Any Given Sunday

That's usually when quizzers are free to do what they do best. This weekend being one such, the Bombay Quiz Club gets its motor running. Vibhendu Tewari and Sarat Rao will be our driver and tour guide respectively. I'm sure Sarat would like to drive, but given his vision, Stevie Wonder is probably going to be his navigator. It should be a fun ride. You should come along.

QM: Vibhendu Tewari and Sarat Rao

Time: 3 pm, Sunday, July 12, 2009 (Please be there by 2:45 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 the quiz.

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.

This Sunday, At Pinstorm...

The BQC Season Four rolls right along, with Vijay Shankar at the helm. He promises a fun quiz for one and all, and the winners might be able to gain enough experience points to buy the Armour of Invulnerability. No wait, wrong game. This one's a quiz, folks. I promise.

The details are below.

QM: Vijay Shankar

Time: 3 pm, Sunday, June 14, 2009 (Please be there by 2:40 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 the quiz.

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.

A Long Weekend Of Quizzing

A fantastic weekend of quizzing lies ahead for Mumbai quizzers, as the Landmark Quiz this Friday is followed by a BQC quiz on Sunday. Details:

The Landmark Quiz, Mumbai

QM: Navin Jayakumar

Time: 2.30 pm, Friday, May 1, 2009 (Please register in advance at Landmark Bookstore.)

Venue: St Andrew's Auditorium, Bandra.

Prizes: Hazaar Landmark coupons.

BQC Quiz 3, Season 4

QM: Mahesh Murthy

Time: 3 pm, Sunday, May 3, 2009 (Please be there by 2:45 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 the quiz.

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.

Do note that the Landmark Quiz will also count for points on the BQC's League Table.

It's All Happening Here

If Tony Greig was doing commentary on the BQC, he would not find it necessary to manufacture excitement: it really has all been happening here at the BQC. The first two quizzes of Season 4 were action packed events, though we will not report the bloodshed here, and there will be no pictures of the carnage. This is a family blog.

The results:

Quiz 1, April 12, conducted by Rajiv Rai

1st (163 points) Vibhendu Tiwari, Anannya Deb, Ameya Samant, Janardhan R, Akshat Trivedi

Tied 2nd-3rd (141) Atul Mathew, Sumit Roy, Govind Grewal, Bikash Mohapatra

Tied 2nd-3rd (141) Rohit Ajitkumar, Shiv Anant Tayal, Hanisha Vaswani, Jitaditya Narzari, Nandan Krishnaswamy

4th (139.5) Sumant Srivathsan, Devang Ghia, Souvik Basu, Siddharth Sinha Ray

5th (137) Amit Varma, Sai Ganesh, Dhananjay Shettigar, Srikant Narasimhan, Nrupal Chowdhary

6th (117.5) Diwakar Pingle, Sandip Sen, Ajith Prabhakar, Arvind Krishnaswamy, Amlesh Mishra

7th (116.5) Pradeep Ramarathnam, Amit Pandeya, Francis Rodrigues, Dipankar Goswami, Ram Shankar

8th (81) Anand Sivasankar, Chinmay Kamath, Rasik Tirodkar, Vishwesh Ramnath

As the scores indicate, this was a close quiz, with four teams separated by half a question fighting for second place, which was decided on the last question.

Quiz 2, April 19, conducted by Dhoomketu

1st (with 90 points) Sumant Srivathsan, Govind Grewal, Souvik Basu, Chinmay Kamath

2nd (71) Rajiv Rai, Atul Mathew, Anand Sivasankar, Dipankar Goswami

3rd (48) Amit Varma, Atulya Bharadwaj, Sarat Rao, Roshith

4th (45) Amit Pandeya, Jonas John, Sriram R, Vikas Sahu

5th (43) Rishi Iyengar, Mukund Sridhar, Rohit Ajitkumar, Hanisha Vaswani

6th (42) Ajith Prabhakar, Sandip Sen, Srikant Narasimhan, Francis Rodrigues

7th (41) Anannya Deb, Jitaditya Narzari, Supriyo Saha, Mina Anthony

8th (39) Vibhendu Tiwari, Sumit Roy, Janardhan R, Vamsi Krishna

All the teams had a chance to finish in the top three in this quiz, a battle decided, once again, right at the end. In BQC quizzes, members of the winning team get 10 points each for the BQC League Table, followed by 7 and 4 for second and third, and splits if there are ties. In open quizzes with elims and finals, like the forthcoming Landmark Quiz, finalists get two points each. Here, then, are the league standings right at the start of Season 4.

BQC Season 4 (from 2 quizzes, as of April 19, 2009)

15.5 points
Govind Grewal

12.5 points
Atul Mathew

10 points
Akshat Trivedi
Ameya Samant
Anannya Deb
Chinmay Kamath
Janardhan R
Souvik Basu
Sumant Srivathsan
Vibhendu Tiwari

7 points
Anand Sivasankar
Dipankar Goswami
Rajiv Rai

5.5 points
Bikash Mohapatra
Hanisha Vaswani
Jitaditya Narzari
Nandan Krishnaswamy
Rohit Ajitkumar
Shiv Anant Tayal
Sumit Roy

4 points
Amit Varma
Atulya Bharadwaj
Roshith
Sarat Rao

These are early days, and no doubt there will be much movement on this league table. Watch this blog for announcements of future quizzes.

