Quiz: The Missing Link
Date & Time: May 27, 2026, 2:30 PM
Venue: Goethe Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Pune
Format: 40 Questions on IR interspersed with 3 written rounds
Flavour: General
QM(s): Akshay Parale
Results:
1. Arnold D'Souza, Uday Tej Singh, Rutv, Karan: 125 (Team 2)
2. Aman Rai, Miki, Yash, Annway Ghosh: 95 (Team 6)
3. Shivam Sharma, Atharva, Devashree, Siddharth: 90 (Team 1)
Other Teams:
Charles Mathew, Kranti, Om, Ayan (Team 3)
J. Ramanand, Adithya, Rohan, Dunya (Team 4)
Harish, Veer, Pravin, Tushar (Team 5)
The first quiz in the post-Instagram BCQC era was a well-attended event, all things considered. Twenty-four people stayed back to contest the second quiz of the day, after a hearty Suraj Menon written quiz.
Taking a leaf out of the BQC playbook, the wily Akshay Parale instituted a seeding system to form teams, wherein the teams of six captains (namely, Shivam Sharma, Arnold D'Souza, Charles Mathew, J. Ramanand, Harish and Annway Ghosh) were populated by the rest of the quizzers through a randomized chit system. Settled down, all of us turned our heads towards the spanking-new LED wall-screen.
From the beginning, team 2 were out of the gates, nigh uncatchable. The written rounds, however, offered a brief respite with temporary restructurings of the scoreboard. Some questions forced the participants to audition multiple options before selecting the right one, whereas some were spent with furtive glances towards the team who were answering, hoping that they'd fumble and that it would pass to the team who were waiting with the answer.
Parale had fashioned a quiz that spanned generations and covered the world and beyond. A written round on Indian advertising brought on a flurry of fervent remembrances of our childhoods (adulthoods, for some).
At the end of the affair, the slight history-geography tilt of the quiz favored antiquarian Arnold D'Souza (who was understandably miffed at the intentional absence of sports questions) resulting in a thumping victory for team 2. Team 6 snatched second place from team 1, their sails billowing with a last-gasp sudden wind of patriotism, leading the score gap between second and third to be a paltry five points.
As the dust settled and the sun hung low in the sky, some of us headed to Kapila, some to watering holes and some home after an afternoon of leisurely quizzing.
Report by: Annway Ghosh
Photography: Shivam Sharma, J. Ramanand
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