Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Rajiv Cassidy and the Miranda Kid

Rajiv Rai and Movin Miranda romped to an emphatic win in the BQC quiz last Sunday, as the rest of us cowered under tables and hid behind chairs. "This is a conference room, not a Hollywood film," we begged, "stop firing." But they kept shooting answers at Sheriff Harshil Shah, the quizmaster, who caught a flight back to the USA a few hours after the quiz. It is clear why.

Rajiv extended his lead on top of the BQC rankings with this win, while Sumant Srivathsan and Kedar Sastry came second, followed by Rishi Iyengar and Amit Pandeya in third place. The quiz was entertaining -- pun intended, as there were some excellent questions on entertainment, all of which I have forgotten because I am aged now. (Subscribers have access to all questions of all BQC quizzes, so, ahem!)


The results:

1st with 23 points
Rajiv Rai
Movin Miranda

2nd with 15 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Kedar Sastry

3rd with 13 points
Rishi Iyengar
Amit Pandeya

4th-5th with 9 points each
Amit Varma
Sameer Nair

Pradeep Ramarathnam
Devang Ghia
Amit Grover

6th with 8 points
Ameya Samant
Mukund Sridhar

And now, the league standings:

BQC Season Two Standings (from 18 quizzes, as of December 16, 2007)

99.5 points
Rajiv Rai (from 13 quizzes)

74 points
Rishi Iyengar (15)

69 points

Amit Varma (15)

62 points
Prasann Potdar (12)

56 points
Sumant Srivathsan (14)

48 points
Ashwan Lewis (8)

41.5 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (15)

40 points

Govind Grewal (14)

37.5 points
AP Alagarsamy (12)

36 points
Ameya Samant (14)

35 points
S Balakrishnan (12)
Kedar Sastry (11)

32 points
Ajith Prabhakar (13)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (12)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)
Amit Pandeya (10)

26.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (8)

24.5 points
Devang Ghia (16)

24 points
Anand Sivasankar (13)
Kartik Srivatsa (5)

20 points
Shambhu Shankar (?)

18 points
Avinash Mudaliar (8)
Kartik R (?)
Sarat Rao (?)

17.5 points
Souvik Basu (?)


17 points
Ravi Venkatesh (6)

16.5 points

Dhananjay Shettigar (10)

14 points
Samrat Sengupta (5)
Udatta Duarah (6)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (4)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (3)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (6)
Atulya Bharadwaj (2)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Raghu (?)
Sritanu Chakravarty (2)
Sowmya Ramaswamy (1)
Hansraj Singh (1)
John Mascarenhas (3)
Vaibhav Devanathan (1)
Sameer Nair (2)
Movin Miranda (1)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)
Francis Rodrigues (9)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (3)
Saurav (?)
Nrupal Choudhari (?)
Harshil Shah (1)

4 points
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (6)
Sushant Raut (5)
Chitra Raghunath (1)
Arvind Krishnaswamy (5)
Sandeep Randery (1)
Sandip Sen (2)

The next BQC quiz is on January 6, 2008. More details will follow on this blog.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Now it's Harshil Shah's turn

Harshil Shah conducts the next BQC quiz this Sunday. This will be the last BQC quiz of 2007, and offers a good chance to everyone to end it on a high note. (Of course, everyone won't, but why think about that before the event?) So be there!

The details:

Time: 3pm, Sunday, December 16 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmaster: Harshil Shah
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

You can read a report of the last quiz, and see the latest league standings, here.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Rishi Iyengar makes his move

Rajiv Rai was absent. Rishi Iyengar looked around furtively. And leaped.

A snappy quiz by Mukund Krishnan was won this Sunday by Rishi Iyengar, Ameya Samant and Shambhu Shankar. The second place was snapped up by my humble self, in partnership with Vibhendu Tiwari and Souvik Basu. (My seventh second place this season -- pah!) Sumant Srivathsan, Devang Ghia and Atulya Bharadwaj trotted in at third place.

The quiz was short and sweet, and contained much more Indian content than most of our quizzes, which was a welcome change. The turnout was low this week, perhaps because India was playing Pakistan in a Test match in Bangalore, a battle nowhere near as well-contested as ours.

The result took Rishi zooming up to second place in the league standings. Infants in Bandra, beware.

The results:

1st with 16.5 points
Rishi Iyengar
Ameya Samant
Shambhu Shankar

2nd with 14 points
Amit Varma
Vibhendu Tiwari
Souvik Basu

3rd with 12.5 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Atulya Bharadwaj
Devang Ghia

4th with 8.5 points
Prasann Potdar
Govind Grewal
Sarat Rao

5th with 7.5 points
AP Alagarsamy
Sandip Sen

6th with 4.5 points
S Balakrishnan
John Mascarenhas


And now, the standings:

BQC Season Two Standings (from 17 quizzes, as of December 9, 2007)

89.5 points
Rajiv Rai (from 12 quizzes)

70 points
Rishi Iyengar (14)

69 points

Amit Varma (14)

62 points
Prasann Potdar (12)

49 points
Sumant Srivathsan (13)

48 points
Ashwan Lewis (8)

41.5 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (15)

40 points

Govind Grewal (14)

37.5 points
AP Alagarsamy (12)

36 points
Ameya Samant (13)

35 points
S Balakrishnan (12)

32 points
Ajith Prabhakar (13)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (11)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)
Kedar Shastry (10)

26.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (8)

24.5 points
Devang Ghia (15)

24 points
Amit Pandeya (9)
Anand Sivasankar (13)
Kartik Srivatsa (5)

20 points
Shambhu Shankar (?)

18 points
Avinash Mudaliar (8)
Kartik R (?)
Sarat Rao (?)

17.5 points
Souvik Basu (?)


17 points
Ravi Venkatesh (6)

16.5 points

Dhananjay Shettigar (10)

14 points
Samrat Sengupta (5)
Udatta Duarah (6)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (4)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (3)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (6)
Atulya Bharadwaj (2)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Raghu (?)
Sritanu Chakravarty (2)
Sowmya Ramaswamy (1)
Hansraj Singh (1)
John Mascarenhas (3)
Vaibhav Devanathan (1)
Samir Nair (1)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)
Francis Rodrigues (9)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (3)
Saurav (?)
Nrupal Choudhari (?)
Harshil Shah (1)

4 points
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (6)
Sushant Raut (5)
Chitra Raghunath (1)
Arvind Krishnaswamy (5)
Sandeep Randery (1)
Sandip Sen (2)

The next quiz will be held on Sunday, December 16. More details will follow on this blog.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Step up for the Mukund Krishnan Quiz

BQC regular Mukund Krishnan conducts his first quiz for the BQC this Sunday, and it promises to be a hell of a way to finish the weekend. The details:

Time: 3pm, Sunday, December 9 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmaster: Mukund Krishnan
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

A report of the last quiz, and the latest league standings, are here.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

The Boss is Back

For a few weeks, Rajiv Rai was silent. Like Krakatoa in the first half of August 1883. Then...

J Ramanand conducted an enthralling BQC quiz last Sunday, won by a massive margin by Rajiv Rai's team. Rishi Iyengar and Avinash Mudaliar steered their team to second place, winning a tiebreaker against Sumant Srivathsan's team. Others scrambled for lesser places.

Ramanand's questions were a connoisseur's delight, though some of the younger lads looked a little flustered, and one of them remarked to me during the break, with immense sarcasm, "Very easy quiz, isn't it?"

"Have you sacrificed any infants this week?" I asked him sternly.

