BarQing Mad!! (the Open MELA Quiz at Mindspark 2007) - Report

Date: 7 October, 2007
Venue: College of Engineering, Pune

Set by: Aditya Gadre, Aniket Khasgiwale and Yasho Tamaskar
Conducted by: Yasho Tamaskar
Theme: Movies, Music, Entertainment, Literature, Arts

Quiz Final Results
(4 rounds of IR + 1 speciality round + 1 long connect)
cutoff: 17.5/30

1st: Sayak Dasgupta and Suvajit Chakraborty (E)
2nd: Meghashyam Shirodkar and Prasann Potdar (F)
3rd: Sumant Srivathsan and Ravi Venkatesh (D)
4th: Samrat Sengupta and Salil Bijur (C)
5th: Amit Varma and Rishi Iyengar (B)
6th: Nandan Gokhale and Mrinmayi Katdare (A)

Notes

• An entertainment quiz generally ends up being biased to the tastes of the QMs in music and movies. The quiz setters here made an effort to include questions on generally ignored topics such as Indian literature. The trend however was seemed to be toward cinema - Hollywood and Indian.
• Sayak and Suvajit generally do very well at ent quizzes and were in full form here too. They gave correct answers in all domains right from Alan Arkin to Chhaayawaad and led right from the beginning. Team D (Sumant and Ravi) and Team C (Salil and Samrat), not far behind, were mostly battling for the 2nd spot.
• The speciality round was in terms of 'contrasting pairs of topics' eg. "Sherlock Holmes + Hrishikesh Mukherjee films" or "Rock music + Hindi literature". The team who chose that speciality had the option to double their points while the others could write down the answers in case the original team got it wrong, however with a penalty for getting it wrong again. Meghashyam and Prasann made a stunning rush to the top in this round by doubling their questions and gobbling others' leftovers. Teams C and D slipped slightly here because of negatives leaving D tied with F at the 2nd spot and were tied at 3rd spot.
• The last round was a long picture connect - the points reducing after every slide. Suvajit cracked it on the very first slide and registered his team's victory. By this time the tie at the 2nd 3rd spot had remained so it was resolved by the elims score.
• Plus points: Interesting and workable questions as usual. Lots of domains covered - esoteric as well as pop culture. The newbie team from Fergusson Junior College gave some good answers that passed most teams. The quiz on the overall saw a lot of excitement with a lot of "jumping on the couch", sledging and leg-pulling within the teams.
• Cribs: We saw a reappearance of the infamous finger-of-God. And some more fiery disputes over point distribution and authenticity of answers.

Feedback as usual in the comments.