Category: Personal Reflections

The Times of India Fun-da-Mental Quiz 2006 was held today at the Siri Fort Auditorium. The crowd seemed to be much lesser than usual, but that maybe because of the fact that many schools have their exams going on right now. Anyway, the participation was much than previous years.

The started off, as usual, with those horrible promos of sponsors that we quizzers always have to endure at such places. The team was totally new and experimental. It consisted of me, Abhimanyu and Srishti. To tell the truth, I was really apprehensive whether they’d deliver performance….

The written prelims had 30 questions, round conducted by Bhavna of DoB&A (conducted lots of the ones in which I’ve participated). Their projection systems kept failing (as usual with DoB&A). We did somewhat well in the prelims (what we thought then), but we did mess up. Or rather, I own up, I messed up. It was all my fault that we did not qualify. We did not make it to stage because of one measly point. It’s all because of my fault, since Srishti had given two correct answers, which I had overruled. Had I listened to her, then our team would have been there on stage. I apologize to the team, and to the DPS VK Quiz Club, for messing this really bad.

The teams which qualified for the stage rounds were:

1. Amity International School, Saket (they have a quiz team?)
2. DAV, Suraj Bhan
3. New Era Public School, Mayapuri (they eventually won, congrats Prateek)
4. Ramjas School, Anand Parbat
5. Mothers International School (came second, I guess all due to Milind and Krittika)
6. Vivekananda School (who the hell are these people?)

Derek O’ Brien (aka Derek No Brain) looked idiotic as he always does, looking like some wet chicken dragged out of bed. He also brought along his stupid ‘Infinite KQBounce’ system. We didn’t stay till the end, since our members needed to be back at school, but it wasn’t as high energy as it generally is. It seemed as if people had come along just for the sake of it. Or maybe it was because of the fact that KITW hadn’t come there.

In all, I’d say that our performance was okay, going by the fact that these are new members. Abhimanyu hardly did anything, too much overlap between what he knows and what I know. Srishti did well for a first time at a big event, and put the team with crucial points needed for qualifying, before I messed up everything. All my fault. I guess I better listen to other members too the next time…

Phase Test One 2006 was conducted on 4th October 2006. And had our members stunned. The overall performance was only average, which is certainly not a word I want to be associated with the DPS VK QC. Some did partially well, but to have a top-class quiz team, we need BETTER performance.

In the order of merit, the members stand as follows, with comments on their performance. As in an quiz, actual scores will not be revealed publicly.

1. Srishti Gulati: Could have done better. Nice 100% strike rate though. Needs to expand beyond music.
2. Abhimanyu Bhardwaj: I don’t expect this from next year’s potential veep atleast.
3. Karan Gersappa: Needs to back up with more knowledge.
4. Rachit Agarwal: Kabhi movie ticket ko dustbin me dalke kisi doosri cheez ke bare me bhi pad liya kar. You can be a really good member. And remember to write your goddamn name next time onwards.
5. Bhavika Aggarwal: Really admire logical capability. Needs to backup with sound trivia knowledge, and can do much better. Gave multiple answers, and thus lost marks, or could’ve got position 2.
6. Varun VS: I didn’t know that Jimmy Wales ‘founded’ Jennifer Lopez (didn’t know that she had a paternity dispute), and that she is the ‘most popular source of information on the Internet’.
7. Indranil Chakrabarti: Got good bonuses, but bad main score. Not expected from a CBQC guy.
8. Ankit Sarkar: Can do better.

Last three members get a warning – mess up next time, and you’ll be out.

Apart from these, Waris Jain and Amritanshu Kar also gave the test, and are being taken in as temporary members. A repeated good performance next time, and they’ll be in.

One word on Eeshan Chatterjee, who also tried for membership. Didn’t know that Macca was Bob Dylan, rather than Paul McCartney that I thought all these years (this is a sarcastic statement, for dumbs ones like him out there). Funny paper though, will file it in if I ever write a joke-book. Funny answers.