"Er, no," he replied.

"Then?" I thundered. "Then?"

Anyway, Ramanand's questions are here, get a taste of them for yourself.

And now for the results:

1st with (gulp) 130 points
Rajiv Rai
Vaibhav Devanathan
Samir Nair

2nd with 80 points (on tiebreak)
Rishi Iyengar
Avinash Mudaliar
Atulya Bharadwaj
Harshil Shah

3rd with 80 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Sandeep Randery
Sandip Sen
Sauvik Basu

4th-5th with 65 points
S Balakrishnan
Shambhu Shankar
John Mascarenhas

Prasann Potdar
Sritanu Chakrabarti
Mukund Krishnan
Kedar Shastry

6th with 50 points
Amit Varma
Udatta Duarah
Devang Ghia

7th-8th with 30 points
Vibhendu Tiwari
Anand Sivasankar
Amit Grover
Sarat Rao

Govind Grewal
Karthik R
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Sireesh Rao

As for the BQC standings, guess who's on top. Guess, guess. Guess, no!

BQC Season Two Standings (from 16 quizzes, as of December 2, 2007)

89.5 points
Rajiv Rai (from 12 quizzes)

62 points

Amit Varma (13)
Prasann Potdar (11)

60 points
Rishi Iyengar (13)

48 points

Ashwan Lewis (8)

45 points
Sumant Srivathsan (12)

40 points
Govind Grewal (13)

37.5 points
AP Alagarsamy (11)

35 points
S Balakrishnan (11)

34.5 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (14)

32 points

Ajith Prabhakar (13)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (11)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)
Kedar Shastry (10)

26.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (8)

26 points
Ameya Samant (12)

24 points
Amit Pandeya (9)
Anand Sivasankar (13)
Kartik Srivatsa (5)

20.5 points
Devang Ghia (14)

18 points
Avinash Mudaliar (8)
Kartik R (?)
Sarat Rao (?)

17 points
Ravi Venkatesh (6)

16.5 points

Dhananjay Shettigar (10)

14 points
Samrat Sengupta (5)
Udatta Duarah (6)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (4)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (3)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (6)

10.5 points
Souvik Basu (?)


10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Raghu (?)
Sritanu Chakravarty (2)
Sowmya Ramaswamy (1)
Hansraj Singh (1)
John Mascarenhas (2)
Shambhu Shankar (?)
Vaibhav Devanathan (1)
Samir Nair (1)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)
Francis Rodrigues (9)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (3)
Saurav (?)
Nrupal Choudhari (?)
Atulya Bharadwaj (1)
Harshil Shah (1)

4 points
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (6)
Sushant Raut (5)
Chitra Raghunath (1)
Arvind Krishnaswamy (5)
Sandeep Randery (1)
Sandip Sen (1)

The next two BQC quizzes are on the next two Sundays. Mukund Krishnan conducts a quiz on December 9, and Harshil Shah conducts one on December 16. This is to avoid a quiz on the New Year, as would otherwise be scheduled. More details will follow on this blog.

Friday, November 30, 2007

The J Ramanand Quiz

J Ramanand, the reigning champ of Mastermind India and Pune's resident giant quizzer, comes to Mumbai tomorrow to conduct a quiz for the BQC. The details:

Time: 3pm, Sunday, December 2 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmaster: J Ramanand
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

You can see the latest league standings here.

Note: We had earlier mentioned on the email list that this quiz would start early, at 1.30pm, because Ramanand had to leave early that evening. As it happens, he has modified his plans, and the quiz will begin at the usual time of 3pm.

Another note: Newbies are welcome to attend. You do not need to have a partner to take part, all teams are formed by draw of lots, and everybody is a part of the quiz. As I'd mentioned last time, our quizzes tend to be friendly to newcomers, with the emphasis on working out questions rather than knowing stuff. Come and see for yourself!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The Govind Grewal Rampage

Govind Grewal lurked in 10th place in the BQC league at the start of the latest BQC quiz, but served up a warning to all the so-called big guns with a resounding win. Partnering Shambhu Shankar and John Mascerenhas, he led from start to finish, winning by a handsome margin. Five other teams spent time in second place, and if the quiz was a few questions shorter or longer, the 2nd to 6th placings might have been completely different.

Arvind Krishnaswamy's quiz was exceptional, with many topical questions that were workoutable by non-quizzers. Indeed, there were no chestnuts at all, and no recycling of standard quizzing fundas that give old-timer quizzers an advantage over relative newbies. Purists could have objected to the handful of lexical connects that snuck in -- 'Velvet' being a connect in a question with images of Lou Reed, Vaclac Havel and National Velvet -- but at least they were fun, not arcane and far out.

The results:

1st with 29 points
Govind Grewal
Shambhu Shankar
John Mascarenhas

Joint 2nd-3rd with 23.5 points each
Rishi Iyengar
Vibhendu Tiwari
Ameya Samant

AP Alagarsamy
Devang Ghia
Souvik Basu

4th with 21.5 points
Amit Varma
Sarat Rao

Joint 5th-6th with 19 points each
Rajiv Rai
Udatta Duarah
Mukund Krishnan

Sumant Srivathsan
Samrat Sengupta
Anand Sivasankar

7th with 8 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Shiju Thomas

8th with 6 points
Ajith Prabhakar
Richa Bhargava

And now for the standings:

BQC Season Two Standings (from 15 quizzes, as of November 18, 2007)

79.5 points
Rajiv Rai (from 11 quizzes)

62 points

Amit Varma (12)
Prasann Potdar (10)

53 points
Rishi Iyengar (12)

48 points

Ashwan Lewis (8)

41 points
Sumant Srivathsan (11)

40 points
Govind Grewal (12)

35 points
S Balakrishnan (10)

37.5 points
AP Alagarsamy (11)

34.5 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (13)

32 points

Ajith Prabhakar (13)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (10)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)
Kedar Shastry (9)

26.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (7)

26 points
Ameya Samant (12)

24 points
Amit Pandeya (9)
Anand Sivasankar (12)
Kartik Srivatsa (5)

20.5 points
Devang Ghia (13)

18 points
Kartik R (?)
Sarat Rao (?)

17 points
Ravi Venkatesh (6)

16.5 points

Dhananjay Shettigar (10)

14 points
Samrat Sengupta (5)
Udatta Duarah (5)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (4)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (3)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (6)
Avinash Mudaliar (7)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Raghu (?)
Sritanu Chakravarty (1)
Sowmya Ramaswamy (1)
Hansraj Singh (1)
John Mascarenhas (1)
Shambhu Shankar (?)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)
Francis Rodrigues (9)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (3)
Saurav (?)
Nrupal Choudhari (?)

6.5 point
Souvik Basu (?)


4 points
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (5)
Sushant Raut (5)
Chitra Raghunath (1)
Arvind Krishnaswamy (5)

The next quiz will take place at 3pm on Sunday, December 2. More details will follow on this blog, and on our email list.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Come one, come all...

... for the Arvind Krishnaswamy quiz! Arvind will conduct the next BQC quiz this Sunday, and you're invited. The details are below. Infants are welcome.

Time: 3pm, Sunday, November 18 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmaster: Arvind Krishnaswamy
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

The current league standings are here.

Note to newcomers: The Bombay Quiz Club prides itself of quizzes that are friendly to newcomers. Questions are generally workoutable, and not you-know-it-or-you-don't. That makes every question an exercise in problem-solving, rather than in remembering arcane trivia.

