surprisingly, over the past two days....for no fault of mine... have come under a bit of fire
and got into mini 'situations' of sorts where the practicality of 'quizzing's'
been questioned and my passion for it ridiculed....
it of course put me into backtrack mode...
1992 : a winters night in delhi watchng a quiz show, whose name i cant remember... on tv with mom and dad.quite clueless to everythng being asked..but still watching the way the participants seemed so excited...
a question about a man who helps a lion in the wild and the lion helps him in retun when he's thrown to him to be eaten crops up...
dad says androcles and the lion...i suddenly remember a biblical story from assembly time in school a week back...'dad..it's david..i know..they taught me in school"
"david's the answer" says the host and a surprised yet pleased as punch mom and dad turn to me and say...
"good stuff...young man"......
something warm fuzzes up inside....something puts up it's head deep inside and says...
"hey...i knew that....yeah...i did...WOW"
1994 : The Maggi quiz being held in school...
the kid gets through the prelims in class thanks to a generous amount of questions on countries and their capitals...which were the only things he knew!
finals: who won the world cup football tournament in 1986??
teachers murmur: naah..thats too tuff for a 4 th class kid....
the kid remembers a poster his brother has in his sportstar collection....
a triumphant team grinning over the world cup...
argentina he barely whispers..the QM and the audience is taken aback...
that something inside puts up it's head again...
"hey... i knew that...wow...."
1998 : a inter school french quiz...or rather an english quiz about france...held in the premises of the old enemy....dps rkp...
he's been taken along as he's supposedly one of the decent quizzers in school....plus the fact that
he's the only quizzer who knows french helps...
he tags along with the quizzing heavyweights...
and stays dormant for a better portion of the quiz...
a question pops up in the middle...
"what was started by the magazine l'auto in the year blah blah..."
amidst frantic consultation with his seniors...he hits upon it...
he remembers reading about it in readers digest.....
he squeaks out "it's that cycle race the tour de france"
newfound respect in the eyes of his legendary team leader...
"good job, kid " he says....
that little fuzzy thing perks up again....
"yeah..it silently whoops....yes..."
cut to a quiz in first year at CIT...
he's been pretty much inactive in college till then....
gets dragged to a quiz event...
"what was so special about the oscars given in the year blah blah..."
the others try out all possible guesses .."world wars, refused oscars" everythings given as an answer and refused....
he fidgets at the back of the auditorium...a magazine called 'target' comes to mind...
he was 10 then...oscar trivia...it was...that issue...
"got it...wood...the oscars then were made of wood..yeah"
an appreciative bunch of seasoned quizzers turn back to see him....
the thing inside lets out an indian war cry again....woohoo....
well...that thing..that one moment of joy of stretching out one's limited grey cells to extend itself to new places...that one example of mental aerobics...
one moment 0f silent joy...ecstacy...ones own version of something sachin might feel everytime he hits those sweet,exquisite cover drives...and his own fuzzy little self inside exclames "wow..picture perfect.."
of course, am not exactly the tendulkar of indian quizzing, and my quizzing career is still relatively in it's nascent stages...but something me and every other die hard quizzer will vouch for is that it's akin to a addiction...
trivia,questions,riddles, history...haunt you and your existence day in and day out...and your happiest hours are when you discover that some distant nephew of x went to y and z and x created a company w which gave it's name to y ..or you know..some monstrously complex thing of the same ilk...of course..it might notmake any sense whatever to some people and may seem a downright waste of time but hey...so are most of the worlds hobbies if you wanna see it that way....
it's all for that thing within you that crops up every now and then ...
and says.."hey..u know that?!..u really do?? "
"quizzito ergo sum" as the blog of anothr quizophile puts it....
i quiz therefore i am....
cheers :)
2 comments:
Dude u seem to be a CIT guy.. may I know ur name.. I am an ex-CITians too!
@ UMA Anna...
If this weren't so embarassing it would probably be funny!
anna...manoj here!!
ps: and i thought i was a decent quizzer in college!!
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