The Quiz Must Go On

It's been a terrible, terrible week for everyone who lives in Mumbai or cares for it, and at one level it seems perverse to plan enjoyment of any kind. But the best way to fight these blues is to get on with life as usual, and we at the BQC will do just that this Sunday, when the 16th quiz of our 3rd season is conducted. The details are below:

QM: Atul Mathew

Time: 3 pm, Sunday, November 30, 2008 (Please be there by 2:4 pm)

Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz (W).

Directions:

From the south: If you come north on Linking Road from Bandra to SantaCruz, you'll find a large Benetton Store on the right. At the end of that block is a Kotak Bank at the corner. Take a right and it's the next building, take the first gate and tell the sentry you've come for a meeting.

From the north: If you get on to Linking Road at the airplane park end, you'll cross a HDFC Bank. A block later, you'll see a Kotak Bank on the corner - do not cross it. Take a left at that point and it's the building next to Kotak Bank.

Newcomers are welcome at BQC quizzes, and do not need to form teams before coming. Teams are normally formed by a draw of lots at the venue itself, and everybody gets to take part. The questions are generally not the boring "you-know-it-or-you-don't" types, but accessible and workoutable ones.

Also, I realise that I haven't yet put up a report of the last quiz. Mea culpa; apologies. I shall now wait for this quiz to pass and upload both reports together.

The Mitesh Agarwal Quiz

This Sunday's quiz, the 15th of BQC's third season, will be conducted by Mitesh Agarwal. Mitesh is flying down specially for this quiz, and rumour has it that he has spent the last few days in the US, quizzing Obama's transition team. Questions like, Is Africa a country or a continent? I am told that Obama's team passed. But what about us?

This quiz, btw, starts half an hour earlier than the others, because it needs to wind up before a business quiz in the evening that many BQCites wish to attend. A pox on them. The quiz will start at 2.30 pm sharp, and quizzers are requested to arrive at the venue by 2.15. The details:

QM: Mitesh Agarwal

Time: 2.30 pm, Sunday, November 16, 2008 (Please be there by 2:15 pm)

Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz (W).

Directions:

From the south: If you come north on Linking Road from Bandra to SantaCruz, you'll find a large Benetton Store on the right. At the end of that block is a Kotak Bank at the corner. Take a right and it's the next building, take the first gate and tell the sentry you've come for a meeting.

From the north: If you get on to Linking Road at the airplane park end, you'll cross a HDFC Bank. A block later, you'll see a Kotak Bank on the corner - do not cross it. Take a left at that point and it's the building next to Kotak Bank.

Newcomers are welcome at BQC quizzes, and do not need to form teams before coming. Teams are normally formed by a draw of lots at the venue itself, and everybody gets to take part. The questions are generally not the boring "you-know-it-or-you-don't" types, but accessible and workoutable ones.

PS: Africa is a continent.

Udatta Duarah saves the day

The BQC quiz of November 2 almost didn't happen, with the scheduled quizmaster backing up at the last moment. The night seemed dark, the sky was cloudy, the quiz was in doubt. Then one man emerged from the shadows to save us. "My name is Duarah," he said. "Udatta Duarah."

Udatta put together a wonderful quiz at the last moment, and the 14th quiz of the BQC's third season saw a full house. Like all of Udatta quizzes, it went down to the wire, with the last round of differential scoring causing much turmoil. Vibhendu Tiwari's team came out of nowhere in the last one-third of the quiz, charging into the top three, and then taking away first place. Rajiv Rai's team came second.

For saving the quiz at the last moment, the managing committee decided, after arduous deliberation, to award 6 points in the league table to Udatta. His real reward, of course, shall come in R'lyeh.

The results:

BQC Season 3, Quiz 14

1st with 51 points
Vibhendu Tiwari
Prasann Potdar
Francis Rodrigues
Sajith Pai

2nd with 42 points
Rajiv Rai
Srikant Narasimhan
Norbert Fernandes
Arjun Swarup

3rd with 35 points
Aadisht Khanna
Anand Sivasankar
Govind Grewal
Sarat Rao

4th with 27 points
Amit Varma
Ajith Prabhakar
Mukund Sridhar
Bikram Barua

5th with 26 points
Sumit Roy
Amit Pandeya
Akshay Krishna

6th-7th (tied) with 19 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Sandip Sen
Brian D'Souza
Kaustuv Gupta

Pradeep Ramarathnam
Atul Mathew
Shiv Anant Tayal
Christina Fernandes

8th with 16 points
Anannya Deb
Akanksha Mathur
Vijay Shankar
Asim Anwar

And now for the league standings, which reveal a pitched battle for second place, and none at all for the top spot!

BQC Season three Standings (from fourteen quizzes, as of November 2, 2008)

76 points
Rajiv Rai

53 points
Sumant Srivathsan

44.5 points
Aadisht Khanna

42.5 points
Amit Varma
Rishi Iyengar

41 points
Vibhendu Tiwari

37 points
Sumit Roy

31 points
Udatta Duarah

29.5 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam

27 points
Rohit Ajitkumar
Shrikant Narasimhan

26 points
Souvik Basu

25.5 points
Anannya Deb
Francis Rodrigues

24 points
Ajith Prabhakar
Atul Mathew
Govind Grewal
Kedar Sastry

22 points
Amit Pandeya

21 points
Ameya Samant
Sandip Sen

18 points
Kaustuv Gupta
Vijay Shankar

17 points
Avinash Mudaliar
Mahesh Murthy

15.5 points
Akash Bansal
Prasann Potdar

15 points
Brian D'Souza

14 points
Atulya B
Mitul Kodali

12 points
Anand Sivasankar

11.5 points
Sarat Rao

10 points
Bikash Mohapatra
Dhananjay Shettigar
Kashyap Pandeya
Rahul Gaur
Rushi Bhavsar
Sajith Pai
Sandeep Rajpurohit
Sireesh Talluri Rao
Srini Rajagopal

9 points
Mukund Krishnan

8 Points
Akanksha Mohan
Manish Mishra
S Balakrishnan

7 points
Ajay Ravindran
Arjun Swarup
Avinash Umapathy
Kaustubh Chakravarti
Mukund Sridhar
Norbert Fernandes
Raamesh Gowri Raghavan
Rahul Bhaskar
V Sreeharsha

5.5 points
Janardhan R
Leo Mirani
Nrupal Chaudhari
Rasik Tirodkar
Vikram Joshi

4 points
Ravi Venkatesh
Neelabh
Rajendra Parmar
Vijay Chittoor

The next quiz will be conducted by Mitesh Agarwal on Sunday, November 16. A separate post follows about that.