Also, you don't need to have a team to take part: all attendees are randomly distributed into teams by draw of lots, which ensures an even spread of the experienced quizzers through the field.

So if you enjoy quizzing, or think you might, drop in!

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Udatta unleashes unspeakable horror

The BQC met yesterday for an excellent quiz by Delhi's Udatta Duarah. The quizmaster, a frequent visitor to Mumbai, has consumed many tender infants with the BQC. While his enthusiastic participation has ensured that he will be among those Eaten First, he has never before been a Master of Ceremonies. Yesterday, he served up a quiz that even the well-known cannibal Jackie Chan would have approved. For three hours of unspeakable horror, the quizmaster systematically explored human depravity from infant sacrifice to foot fetishes. With ingenious questions and plenty of experiments, it was certainly one of the best quizzes to be held this season. Those fortunate enough to attend ensured the damnation of their souls. Those who didn't will have to put in long hours of community service, Jackie Chan style, with a chainsaw. The competition was similarly exciting. In a brutal battle, Amit Varma and Ajith Prabhakar triumphed over the monstrously strong team of Vibhendu and Prasann Potdar. Sumant and Francis were also in the race until the very last question.

1st with 42 points
Amit Varma
Ajith Prabhakar

2nd with 41 points
Prasann Potdar
Vibhendu Tiwari

3rd with 38 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Francis Rodrigues

4th with 32 points
Govind Grewal
Anand Sivasankar
Sarat Rao

5th with 22 points
Rishi Iyengar
Arvind Krishnaswamy
Ajay Ravindran

6th with 18 points
S Balakrishnan
Devang Ghia


BQC Season Two Standings (from 14 quizzes, as of November 4, 2007)

79.5 points

Rajiv Rai (from 10 quizzes)

62 points

Amit Varma (11)
Prasann Potdar (10)

48 points

Ashwan Lewis (8)

47.5 points
Rishi Iyengar (11)

41 points
Sumant Srivathsan (10)

35 points
S Balakrishnan (10)

32 points

AP Alagarsamy (10)
Ajith Prabhakar (12)

30 points
Govind Grewal (11)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (9)
Vibhendu Tiwari (12)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)
Kedar Shastry (9)

26.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (6)

24 points
Amit Pandeya (9)
Anand Sivasankar (11)
Kartik Srivatsa (5)

20.5 points
Ameya Samant (11)

18 points
Kartik R (?)
Sarat Rao (?)

17 points
Ravi Venkatesh (6)

16.5 points

Dhananjay Shettigar (10)

15 points
Devang Ghia (12)

14 points
Samrat Sengupta (4)
Udatta Duarah (4)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (4)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (3)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (6)
Avinash Mudaliar (7)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Raghu (?)
Sritanu Chakravarty (1)
Sowmya Ramaswamy (1)
Hansraj Singh (1)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)
Francis Rodrigues (9)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (3)
Saurav (?)
Nrupal Choudhari (?)

4 points

Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (5)
Sushant Raut (5)
Chitra Raghunath (1)
Arvind Krishnaswamy (5)

1 point
Souvik Basu (?)

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Sunday's Quiz

Details of the next BQC quiz:

Time: 10am, Sunday, November 4 (reporting time: 9.40am)
Quizmaster: Udatta Duarah
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking
Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions
here
.)

We're having it in the morning because some of the guys want to attend some
business quiz in the afternoon. Pah!

Newcomers note: You don't need to show up as part of a team, just come on
your own. Teams are decided at the venue by draw of lots. Newbies are
welcome.

Friday, November 02, 2007

Thursday is now Samedi

In a shocking violation of human rights, Samrat Sengupta pitilessly interrogated the members of the BQC on October 21, 2007. The UN condemned the incident and deputed a resentful Thor to head the peacekeeping taskforce once the UN Security Council and the Norse Gods stop squabbling and get Ragnarok over with. The UN Human Rights Committee expressed "grave concern" over questions linking a torch, a dynamo, red-bearded king and a marine mammal. "He just kept smiling", a survivor said through pain-bleared eyes. "He kept smiling, but he didn't stop, he just didn't stop. He even threatened us with a History of the American People. All five volumes of it!"
Amit Varma, a well- known user of candlesticks and quiz survivor, recalls, "Sumant, the BQC....treasurer succumbed quickly and told on his comrades, cheerfully betraying them and leading throughout the quiz."
Other eyewitness accounts speak of S. Balakrishnan. "Bala just took everything Samrat had to offer and then some", said Prasann Potdar, "He skillfully avoided the traps set for him by Sengupta."

The incident provoked an immediate response from administrations across the globe, with Gordon Brown, High Chancellor of Britain, countering rumours that the state-sponsored NHS had anything to do with the state of Samrat's teeth. "We firmly condemn all such instances of unauthorized human rights violations. There is also absolutely no substance to the rumour that the NHS actually works and was responsible in any way for Samrat Sengupta's teeth."

The list of survivors is published below.

1st with 51 points
Sumanth Srivathsan
Udatta Duarah
Kedar Shastry
Hansraj Singh

2nd with 44.5 points
Amit Varma
Prasann Potdar
S Balakrishnan
Nrupal Choudhari

3rd with 44 points
AP Alagarsamy
Govind Grewal
Arvind Krishnaswamy

Tied 4th with 37 points
Rishi Iyengar
Meghashyam Shirodkar
Praveen Mohan

Ajith Prabhakar
Souvik Basu
A Subba Reddy
Suchintan Chatterjee

6th with 31 points
Ashwan Lewis
Vibhendu Tiwari
Dhananjay Shettigar
Francis Rodrigues

7th with 26 points
Ameya Samant
Mukund Krishnan
Devang Ghia

8th with 25.5 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Avinash Mudaliar
Shambhu Shankar
Nandan Krishnaswamy

And the standings:

BQC Season Two Standings (from 13 quizzes, as of October 21, 2007)

79.5 points

Rajiv Rai (from 10 quizzes)

55 points
Prasann Potdar (9)

52 points
Amit Varma (10)

48 points

Ashwan Lewis (8)

47.5 points
Rishi Iyengar (10)

37 points
Sumant Srivathsan (9)

35 points
S Balakrishnan (9)

32 points

AP Alagarsamy (10)

30 points
Govind Grewal (10)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (9)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)
Kedar Shastry (9)

26.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (6)

24 points
Amit Pandeya (9)
Anand Sivasankar (10)
Kartik Srivatsa (5)

22 points
Ajith Prabhakar (11)
Vibhendu Tiwari (11)

20.5 points
Ameya Samant (11)

18 points
Kartik R (?)
Sarat Rao (?)

17 points
Ravi Venkatesh (6)

16.5 points

Dhananjay Shettigar (10)

15 points
Devang Ghia (11)

14 points
Samrat Sengupta (4)
Udatta Duarah (4)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (3)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (3)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (6)
Avinash Mudaliar (7)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Raghu (?)
Sritanu Chakravarty (1)
Sowmya Ramaswamy (1)
Hansraj Singh (1)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (3)
Saurav (?)
Nrupal Choudhari (?)

4 points
Francis Rodrigues (8)
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (5)
Sushant Raut (5)
Chitra Raghunath (1)
Arvind Krishnaswamy (4)

1 point
Souvik Basu (?)

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Thor and the Young Indian Lad

There is a famous legend about how Thor was once resting on a mountaintop when a Young Indian Lad came up to him.

"Young Indian Lad," yelled Thor. "You are disturbing my repose! Leave before I unleash a storm upon you."

