The Iyengar Strikes Back

The night after Rishi Iyengar won the first quiz of this BQC season, he was woken at 3 am by a strange, acrid smell, much like the singed flesh of a horse. He sensed something on the bed. He moved his leg; his knee bumped into something; something still warm from having recently been alive. He switched on the light and realised that he no longer had a racehorse. Or rather, that it no longer had a head.

Attached to one ear was a note that said, "Rajiv Rai wasn't there."

Iyengar crushed the note in one palm. Then he crushed the head in the other. Yes, the reigning BQC league champion hadn't been present in that first quiz. But he would, sooner or later, take part in a quiz. And then Iyengar would show him, and show whoever had written this note in Govind Grewal's handwriting, what Iyengars are all about. Having soothed himself with this thought, he went back to sleep.

And ya, you've got the storyline, so I'll cut the crap. Rajiv took part in his first quiz this season, and Rishi won, ably helped by an unusually strong team. Joint-league leaders Sumant and me had an off-day, which allowed Rishi to take the lead in the league table. Prasann Potdar was the quizmaster. There were many questions on wine and Kyrgyzstan, and quite a few weren't workoutable, but a good time was had by all. Here are the results:

1st with 48 points
Rishi Iyengar
Sandip Sen
Avinash Mudaliar
Kedar Sastry

2nd with 35 points
Rajiv Rai
Mahesh Murthy
Rahul Bhaskar

3rd with 28 points
S Balakrishnan
Ajith Prabhakar
Amit Pandeya

4th with 24 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Sarat Rao
Devang Ghia

5th with 23 points
Udatta Duarah
Ameya Samant
Shiv Anant Tayal

6th with 21 points
Ananya Deb
Amit Sharma
Sriram Krishnan

7th with 18 points
Vibhendu Tiwari
Francis Rodrigues
Sandeep Rajpurohit

8th with 16 points
Amit Varma
Govind Grewal
Ajay Ravindran

The league table gets quite competitive now. Here's how it looks:

BQC Season three Standings (from three quizzes, as of May 11, 2008)

20 points
Rishi Iyengar (from 3 quizzes)

17 points
Amit Varma (3)
Avinash Mudaliar (3)
Mahesh Murthy (2)
Sumant Srivathsan (3)

14 points
Kedar Sastry (3)

10 points
Govind Grewal (3)
Mitul Kodali (2)
Sandeep Rajpurohit (3)
Sandip Sen (1)
Shrikant Narasimhan (1)

8 Points
S Balakrishnan (3)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (2)

7 points
Ajay Ravindran (2)
Pradeep Ramarathnam (2)
Raamesh Gowri Raghavan (2)
Rahul Bhaskar (1)
Rajiv Rai (1)
Udatta Duarah (2)
V Sreeharsha (1)

4 points
Ajith Prabhakar (3)
Ameya Samant (2)
Amit Pandeya (3)
Anand Sivasankar (2)
Brian D'Souza (2)
Vibhendu Tiwari (3)

The next BQC quiz will be conducted by Sireesh Talluri Rao on Sunday, May 25 -- more details will follow on this blog. But before that, there's the nationwide quiz, Mahaquizzer, being conducted by the fine folk at the KQA this Sunday. Click here for details, and do Mumbai proud.