The Return of Dhoomketu

In 1949, The Fearless Nadia starred alongside Ram Singh, John Cawas, Boman Shroff and the magnificent Sona Chatterji in a film called Dhoomketu.

In 2009, 60 years later, on a full moon afternoon in April, Dhoomketu returns. Here are the details of our next BQC quiz:

QM: Dhoomketu.

Time: 3 pm, Sunday, April 19, 2009 (Please be there by 2:45 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 the quiz.

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.

The results of last Sunday's quiz will be uploaded along with this one once this is over. If we survive. Dhoomketu is coming!

BQC's Season 4 is all set to open

The first quiz of the Bombay Quiz Club's Season 4 will be conducted by the Season 2 and 3 champion, Rajiv Rai, this Sunday. That means that, for a brief while at least, someone else will lead the league table this season. Do not miss this chance!

Details:

QM: Rajiv Rai

Time: 2.30 pm, Sunday, April 12, 2009 (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 the quiz.

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.

Important: Do note that this quiz starts at 2.30 pm instead of at 3, when we usually begin. Please be at the venue by 2.15. Thank you.

Rajiv Rai Dominates Season 3

Rajiv Rai topped the league table after the final BQC quiz of its third season, winning by a whopping margin of 47 points over his open-quiz team-mate, Sumant Srivathsan. Their third man, Vibhendu Tiwari, finished the season with a strong win to take third place in the league standings. After that we were all bunched up like college kids in a moshpit, headbanging furiously as these three strummed their mojo.

No, well, really, this season, more than the last two, the competition was severe. BQC's quizzing depth can now safely be compared to any other major city, and on a given day there are 10 to 15 people capable of kicking serious ass and winning a quiz on their own. There was much action in the second half of this season, especially, when some new and some improved quizzers put in a seriously strong show. That means Season 4 will be tight. We'll all be in the moshpit.

The 25th and final quiz of the season was a grand affair conducted by Anannya Deb. There were more than 100 questions, and many local Bombay fundas. A good time was had by all , and it was a fitting way to end the season.

And so, the results of this last quiz:

1st place Vibhendu Tiwari, Goving Grewal, Srikant Narasimhan.

2nd place Rajiv Rai, Sidharth Vij + 1

3rd place (tied) Sumant Srivathsan, Anand Sivasankar, Vijay Shankar

3rd place (tied) Ajith Prabhakar, Kaustuv Gupta, Devang Ghia

And now, will a roll of trumpets and a tray of turnips, the results of season 3!

BQC Season three Standings (from 25 quizzes, as of March 31, 2009)

131 points
Rajiv Rai

84 points
Sumant Srivathsan

71 points
Vibhendu Tiwari

58 points
Udatta Duarah

54.5 points
Amit Varma

53.5 points
Aadisht Khanna

48 points
Atul Mathew

47 points
Ajith Prabhakar

46 points
Kaustuv Gupta

45 points
Sumit Roy

44 points
Govind Grewal

42.5 points
Rishi Iyengar

41.5 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam

40 points
Ameya Samant
Sajith Pai

39 points
Atulya Bharadwaj

37 points
Rohit Ajitkumar
Shrikant Narasimhan

36 points
Souvik Basu

35 points
Sandip Sen

34 points
Bikash Mohapatra

33.5 points
Anannya Deb

32.5 points
Francis Rodrigues

32 points
Brian D'Souza
S Balakrishnan

31 points
Anand Sivasankar

27 points
Mahesh Murthy

26.5 points
Prasann Potdar

26 points
Vijay Shankar

24 points
Kedar Sastry

22 points
Amit Pandeya

21.5 points
Sarat Rao

18 points
Shiv Anant Tayal

17 points
Avinash Mudaliar
Devang Ghia
Mukund Sridhar
Rahul Gaur

15.5 points
Akash Bansal

14 points
Akanksha Mathur
Mitul Kodali

12 points
Sireesh Talluri Rao

11 points
Ravi Venkatesh

10 points
Amit Sharma
Arvind Krishnaswamy
Dhananjay Shettigar
Kashyap Pandeya
Phani Prasad
Rushi Bhavsar
Sandeep Rajpurohit
Srini Rajagopal

9 points
Mukund Krishnan

8 Points
Manish Mishra

7 points
Ajay Ravindran
Arjun Swarup
Avinash Umapathy
Kaustubh Chakravarti
Meher Sridhar
Nandan Krishnaswamy
Norbert Fernandes
Raamesh Gowri Raghavan
Rahul Bhaskar
Roshith
Shreya
Sidharth Vij
V Sreeharsha

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

4 points
Barun Chakrabarti
Gopal Kidao
Mithun Srivatsa
Neelabh
Rajendra Parmar
Supriyo Saha
Vijay Chittoor
Vikas Sahu

2 points
Shambhu Shankar

More updates on Season 4 will follow on this blog. Watch this space.

A Grand Ending to a Great Season

On March 22, 2009, the third season of the Bombay Quiz Club draws to a close. Anannya Deb will conduct. The league standings are here, but there isn't really much at stake -- unless you're speaking of abstract notions like pride, and honour, and the respect of your beer-sozzled peers. Come and partake. The details:

QM: Anannya Deb

Time: 3 pm, Sunday, March 22, 2009 (Please be there by 2:40 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 the quiz.

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.