Young Indian Lad smiled. "I am not scared of your thunder, Crippled Thor," he said, "for I have thunder of my own that you cannot counter."

Thor was taking aback. "What the fug, Young Indian Lad?" he said. "Nobody speaks to me like that. What thunder can you possibly possess that can counter mine?"

Young Indian Lad smiled again. (Young Indian Lad smiles a lot.) "Come to the Pinstorm office on Sunday, October 21," he said, "and you will find out."

Centuries have passed, and that day has almost arrived. This Sunday, Young Indian Lad, now a Young MBA Man, Samrat Sengupta will unleash his thunder upon a select few brave warriors -- and perhaps an old God watching from a corner. Will you be there?

Time: 3pm, Sunday, October 21 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmaster: Samrat Sengupta
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

The current league standings are here.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Who can stop Mr Rai?

No one. Rajiv Rai stormed to yet another win in the latest BQC quiz, conducted yesterday by AP Alagarsamy. This time, he was a tease. His team was behind throughout the quiz, and just when the result seemed a foregone conclusion, he cracked the last three questions to take home maximum points. It was almost like he said to the others, "You can dream, you can dream. But in the end, I'll wake you up." Drat.

The team I was in, with Prasann Potdar, Vibhendu Tiwari and Sarat Rao, was the one jostled awake. We took an early lead, extended it, dreamed of victory speeches, and then had the champagne gently taken away from us. This was my fifth second place of the season. Pah.

Sumant Srivathsan's team ended up third, a position which was within everyone's reach in a well-contested quiz. The questions were mostly workoutable. A Spanish instrument named after an almond because of its shape? Mandolin. A kind of gem whose name is today used as meaning a model of excellence? Paragon. And so on.

The results:

1st with 30 points
Rajiv Rai
Sritanu Chakravarty
Sowmya Ramaswamy

2nd with 27.5 points
Amit Varma
Prasann Potdar
Vibhendu Tiwari
Sarat Rao

3rd with 20 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Mukund Krishnan
Chitra Raghunath
Kartik R

4th with 19.5 points
S Balakrishnan
Ameya Samant
Arnab Bhattacharya
Dhritiman Borkakoti

5th with 19 points
Kartik Srivatsa
Rahul Bhaskar
Suchintan Chatterjee
Kedar Shastry

6th with 17 points
Anand Sivasankar
Samrat Sengupta
Devang Ghia
Abilil Mukherjee

7th with 16 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Ravi Venkatesh
Francis Rodrigues

8th with 14.5 points
Ajith Prabhakar
Udatta Duarah
Prateek Chaturvedi
Sarayu Natarajan

And now, the standings:

BQC Season Two Standings (from 12 quizzes, as of October 14, 2007)

79.5 points

Rajiv Rai (from 10 quizzes)

48 points
Ashwan Lewis (7)
Prasann Potdar (8)

47.5 points
Rishi Iyengar (9)

45 points
Amit Varma (9)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (9)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)
AP Alagarsamy (9)
S Balakrishnan (8)

27 points
Sumant Srivathsan (8)

26.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (5)

26 points
Govind Grewal (9)

24 points
Amit Pandeya (9)
Anand Sivasankar (10)
Kartik Srivatsa (5)

22 points
Ajith Prabhakar (10)
Vibhendu Tiwari (10)

20.5 points
Ameya Samant (10)

18 points
Kedar Shastry (8)
Kartik R (?)
Sarat Rao (?)

17 points
Ravi Venkatesh (6)

16.5 points

Dhananjay Shettigar (9)

15 points
Devang Ghia (10)

14 points
Samrat Sengupta (4)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (3)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (2)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (5)
Avinash Mudaliar (6)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Raghu (?)
Sritanu Chakravarty (1)
Sowmya Ramaswamy (1)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (3)
Saurav (?)

4 points
Francis Rodrigues (7)
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (5)
Sushant Raut (5)
Udatta Duarah (3)
Chitra Raghunath (1)

1 point
Souvik Basu (?)

The next quiz will be conducted by Samrat Sengupta on October 21. Watch this space for more details.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Nobody messes with AP Alagarsamy

Alagar hosts the next BQC quiz, and anyone who gets a question wrong will be beheaded. Are you up to the challenge? Come on, then!

Time: 3pm, Sunday, October 14 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmaster: AP Alagarsamy
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

The latest league standings, and a report of the last quiz, are here. See, we have so much fun!

Thursday, September 27, 2007

A Social(ist) Experiment

That was merely one of several descriptions that Anand Sivashankar's (and absentee QM Vibhendu Tewari's) quiz drew from the small group of participants that did show up on a rainy Sunday afternoon. A late notification email to the group could have been the main culprit (and we'll do our best to be more timely about such matters).

As Anand explained in his intro, his rather original direct-and-passing system was designed to ensure that all teams had an equal opportunity to answer questions. Whether this intention was met, we shall see, but it did result in a very tight quiz indeed, with the lead changing hands amongst at least four of the eight teams.

Teams answered questions in increasing order of their points tally after each question, with tied teams taking turns in clockwise or anti-clockwise patterns. With this system in place, Anand proceeded to ask a number of excellent questions, something which could easily have been missed amidst the novel system which contained them.

New system or old, some things never change, and Rajiv Rai, with Ravi Venkatesh in tow (and solo for the last few questions), won the day. Again. Prasann Potdar, Saurav and Kartik Ramadass fended off four other teams for second place, leaving them tied for third place.

The Results:

First Place - 14 Points
Rajiv Rai
Ravi Venkatesh

Second Place - 13 Points
Prasann Potdar
Kartik Ramadass
Saurav

Third Place (tied) - 12 Points
Ameya Samant
Avinash Mudaliar
Sarat Rao

Rishi Iyengar
Sumant Srivathsan

Souvik Basu
S Balakrishnan

Amit Pandeya
Francis Rodrigues
Mukund Krishnan

Seventh Place (tied) - 11 Points
Ajith Prabhakar
Dhananjay Shettigar

AP Alagarsamy
Devang Ghia
Kedar Sastry

BQC Season Two Standings (from 11 quizzes, as of September 23, 2007)

69.5 points

Rajiv Rai (from 9 quizzes)

48 points
Ashwan Lewis (7)

47.5 points
Rishi Iyengar (9)

41 points
Prasann Potdar (7)

38 points
Amit Varma (8)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (8)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)
AP Alagarsamy (9)
S Balakrishnan (7)

26 points
Govind Grewal (9)

24 points
Amit Pandeya (9)
Anand Sivasankar (9)
Kartik Srivatsa (4)

23 points
Sumant Srivathsan (7)

22.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (4)

22 points
Ajith Prabhakar (9)

20.5 points
Ameya Samant (9)

18 points
Kedar Shastry (7)

17 points
Ravi Venkatesh (5)

16.5 points

Dhananjay Shettigar (9)

15 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (9)
Devang Ghia (9)

14 points
Samrat Sengupta (3)
Kartik R (?)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (3)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (2)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (5)
Avinash Mudaliar (6)
Sarat Rao (?)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Raghu (?)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (2)
Saurav (?)

4 points
Francis Rodrigues (6)
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (5)
Sushant Raut (5)
Udatta Duarah (2)

1 point
Souvik Basu

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Barbecue Nation

Come prepared for a grilling.

