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An intellectual exercise
The excitement was palpable as one walked into the hall filled with eager young quizzers. At The Hindu Young World Quiz Competition held recently at the Kamaraj Arangam, over 820 students had come together for an intellectual feast. It turned out to be not just that, but a fiesta too, with a whole lot of entertainment, including the goodies to be won.
Sponsors were generous and the audience went into a frenzy over questions that they could have a go at. There were loads of prizes to be won for the nonchalant quizzer, apart from the trophy for the really serious ones. Home to many of the quizzing fraternity in India, Chennai had the largest number of entries and this not only broke records but displayed its fascination for quizzing. Recently resurrected by shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati, quizzing seems to have finally arrived at their doors (if not TV screens!) and the tendency to brand quizzing as an elite intellectuals pastime has been erased.
Suddenly numerous quiz books and question banks are found sprouting on shelves of stores. But quizzes like the Young World Quiz are of a different calibre, testing more than just memory and luck. They belong to a different genre of the form, requiring studied interest and sustained enthusiasm for a serious quizzer doing better than hitting the buzzer or picking the right answer. After a round of preliminary questions, the Chennai Regional Quiz got off to a start with six teams making it to the finals. The team from Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan, K.K. Nagar, made its way to the top with consistent answering and lifted the regional trophy. The All India Finals that followed was as exciting as can be, with the Delhi boys (last year's runners-up) and defending champions from Thiruvananthapuram finishing with equal points.
A charged tiebreaker saw Delhi Public School emerging as proud winners. As Chief Guest Mr.Ramesh Krishnan, tennis star, gave away the prizes, the electric atmosphere melted to cheering and applause.
HARINI RAJAGOPAL
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