' connect and thought the innovation was appreciable , maybe the links were trivial and some were based on 'relational' knowledge but it was the concept that was appreciated.
Kekule connects do remain objects of esoterica usually, and as with pyramidal connects, tough to get all links right.
Just from the archives, here's a kekule connect from an old A.R.Rahman quiz I did at the BC(would you believe!):
Leave attempts to answers in these comments:
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1. This is not directly abt. Rahman, but a qn which has some connection(s) to him. I call this a Kekule connect, which simply means that u can form a chain of a-b-c-d-e-f and get the snake to catch its tail by connecting f back to a, thus forming a circle. Not as Gaurav said, u get the answers in your dreams :).
Qn: Connect in Kekule-fashion: a-b-c-d-e-f-a:
a. Music director of Bewafa (must be an old film), is also the father of a well known musician.
b. Duryodhana of Hastinapur, son of Renuka Israni, cousin of Gajendra Chauhan.
c. In reality, A & B are brothers-in-law, being married to Ratna Pathak & Supriya Pathak respectively. In a fictional context however, A is the replacement son of Jaspal Sandhu of Hastinapur & B is his cousin's father-in-law. (Sorry, can't frame it any better).
d. He (H): His 1st movie featured him as an IAS collector. His 1st ever acting audition in his college ended in disaster as he was the 1st among those present to be rejected.
She (S): Her film debut was directed by Kuku Kohli. Her cousin made her debut recently (early 2002) in yet another remake of Sleeping with the Enemy. A famous film featuring H & S is the main point here.
e. X's longtime friend was once invited to Bombay, supposedly to recieve an award. But at the function, the award was actually given to someone else. Dejected, this friend visited X. A famous music album resulted out of this meeting. Another hint: X's wife has edited the film "Halo". [2005 note: the link between e & f has become a little weak currently.]
f. The well known musician mentioned in "a", whose father did the music for Bewafa.
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Ramanand, this connect has a lot of answering to be done in individual links. So, it seems ok to me. I am not against Kekule connects in general, but against all connects which have weak links.
The main point is that S.E.Q's Kekule connect was infact not a kekule connect. It was just a long cascading connect coz Gaurav himself agrees the APJ-Vajypayee link was indistict to say the ;eat. I agree with Niranjan in the view that Mother of -is brother of - ... type of connects don't fascinate me. However i like the Shaad Ali - Sehgal connection. Nice bit of trivia. I think there were many other brilliantly crafted Qs which got overshadowed. However looking forward to the structurization of the 'kekuling' art.
Congrats to Gaurav, Ramanand and Harish, it was a fine quiz, and it is hard to find fault with anything. That said, some video clues would have been nice. And on the issue of the Kekule connect, I agree with Niranjan - it was monstrous! But that one question apart, it was a marvellous quiz, both from a spectators point of view and from an audience's.
It was great to meet Niranjan again, and to be taking part in a Pune quiz. I hope to take part more in the next season.
The thing that impressed me the most also saddened me the most: that the prize money was put up personally by Gaurav, Ramanand and Harish. It was a fine gesture on their part, and I know they didn't have time to go hunting for sponsors. However, if you guys draw up a plan for a Pune quizzing circuit, as Ramanand once posted about, then I'm certain a season sponsor can be found right at the start of the season. In whatever limited way I can, I'll be glad to help.
But that one question apart, it was a marvellous quiz, both from a spectators point of view and from an audience's.
Sorry, careless typing, I meant both from a participant's point of view and an audience's.
I was going to say that I hated the Kekule connect too, but Niranjan beat me to it. I'd like to second his opinion though : the concept was good, but the links were too tenous to be interesting.
The idea of having 3 round reversals was very good. All of us have suffered from having strong teams on one side, who gobble up all the easy ones, and this is a good way around it. Would work best with pick-up-a-chit style team number selection.
The Pole Position idea too was good. This is a concrete advantage that the topping team gets, much better than choose-your-team-number or choose-your-chit-first. Thanks to Niranjan's meticulous notes, I see that we would have won even without the 3 extra points, but the second and third teams would have exchanged places.
PS. Been looking for an appropriate chullu-bhar-paani ever since I realized I'd been stumped by a BATMAN question. :(
PPS. Ditto to you, Niranjan. Want to do it again in the next quiz?
>In a fictional context however, A is the replacement son of Jaspal Sandhu of Hastinapur & B is his cousin's father-in-law.
I sense yet another Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro inspiration. A: Naseeruddin Shah, B: Pankaj Kapur
Thats only as far as I can go.
It seems everyone did have a great time at the SEQ.
First of all,let me clarify one thing - my contribution to the SEQ has been only monetary - all the questions have been from the GS and JR stables.
I wouldn't want any appreciation for these two to get diluted - really a great job done.
JBDY is the treasure trove of all 'classical' BCQC questions :)
The Pole position advantage is the best way of rewarding performances in the Elims. I had thought this had been established some time ago after it was tried out in some quizzes we had done at the BC. Somehow everyone forgot about it and started doing weird things like letting the toppers choose positions-for themselves and later,for others.
Blood relationships are not tenuous, at least not as tenuous as some relationships in the kekule question posted above. I guess, in a conncet where the stress is on the bigger picture, the links between each successive element should be straight and not as long winded as Allah Rakha (Khan) ->(coolie)->Punit Issar.
A more crisper connect would have been better, like the rest of the chain. Even JBDY-Issar connect is a littele force.
Come to think of it, with a little imagination , you can connect anything with anything else.
e.g. Amit Varma-> Lice in the hair-> APJ
Even JBDY-Issar connect is a littele force.
Read it as -Even JBDY-Issar connect is a little forced.
-R
Thanks for your comments all.
I will stick by the Kekule connect, because I find nothing wrong with relation-al connects, especially when there was such an amazing connection here (i.e, Muzaffar Ali contested the LS elections against Vajpayee, and his mother-in-law, Capt. Lakshmi Sahgal, contested the Presidential elections against Kalam). Throw in the fact that his son, Shaad Ali Sahgal, is the director of the next "summer blockbuster", and I thought it was decently get-able.
I guess where the question failed was the fact that not many people know Suhasini Ali, and probably I am the only person outside their family who knows their connection with capt Lakshmi Sahgal.
Anyhoo, here's to an even better season to follow up.
Daaammit! I missed this! Gaurav, when are you putting up the questions?
May i ask what exactly was the Batman question and the Kekule one?
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