Time: 3pm, Sunday, September 2 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmaster: Anand Sivashankar (with questions from Vibhendu Tewari)
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

Sunday, September 02, 2007

The dark horse uses fairness cream

Just when the leaderboard seemed to be a one-horse race, Ashwan Lewis galloped into the frame of the Bombay Quiz Club. Ashwan, together with Mukund Krishnan, Sarat Rao and Raghu, romped to an emphatic win in the 10th BQC quiz of the season to storm back up to second place in the standings. Rishi Iyengar, the man he displaced, put in a strong showing to come second and slip to third. (Read slowly; this isn't easy.) And Rajiv Rai, shock horror calumny, finished fourth, thus remaining stationary in the BQC League points tally, albeit still the leader by a fair (but diminishing) margin.

Dhananjay Shettigar was the quizmaster, and asked around 70 questions in a superbly balanced quiz. There were two questions involving sado-masochism, two involving rape, but do not go by that, for in tabloid mode I report only the sensational. The quiz was enjoyed by all, and would have passed as family entertainment had a family cared to show up. Ha!

The results:

1st with 36 points
Ashwan Lewis
Mukund Krishnan
Sarat Rao
Raghu

2nd with 32.5 points
Rishi Iyengar
Prasann Potdar
Govind Grewal
Kartik R

3rd with 27 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Meghashyam Shirodkar
Nandan Krishnaswamy

4th with 25.5 points
Rajiv Rai
Avinash Mudaliar
Sireesh Rao

5th with 22.5 points
Anand Sivasankar
Udatta Duarah
Ajith Prabhakar

6th with 19.5 points
Mahesh Murthy
Ameya Samant
Kedar Shastry

7th with 18.5 points
Amit Varma
Vibhendu Tiwari
Shambhu Shankar
Devang Ghia

8th with 17 points
AP Alagarsamy
Arvind Krishnaswamy
Francis Rodrigues

And now for the standings:

BQC Season Two Standings (from 10 quizzes, as of September 2, 2007)

59.5 points

Rajiv Rai (from 8 quizzes)

48 points
Ashwan Lewis (7)

46.5 points
Rishi Iyengar (8)

38 points
Amit Varma (8)

34 points
Prasann Potdar (6)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (8)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)

27 points
AP Alagarsamy (8)
S Balakrishnan (6)

26 points
Govind Grewal (9)

24 points
Amit Pandeya (8)
Anand Sivasankar (9)
Kartik Srivatsa (4)

22.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (3)

22 points
Ajith Prabhakar (8)
Sumant Srivathsan (6)

19.5 points
Ameya Samant (8)

17 points
Kedar Shastry (6)

16.5 points
Dhananjay Shettigar (8)

15 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (9)

14 points
Devang Ghia (8)
Samrat Sengupta (3)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (3)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (2)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (5)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Avinash Mudaliar (5)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Sarat Rao (?)
Raghu (?)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Ravi Venkatesh (4)
Rahul Bhaskar (2)
Kartik R (?)

4 points
Francis Rodrigues (5)
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (5)
Sushant Raut (5)
Udatta Duarah (2)


The next quiz will be conducted on September 23. Watch this blog for more details.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Dhananjay Shettigar will ask...

... You will answer! There's a BQC quiz tomorrow -- do you have the cojones to take part? Huh? Huh?

Time: 3pm, Sunday, September 2 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmaster: Dhananjay Shettigar
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

The latest league standings, and a report for the last quiz, are here. Are you missing all the fun?

Thursday, August 30, 2007

The Do Numberi finally makes it!

This post has been written by Rajiv Rai, and is posted on his behalf.

Amit Varma had been the perpetual runner-up in this season's edition of the quizzes, several times the bridesmaid, but never destined to climb the altar. But it all changed this Sunday at the Pinstorm office. In the company of Samrat Sengupta and S Balakrishnan, he took the lead from the first written round, and built on it to finish 3 questions adrift of the closest competition. It mattered little that the questions dealt with the sublime [what connects Kafka, Pinter and Bradman - adjectives formed from their names use the ending -esque] or the ridiculous [songs sung by Sanjay Malakar in his squeaky quest for the American Idol] - these were answered with equal aplomb and equanimity.

The battle for second position was a humdinger, with Rishi Iyengar, Ameya Samant and Mukund Krishnan slugging it out against Rajiv Rai and Dhananjay Shettigar. While all eyes were on these two teams, Ashwan Lewis, Ajith Prabhakar and Kedar Shastry quietly toted up the points and with a question to go, could have stolen the second position. Sadly, that was not to be and the first two mentioned teams tied for the second position. Even a written tie-breaker could not split the deadlock and the points were split.

This quiz was billed as a "Meghasyam special," and so it turned out to be. Good questions, diced up with good humour and regularly punctuated with questions on the Bombay Underground and Dogs, kept the team on their toes.

Detailed list of standings in the quiz, and individual rankings are given below.

1st with 30 points
Amit Varma
Samrat Sengupta
S Balakrishnan

2nd-3rd with 24.5 points (tied)
Rajiv Rai
Dhananjay Shettigar

Rishi Iyengar
Ameya Samant
Mukund Krishnan

4th with 23.5 points
Ashwan Lewis
Ajith Prabhakar
Kedar Shastry

5th with 20 points
Anand Sivasankar
Vibhendu Tiwari
Devang Ghia

6th with 15 points
Govind Grewal
Sarat Rao
Rahul Bhaskar

7th with 13.5 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Souvik Basu

8th with 9.5 points
Sireesh Rao
Nrupal Choudhari
Vidya

And now, the league standings:

BQC Season Two Standings (as of August 27, 2007)

59.5 points

Rajiv Rai (from 7 quizzes)

39.5 points
Rishi Iyengar (7)

38 points
Amit Varma (7)
Ashwan Lewis (6)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (8)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (5)

27 points
AP Alagarsamy (7)
Prasann Potdar (5)
S Balakrishnan (6)

24 points
Amit Pandeya (8)
Anand Sivasankar (8)
Kartik Srivatsa (4)

22 points
Ajith Prabhakar (7)

19.5 points
Ameya Samant (7)

19 points

Govind Grewal (8)

18 points
Sumant Srivathsan (5)

17 points
Kedar Shastry (5)

16.5 points
Dhananjay Shettigar (8)

15 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (8)

14 points
Devang Ghia (7)
Samrat Sengupta (3)

12.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (2)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (3)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Avinash Mudaliar (4)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (1)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (4)
Ravi Venkatesh (4)
Rahul Bhaskar (2)

4 points
Francis Rodrigues (4)
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (4)
Sushant Raut (5)
Udatta Duarah (1)

Saturday, August 25, 2007

The Meghasyam Special!

There is a BQC quiz coming up tomorrow at 3pm. The details:

Time: 3pm, Sunday, August 26 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmaster: Meghasyam Shirodkar
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

The latest league standings are here. Hop on over, leave your mark!

Monday, August 13, 2007

Rajiv Rai shows his class

If John Updike was to watch the Bombay Quiz Club in action, he would no doubt describe Rajiv Rai's recent roll as a "Tiger Woodsian performance". Rajiv won yet another BQC quiz this Sunday, shooting to 54 points in the league championship table, a full 16 points ahead of his nearest competitor, Ashwan Lewis.

The quiz was conducted by Avinash Mudaliar, and put together by Avinash and Kedar Shastry. It contained over 100 questions, and far more audio-visuals than the BQC is accustomed to. Immense fun thereby resulted, and the quiz was extremely close throughout -- Defending league champion AP Alagarsamy's team battled valiantly to second place, while the third place changed almost ten times in the second half of the quiz. Mahesh Murthy's team eventually cracked the last question to jump from joint fourth to third place.

