BC InFest 2007 - Report

The latest edition of BC InFest happened at on a quiet Sunday at the serene Boat Club setting amidst politely cloudy weather and many dollops of fun. It saw a good participation of about 20-25 people, and saw its share of good questions, bad humour and care-free quizzing.

We only had time for three quizzes: Meghashyam ("shyam*10^6") put on some excellent questions from a breadth of topics, Maitreyi pulled out some interesting questions from a recent quiz of hers, and Ganesh's religion quiz was quite novel and impressive.

The highlight of the day was InFest-You-Us, the new speciality themes solo quizzing section. The format was as follows: each person had chosen a topic of their interest, preferably a slightly off-beat one, to be set by one of the others. This way, almost everyone participating had set a topic. The taker would be asked 15 questions: 1 point for getting a question right. If missed, the question would go to the "Mob". The Mob was not allowed to discuss among themselves, but people merely raised hands if they thought they knew the answer. The Mob had to decide who among them could go for it. If the chosen one was right, the taker lost 1/2 a point. If not, the confident chosen one would get quite a rocket from the rest :-). Finally, no person from the mob could answer consecutively. Sounds like fun? Well, it was.

Samrat was the chief organiser/convener/whip/Benevolent Dictator For the Day, and in his own inimitable style, a report:

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On sunday BCQC members had a rollicking ride at the Boat Club.

The event started off with a swig of magic potion:
Topic : Cultural References in Asterix
Person : Siddharth N, Question Setter : Shamanth S
Correct : 7 No answers: 4 Answered By Mob : 4 Total : 5
It was an enchanting set by Shamanth, who tried his best to dig out new trivia from Asterix. The experts in the mob also hunted down some stray boars missed by Siddharth

Topic : Train Names in the Ind. Railways
Person : Shamanth S, Question Setter : Abhishek N
Correct : 12 No Answers : 1 Answered By Mob : 2
Total : 11
The most offbeat topic, and Abhishek had a varied offering, criss-crossing the entire length and breadth of India.

Topic : Google
Person : Abhishek N, Question Setter : Kunal T
Correct : 6 No Answers : 7 Answered By Mob : 2
Total : 5
Abhishek had a 404 (page not found) for most of the questions , as KT had a tough non-googleable set on offer

Topic : History Of Israel (1917-1990)
Person : Samrat S, Question Setter : Kunal S
Correct : 14 No Answers : 1 Answered By Mob : 0
Total : 14
Samrat was in his best kosher form as he systematically went about conquering the Holy land.

Topic : Discworld Novels
Person : Kunal S, Question Setter : Sudarshan P
Correct : 8.5 No Answers : 6.5 Answered By Mob : 0
Total : 8.5
Esoteric set, which had some interesting pop culture references

Topic : Hindustani classical music
Person : Niranjan P, Question Setter : Salil B
Correct : 11 No Answers : 2 Answered By Mob : 2
Total : 10
A rich audio-visual offering from Salil, which appealed to all the non-musical types also. Niranjan was at his rhythmic best, but the mob also added a raga of their own to the jugalbandi of Salil and Niranjan

Topic : Monty Python
Person : Aditya G, Question Setter : Abhishek N
Correct : 8.5 No Answers : 4.5 Answered By Mob : 2
Total : 7.5
The mob was on the floor in splits with some of the questions and in danger of rolling over into the Mutha or getting stumped through their head.

Topic : Detectives in Fiction
Person : Ramanand J, Question Setter : Niranjan P
Correct : 10 No Answers : 2 Answered By Mob : 3
Total : 8.5
Excellent well-researched set. Ramanand did splendidly in this tough set. The mob led by Sudarshan also cracked a few mysteries on their own.

Topic : World Cup Football
Person : Gaurav S, Question Setter : Aditya G
Correct : 5 No Answers : 1 Answered By Mob : 9
Total : 0.5
Gaurav got lynched by the mob in this one. The football fanatics Aniket and Samrat pounced on every (mis)pass.

Topic : West Indies Cricket
Person : Harish K, Question Setter : Ramanand J
Correct : 8.5 No Answers : 3 Answered By Mob : 3.5
Total : 5.25
Very interesting collection of questions from Ramanand, captured the entire history of the brilliant and much loved Caribbean entertainers

Topic : Sandman Comics by Neil Gaiman
Person : Sudarshan P, Question Setter : Gaurav Sabnis ( in absentia)
Correct : 8 No Answers : 7 Answered By Mob : 0
Total : 8
Another of the niche areas. Sabnis wove a dream sequence for Sudarshan.

Topic : Science in India
Person : Salil B, Question Setter : Siddharth N
Correct : 8 No Answers : 2 Answered By Mob : 5.5
Total :
Salil could not unravel most of the set, and the mob was ready to score at most opportunities

Topic : The Great War in the Mahabharata
Person : Meghashyam S, Question Setter : Harish K
Correct : 14 No Answers : 1 Answered By Mob : 0
Total : 14
Meghashyam cracked the Chakravyuh with ease, and conched his way to glory.

Topic : Catch-22 By Joseph Heller
Person : Aniket K, Question Setter : Meghashyam S
Correct : 13 No Answers : 2 Answered By Mob : 0
Total : 13
Aniket made the most of the topic and was in no dilemma at all

Topic : Pink Floyd
Person : Kunal T, Question Setter : Aditya U (in absentia)
Correct : 9 No Answers : 4 Answered By Mob : 2
Total : 8
Nice workable set from Aditya.

Topic : Friends
Person : Yasho T, Question Setter : Gaurav Sabnis ( in absentia)
Correct : 10 No Answers : 3 Answered By Mob : 2 Total : 9
Another rerun of the sitcom.

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We rounded off the day with a little presentation ceremony for Shamanth, with some gifts for being such a prominent member of the BC, contributing immensely to the open quizzes, and for finally leaving ;-).

BC InFest should hopefully be back next year too.