Thought Crimes

For the last couple of weeks, or to be more honest, days, I've been trying to keep my eyes and years open for anything which I might be able to use in a Sports quiz that I'm planning to make. The decision to finally do Sports was not an easy one. In the past, I've started to make all kinds of topical quizzes. I've even succeeded in making a Star-gazing one, a newspaper one and a Lit one, to name a few. However, towards the end, I find myself putting all the questions I have, and then some more, into one complete general quiz. For frankly, there's no other kind of quiz that offers that kind of flexibility and freedom in picking the questions.

A long time ago, I posted on this page, how college quizzing had practically ended for me. Unknown to me then, I was going to come to a place which would ensure that one particular love of my life was going to live for at least 2 more years. Now I find myself on the cusp of the beginning of the end of it all. I'll be lucky if I can get double-digits worth of quizzes before I enter the big bad world of open quizzing. And what does one do when faced with an uncertain future? Why, look to the past of course. So here goes. A short history of quizzes conducted by Lefty over the last half of the previous decade. Since most souls reading this page have usually had something to do with that particular, and generally considered obscure, aspect of life, I daresay the list will elicit a number of exclamations, not all of them good, kind or benevolent.

1. The RJB Quiz: Aptly conducted in the RJB TV room, this quiz saw triple digit participation, probably because of the very short walk involved for most participants. The prelims were read off by me off a scrappy piece of paper which in turn, contained cues rather than questions. Sajji's laptop served as the screen for the finals. Most questions were the kind that I'd seen in the many school quizzes I'd watched as part of the audience, though people were heard to comment that elements of the quiz had been 'inspired' by an inter-bhawan quiz that had been conducted a few days earlier. The importance of this quiz was that it served as the cornucopia of most of the questions that we used for the mandatory Fresher's quiz that we had to prepare for the would-be minions later.
   
2. Knight's quest: A quiz that never got its due. Having painstakingly prepared all the questions, along with some innovative rounds, I was thwarted by the sheer laziness of the Bear and the very bespectacled brilliant Geek. While most of the better questions did manage to find their way into the sun thanks to other quizzes in the coming years, and a chosen few did get to see this quiz in its original sacred form, I've always considered this the unacknowledged one. Regarding the name, it was supposed to be an acronym, which I've conveniently forgotten by now.
   
3. Science and Tech quiz, Cogni: A quiz that I like to think, changed the way quizzing was done at R. Khandekar and I put a number of rounds apart from the usual infinite bounce, had a disproportionately large number of workable questions, covered most areas to give the quiz balance, gave a reasonably general bias to a science quiz and most importantly, introduced the concept of fokiyaap connects. Go-haathi still prompts an inadvertent grin.
   
4. Newspaper quiz: A universal truth is that a peak is always followed by a nadir. Rapu and I were enthusiastic enough when it came to volunteering to do the quiz, but it was only when it came to setting the questions that we saw how crippled we actually were. Poring over the week's newspapers to make good questions is no enviable task. Add to that the fact that we chose to make the finals rather late and found ourselves with half the quiz done and the audience assembled at DOMS waiting patiently for the quizmasters. Knight's Quest obliged, a straight face had to be kept when a suspecting soul said- good questions but was this in the news this week, and Sunky's antics took care of the rest.
   
5. Dangerous Liaisons: The first of its kind all-connect quiz. Also the first very long quiz that stretched well beyond the usual 9. The questions were mostly ordinary, but the concept provided enough entertainment for the quiz to be generally appreciated. That, and the AoE question. Moh won this quiz, starting a habit of doing well in my quizzes, which luckily for me, was reciprocated at Naman's and his Ashesh Memorial. This quiz also started the concept of dedications, thus providing the QM with a slide to vent out all his demented wisecracks.
   
6. 42: The name says it all. Remembered for the name, the master-lands and the accompanied eff-off, the appreciation by the DOMS guys and Rapu's annoyance at finding some of the questions that he had planned in his coming quizzes (co-incidentally) replicated on the Bose auditorium's screen. Sunky showed where his strengths in quizzing truly lay and last I checked, Dela and Kaka occasionally use 'We Won 42' as their team name.
   
7. Gauntlet: A quiz that pissed off everyone but Rapu when I put the 30 opening lines as the first question. No one really ever recovered. Over 100 questions to accommodate the 12 lone wolves, some great cracks by Sushi, Murty and of course, the Dinosaur and a lot of very good questions missed thanks to what I call intellectual fatigue. Gauntlet was meant to separate the best from the rest and on that day, I believe it did just that.
   
8. Spoliers: The lit quiz that Rapu and I did to 'foster a culture of reading and lit quizzes at R'. Prondi continued his purple patch by winning this one, much to the surprise of everyone present there. There were some great questions on Mangas, Tintin and the works. The greatest success of this quiz was perhaps, that Dela and Padhey did one the following year. Hopefully, it'll become a permanent fixture in R's quizzing calendar.
   
9. His Last Bow: Goodbye to R, goodbye to Lit, goodbye to the Ol' Monks. There was an unexpectedly appreciative audience here, even in the finals. Some good connects and a lot of popular allusions masked as questions did the trick. This quiz was supposed to be my day and was naturally one of the most memorable days, if not the most memorable day, of my quizzing years at R.
   
10. Pilot/Encore: To kick-off my QM days at C, I naturally called my first quiz Pilot. I then went back to R for Convo and conveniently repeated the entire quiz. By now, most my quizzes have become the usual mix of workable, trivia and dementia and this one was no different. Good cracks by P-Sri (a reminder of Rapu) and a fitting connect to end the proceedings were the highlights.
    
11. SLATFATF/Campus Revisited: The acronym stands for the corresponding H2G2 book. This was a quiz to say goodbye to the IcQc guys and contained tribute questions for all. Atul's was brilliant, Cram and Shobhit's cracked up the two and the none of the rest got to the person to whom the tribute was paid. I then snidely used all the question by putting them in a Nagaraj-inspired format and did the quiz at R. Murty later told me that in that quiz, the first year won the first year round, the second year the next one and you get the general idea.
    

Eleven. I'd not realized that before. I now find myself in a perennial fix when it comes to deciding whether I like conducting quizzes more than taking part in them. Both have certain draws which likens them to a FRIENDS vs Seinfeld like conundrum. For now, though, I'll just stay content thinking that I'll probably never have to choose and get back to finding more questions for the sports quiz that I hope to do in the coming fortnight.