The results:

1st with 36.5 points
Rajiv Rai
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Amit Pandeya
Devang Ghia

2nd with 31 points
AP Alagarsamy
S Balakrishnan
Ashwan Lewis
Mukund Krishnan
Rahul Bhaskar

3rd with 29.5 points
Mahesh Murthy
Udatta Duarah
Kartik Srivatsa
Ajith Prabhakar

4th with 28 points
Govind Grewal
Dhananjay Shettigar
Nandan Krishnaswamy
Mehar Sridhar

5th with 27.5 points
Vibhendu Tiwari
Ravi Venkatesh
Amit Varma

6th with 24.5
Rishi Iyengar
Sumant Srivathsan
+ 2 (I don't have these names, will fill them in when I get them)

7th with 23.5 points
Anand Sivasankar
Souvik Basu
Kartik Ramadas
Shambhu Shankar

8th with 18 points
Arvind Krishnaswamy
Sireesh Rao
Pratik Chaturvedi
Seeta Menon

And now for the league standings:

BQC Season Two Standings (as of August 13, 2007)

54 points

Rajiv Rai (from 6 quizzes)

38 points
Ashwan Lewis (5)

34 points
Rishi Iyengar (6)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (7)

28 points
Amit Varma (6)
Mahesh Murthy (5)

27 points
AP Alagarsamy (7)
Prasann Potdar (5)

24 points
Anand Sivasankar (7)
Kartik Srivatsa (4)
Amit Pandeya (8)

22 points
Ajith Prabhakar (6)

19 points
Govind Grewal (7)

18 points
Sumant Srivathsan (5)

17 points
Kedar Shastry (4)
S Balakrishnan (5)

15 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (7)

14 points
Ameya Samant (6)
Devang Ghia (6)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (3)
Dhananjay Shettigar (7)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Avinash Mudaliar (4)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (1)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (4)
Ravi Venkatesh (4)
Mukund Krishnan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (1)

4 points
Francis Rodrigues (4)
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Samrat Sengupta (2)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (3)
Sushant Raut (5)
Udatta Duarah (1)

The next quiz will be conducted on Sunday, August 26. More details later.

Monday, July 30, 2007

The Rai and Iyengar juggernaut...

... rolls on. At yesterday's BQC quiz, Rajiv Rai and Rishi Iyengar found themselves in the same team, along with early league leader Prasann Potdar, and won an immensely close quiz on a tiebreaker after being tied for first. Rajiv thus increased his lead in the BQC League standings, shooting up to 44 points. Rishi, with three tentacular wins on the trot, was second on 34.

Salil Bijur came all the way from Pune to conduct the quiz, and did a fabulous job. Half the questions were contributed by his fellow BCQC members, J Ramanand and Sudarshan Purohit. It was a well-balanced quiz -- fluid, fun and mostly workoutable.

Eight teams of four members each took part, and it was close throughout. At one point, when my team was seventh, I told my team-mates that third place was within reach. Young Govind Grewal, the resident sledger of the BQC, garrumphed and informed me that only first would do. He walked his talk as we got onto a hot streak and were in the lead with two questions to go. Then we were second with one question to go. Then we got half points on the last question and ended tied for first.

To avoid the league table being cluttered up with half-points -- the eight of us would have got 8.5 points each -- I insisted on a tiebreak. Me and my big mouth. So there it was, my fourth second position in five quizzes this season. I will come to the next quiz with a battleaxe, and then we will see who dares to stand in the way.

The results below:

1st with 25 points (tiebreak)
Rajiv Rai
Rishi Iyengar
Prasann Potdar
Neeraj

2nd with 25 points (Pah!)
Ravi Venkatesh
Anand Sivasankar
Govind Grewal
Amit Varma

3rd with 22 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Sireesh Talluri Rao
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Ajith Prabhakar

4th with 21 points
Vibhendu Tiwari
Souvik Basu
Sarika Chuni
Parag Lokhande

5th with 18 points
Dhananjay Shettigar
Avinash Mudaliar
Nrupal Choudhari
Shambhu Shankar

6th with 16 points
Amit Pandeya
Rohan Khanna
Devang Ghia
Kedar Shastry

7th with 14 points
AP Alagarsamy
Ameya Samant
Ajay Ravindran
Kartik

8th with 13 points
Padma Sinha
Arjun Sinha
Francis Rodrigues
Mahar

Phew. And now for the league standings:

BQC Season Two Standings (as of July 30, 2007)

44 points

Rajiv Rai (from 5 quizzes)

34 points
Rishi Iyengar (5)

31 points
Ashwan Lewis (4)

28 points
Amit Varma (5)

27 points
Prasann Potdar (5)

24 points
Anand Sivasankar (6)
Mahesh Murthy (4)

20 points
AP Alagarsamy (6)
Kartik Srivatsa (2)

19 points
Govind Grewal (6)
Pradeep Ramarathnam (6)

18 points
Ajith Prabhakar (5)
Sumant Srivathsan (4)

17 points
Kedar Shastry (4)

15 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (6)

14 points
Ameya Samant (5)
Amit Pandeya (7)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (3)
Dhananjay Shettigar (6)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Avinash Mudaliar (4)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
S Balakrishnan (4)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (1)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (3)
Ravi Venkatesh (3)

4 points
Devang Ghia (5)
Francis Rodrigues (4)
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Samrat Sengupta (2)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (2)
Sushant Raut (5)

The next quiz will be conducted by Avinash Mudaliar and Kedar Shastry at 3pm on August 12. Watch this space for more.

Friday, July 27, 2007

The BCQC comes to the BQC

Members of the Bombay Quiz Club (BQC) have frequently travelled to Pune to take part in quizzes conducted by the famous Boat Club Quiz Club (BCQC), and now the BCQC comes to Mumbai. This Sunday, Salil Bijur of the BCQC will conduct a quiz here, with around 40 questions of his own and another 40 by BCQC stalwarts J Ramanand and Sudarshan Purohit. The details:

Time: 3pm, Sunday, July 29
Quizmaster: Salil Bijur
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

The latest league standings are here. Ashwan Lewis is back in action, but Rajiv Rai is ready for him. Meanwhile, behind, Rishi Iyengar lurks with a knife and fork. Fun will come!

PS: If you intend to come for the quiz, please be at the venue by 2.40pm. The quiz will start sharp at 3. Latecomers may have to be content to sit in the audience.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

The big guns fire at the BQC

S Balakrishnan conducted a quiz yesterday at the Pinstorm office that was like a pot belly: it separated the men from the boys. The big guns of the BQC fired at last, as last year's league champion, AP Alagarsamy, romped to victory in a team that included BQC heavyweights like Rishi Iyengar, Sumant Srivathsan and Kartik Srivatsa. All of them had been either absent or under-performing in the last few weeks, though Rishi had signalled an eldritch drive to being eaten first by winning the last quiz.

Meanwhile, the biggest gun of them all, Rajiv Rai, ended up second, which was sufficient to take him to the top of the BQC League table. Mahesh Murthy's team, which contained notables Pradeep Ramarathnam, Govind Grewal and Ajith Prabhakar, came third.

The results are below, with the league standings below that.

