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.