1st with 39 points
AP Alagarsamy
Rishi Iyengar
Sumant Srivathsan
Kartik Srivatsa
Gaurav Singh

2nd with 33 points
Rajiv Rai
Amit Varma
Nandan Krishnaswamy
Kedar Shastry

3rd with 26 points
Mahesh Murthy
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Govind Grewal
Ajith Prabhakar

4th with 25 points
Dhananjay Shettigar
Amit Pandeya
Sarat Rao
Sushant Raut
Nrupal Choudhari

5th with 20 points
Arvind Krishnaswamy
Vibhendu Tiwari
Sauvik Basu
Niraj

6th with 16 points
Sireesh Rao
Sarayu Natarajan
Hanisha Vaswani
Arjun Sinha
Mehar Sridhar

7th with 15 points
Anand Sivasankar
Prasann Potdar
Devang Ghia
Prateek Chaturvedi

And now for the standings. A quick note, in case you missed it earlier: This season, all finalists do not get points. The team-members of the winning team get 10 points each, there are seven for second place and four for third. If there is an open quiz in which we have elims etc, then finalists get two points each.

BQC Season Two Standings (as of July 15, 2007)

34 points
Rajiv Rai (from 4 quizzes)

31 points
Ashwan Lewis(4)

24 points
Mahesh Murthy (4)
Rishi Iyengar (4)

21 points
Amit Varma (4)

20 points
AP Alagarsamy (5)
Kartik Srivatsa (2)

17 points
Anand Sivasankar (5)
Prasann Potdar (4)
Kedar Shastry (3)

15 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (5)
Pradeep Ramarathnam (5)

14 points
Ameya Samant (4)
Amit Pandeya (6)
Ajith Prabhakar (4)
Sumant Srivathsan (3)

12 points
Govind Grewal (5)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (2)
Dhananjay Shettigar (5)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Avinash Mudaliar (3)
Nilesh Jain (1)
S Balakrishnan (4)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (1)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (3)

4 points
Devang Ghia (4)
Francis Rodrigues (3)
Padma Sinha (2)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Samrat Sengupta (2)
Sushant Raut (5)

The next quiz will be conducted by Salil Bijur and Dhananjay Shettigar at 3pm on July 29, at Pinstorm.

A final word: We were all disappointed to learn that Ashwan Lewis has been rather ill, and missed this quiz because he was hospitalised a day earlier. Everyone at the BQC hopes that he recovers soon and gets back into action. The leaderboard needs him!

Friday, July 13, 2007

A Gala With Bala

This Sunday, veteran quizzer S Balakrishnan will conduct a quiz for the BQC. He will take no prisoners. He will brook no mercy. He might conduct an infant sacrifice or two if we are lucky. The details:

Time: 3pm, Sunday, July 15
Quizmaster: Bala!
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

The latest league standings are here. No, you don't have to memorize them. It's not that sort of quiz.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

'Identify the nebula!'

Such nostalgia. The last time young Dhoomketu conducted a quiz for the BQC, it was at the In Orbit Mall in Malad, and we were accused of playing housie by a mall manager who asked us to leave. Ha. Ho. On that occasion we stayed and finished the quiz. This time, in the convivial surroundings of Pinstorm, no one bothered us. Such fun.

Rajiv Rai, at the helm of an excellent team consisting of Rishi Iyengar, S Balakrishnan, Kedar Shastry and Nilesh Jain, stormed to victory. The intensity of the battle was evident when he leaned forward and hissed plaintively to his team-mates, "Identify that nebula." In the event, they didn't identify that nebula, but who needs nebulas? Who, huh?

Anyway, Rajiv shot to second place in the league standings with his win, with Ashwan Lewis, coming second in this quiz, remaining on top of the charts. The results are below, followed by the standings.

1st with 24 points
Rajiv Rai
Rishi Iyengar
S Balakrishnan
Kedar Shastry
Nilesh Jain

2nd with 19.5 points
Ashwan Lewis
Ameya Samant
Vibhendu Tiwari
Ajay Ravindran

3rd with 15.5 points
Amit Pandeya
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Hanisha Vaswani
Devang Ghia

4th with 15 points
Mahesh Murthy
Ravi Venkatesh
Samrat Sengupta
Anand Sivasankar
Amit Varma

5th with 11.5 points
AP Alagarsamy
Avinash Mudaliar
Govind Grewal
Shambhu Shankar

6th with 10.5 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Ajith Prabhakar
Sireesh Rao
Sushant Raut
Francis Rodrigues

And now the BQC League standings, after five quizzes:

BQC Season Two Standings (as of July 1, 2007)

31 points
Ashwan Lewis (from 4 quizzes)

27 points
Rajiv Rai (3)

20 points
Mahesh Murthy (3)

17 points
Anand Sivasankar (4)
Prasann Potdar (3)

15 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (4)

14 points

Ameya Samant (4)
Amit Pandeya (5)
Amit Varma (3)
Rishi Iyengar (3)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (2)
Dhananjay Shettigar (4)
Pradeep Ramarathnam (4)

10 points
AP Alagarsamy (4)
Ajith Prabhakar (3)
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Avinash Mudaliar (3)
Kartik Srivatsa (1)
Kedar Shastry (2)
Nilesh Jain (1)
S Balakrishnan (4)
Tanmay Sharma (2)

8 points
Govind Grewal (4)
Hanisha Vaswani (4)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (1)

4 points
Devang Ghia (3)
Francis Rodrigues (3)
Padma Sinha (2)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Samrat Sengupta (2)
Sumant Srivathsan (2)
Sushant Raut (4)

Phew. The next quiz is on July 15, and will be conducted by Meghashyam Shirodkar. Details will be on this blog. Be there, or be somewhere boring. So there.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

All the Gods are rejoicing

And who can blame them? This Sunday the BQC meets again for a ritual round of quizzing. As the heavens celebrate -- and hopefully refrain from releasing monsoon tears of happiness -- we shall ask questions and answer them and show off our abundant knowledge and problem-solving skills. Will you be there?

Details of the quiz:

Time: 3pm, Sunday, July 1
Quizmaster: Dhoomketu
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

This is our first quiz after the BQC has gone official, and we've instituted a membership fee and suchlike -- details are here. If you're a newcomer, though, you can check out a couple of quizzes before needing to pay up, so don't let that stop you. Much fun always comes.

Ah, and also, here are the league standings as of now. Ashwan, watch out!

Monday, June 18, 2007

The BQC gets official

The Bombay Quiz Club began because a bunch of us wanted to get together and quiz once in a while. We were frustrated by the predominance of business quizzes in Mumbai, and wanted to start something that would enable quizzers to meet regularly for general quizzing. (See Dhoomketu's early post on this for more.)

As the months went by, we grew, and evolved. We began a journey from a handful to a horde, and our needs as a group changed. We needed more space to meet, and eventually found a stable venue in Pinstorm. And as time goes by, we might have to move beyond this as well. It is natural to now want to spread the kind of quizzing we do into schools and colleges, and to think of conducting big open quizzes once in a while.

All this takes money, and sponsors don't give money to individuals. For the BQC to have a bank account and function in a professional manner, we need to be incorporated as a club. And therefore, before our last quiz began, that is just what we discussed.

Many of the early stalwarts who founded the original BQC with me have since disappeared from the scene, so it was decided that we'd incorporate the club with Mahesh Murthy and me listed as founding members. Both of us opted out from taking a post on the executive board for different reasons, and elections were held to fill those positions. The BQC office bearers are:

President: Rajiv Rai
Secretary: Arvind Krishnaswamy
Treasurer: Sumant Srivathsan

The quizzing has been great fun, and now there'll be much more of it. Things are on the up.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Pinstorm at the BQC

Pinstorm isn't just where BQC quizzes are held, they also provide some of its star quizzers. Mahesh Murthy, their big boss, took part in his second BQC quiz this season a few hours ago, and notched up his second win. In the process his teammate and Pinstorm colleague, Ashwan Lewis, shot to the top of the BQC League standings. At this rate, the Pinstorm boys will own this place in more ways than one!

Arvind Krishnaswamy and Tanmay Sharma conducted the quiz, in which 31 quizzers, spread across eight teams, took part. Mahesh's team, in which he was accompanied by Ashwan, Anand Sivasankar and Aravinda Talluri, dominated from start to finish, and won by a massive margin. The results are below, and then the standings:

1st with 29 points
Mahesh Murthy
Anand Sivasankar
Ashwan Lewis
Aravinda Talluri

2nd with 20 points
Rajiv Rai
Amit Varma
Ameya Samant

3rd with 19 points
Rishi Iyengar
Sumant Srivathsan
Ajay Ravindran
Pranav Kukreja

4th-5th with 16 points
AP Alagarsamy
Govind Grewal
Nandan Krishnaswamy
C Ram Shankar

Avinash Mudaliar
Raghu Gopalan
Kedar Sastry
Ajith Prabhakar

The other teams
Amit Pandeya
Vibhendu Tiwari
Sireesh Rao
Praveen Mohan

Dhananjay Shettigar
Francis Rodrigues
Devang Ghia
Sushant Raut

Nirad Inamdar
Hanisha Vaswani
Nrupal Chaudhary
Shambhu Shankar

And here come the standings, after four quizzes this season:

BQC Season Two Standings (as of June 17, 2007)

24 points
Ashwan Lewis (from 3 quizzes)

20 points
Mahesh Murthy (2)

17 points
Rajiv Rai (2)
Anand Sivasankar (3)
Prasann Potdar (3)

14 points
Amit Varma (2)

11 points
Dhananjay Shettigar (4)

10 points
AP Alagarsamy (3)
Amit Pandeya (4)
Kartik Srivatsa (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Ajith Prabhakar (2)
Avinash Mudaliar (2)
Aravinda Talluri (1)

8 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (3)
Govind Grewal (3)

7 points
Meghashyam Shirodkar (1)
Pradeep Ramarathnam (2)
Ameya Samant (3)
Akshay Mahajan (1)

4 points
Sumant Srivathsan (1)
Rishi Iyengar (2)
Samrat Sengupta (1)
Francis Rodrigues (2)
Hanisha Vaswani (3)
Ajay Ravindran (1)
Padma Sinha (2)
Sushant Raut (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)

The next quiz is on July 1. More details will be put up on this blog shortly, watch this space.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Rajiv Rai stars again

A fair number of quizzers from Mumbai, many of them members of the BQC, took part recently in the Mahaquizzer and the World Quizzing Championships. Ashwan Lewis organised both of them most ably, with Landmark and Pinstorm being the respective venues. So how did we do?

Rajiv Rai topped in Mumbai for both quizzes. The Mahaquizzer results are here: Samanth Subramanian of Chennai won with 71 while Rajiv's score was 64. Twelve people from Mumbai finished in the top 100.

The WQC results are here, but the Mumbai results haven't been incorporated yet in their spreadsheet -- not that any of us were in contention. Arul Mani of the KQA came first in India and 10th in the world with 150. (The score for a contestant's best seven sections out of a total of eight of 30 questions each is taken.) The Mumbai results are below:

Mumbai round of the WQC, 2007 (80+ scores)

103 -- Rajiv Rai
94 -- Harikrishnan Menon
86 -- Arvind Krishnaswamy
84 -- Rishi Iyengar
81 -- S Balakrishnan
80 -- Govind Grewal

Section winners (out of 30)

Entertainment: 14 -- Rishi Iyengar, 12 -- Amit Varma, Govind Grewal, S Balakrishnan

Sports: 15 -- Rajiv Rai, 12 -- Anand Sivasankar, Arvind Krishnaswamy

Culture: 16 -- S Balakrishnan, 13 -- Harikrishnan Menon

Science: 16 -- Rajiv Rai, 15 -- Harikrishnan Menon

Lifestyle: 16 -- Samrat Sengupta, 15 -- Arvind Krishnaswamy

Media: 17 -- Amit Varma, 16 -- Arvind Krishnaswamy

World: 14 -- Rajiv Rai, 13 -- Harikrishnan Menon

History: 20 -- Rajiv Rai, 16 -- Govind Grewal, Harikrishnan Menon, Rishi Iyengar

So that's that. While we're at it, don't forget that the next BQC quiz is at 3pm on June 17 at the Pinstorm office. Directions here.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

The Pandeya and Potdar show

The immensely strong team of Amit Pandeya, Prasann Potdar, Tanmay Sharma and Kartik Srivatsa stormed to a convincing win in the Ameya Samant quiz a few hours ago. BQC quizzes are often accused of not having enough Indian questions, and Ameya made up for it with a quiz containing more than 80 questions, and largely themed around India.

It must regretfully be stated that there were no questions about Himesh Reshammiya, but it was cantankerous fun otherwise. Francis Rodrigues contributed another 20+ questions, after which Dhananjay Shettigar changed from participant to quizmaster and asked 20 cricket questions. The team placed fifth shot up to second place by cracking seven-and-a-half of those, and those three gentlemen are now rather fond of Mr Shettigar. Not to mention cricket.

But the day belonged to the Pandeya gang. Pandeya combined a steely demeanour right out of Sergio Leone with a ruthlessness to put Godzilla to shame, and chewed up questions like Pac-Man on steroids. His team combined superbly ("the boys played well"), and their win put Prasann Potdar on top of the BQC standings. Alagarsamy who? Rajiv what? The BQC has a new leader, gentlemen!

The results are below, followed by the standings.

1st with 55 points
Amit Pandeya
Prasann Potdar
Tanmay Sharma
Kartik Srivatsa

2nd with 49 points
Anand Sivashankar
Ashwan Lewis
Amit Varma

3rd with 42 points
Padma Sinha
Hanisha Vaswani
Vibhendu Tiwari

4th with 41 points
Sarayu
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Sushant Raut

5th with 39 points
S Balakrishnan
Devang Ghia
Dhananjay Shettigar
Nrupal Chaudhary

6th with 28 points
Arvind Krishnaswamy
Arjun Sinha
Rishi Iyengar
Sarat Rao

And now for the standings, after three quizzes this season:

BQC Season Two Standings (as of June 4, 2007)

17 points

Prasann Potdar (from 3 quizzes)

14 points
Ashwan Lewis (2)

11 points
Dhananjay Shettigar (3)

10 points
Ajit Prabhakar (1)
Amit Pandeya (3)
AP Alagarsamy (2)
Avinash Mudaliar (1)
Kartik Srivatsa (1)
Mahesh Murthy (1)
Rajiv Rai (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)

8 points
Govind Grewal (2)
Vibhendu Tiwari (2)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Amit Varma (1)
Anand Sivashankar (2)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (1)
Pradeep Ramarathnam (2)

4 points
Francis Rodrigues (1)
Hanisha Vaswani (2)
Padma Sinha (2)
Samrat Sengupta (1)
Sushant Raut (2)

The next quiz will be conducted by Arvind Krishnaswamy and Samrat Sengupta on Sunday, June 17, at 3pm. The venue, once again, will be the Pinstorm office. Directions are here.