Jacques Lacan and the sexual act

Arvind Krishnaswamy conducted a quiz for the BQC yesterday, and much activity happened. Jacques Lacan described an orgasm with an equation, Veerappan proposed to Phoolan Devi, Robbie Williams became Peter Gabriel and a pretty female terrorist almost killed Chou En-Lai. Amid all this action, Sumant Srivathsan resumed his winning ways, romping to victory with able team-mates Sandip Sen and Brian D'Souza. Rajiv Rai and his team ended up second. Aadisht Khanna, Pradeep Ramarathnam and Sireesh Rao split third place with Ameya Samant, Devang Ghia and Akanksha Mohan; and Jason Kresja conceded many, many runs.

This was the last BQC quiz of 2008, and scenes of immense mourning followed the quiz, as well as some hedonism. But that must remain confidential.

The results:

1st with 138 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Sandip Sen
Brian D'Souza

2nd with 96 points
Rajiv Rai
Atulya Bharadwaj
Nandan Krishnaswamy

Tied 3rd-4th with 68 points
Aadisht Khanna
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Sireesh Rao

Ameya Samant
Devang Ghia
Akanksha Mohan

5th with 64 points
Amit Varma
Anil Kothuri
Srikant Narasimhan

6th with 46 points
Vibhendu Tiwari
Janardhan R
Bikash Mohapatra

7th with 42 points
Udatta Duarah
Rahul Bhaskar

8th with 26 points
Atul Mathew
Swapnil Patil

And now for the league standings:

BQC Season three Standings (from 18 quizzes, as of December 21, 2008)

103 points
Rajiv Rai

63 points
Sumant Srivathsan

53.5 points
Aadisht Khanna

48 points
Udatta Duarah

47 points
Vibhendu Tiwari

42.5 points
Amit Varma
Rishi Iyengar

40 points
Ameya Samant

38 points
Ajith Prabhakar
Atul Mathew

37 points
Sumit Roy

35 points
Sandip Sen

31.5 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam

29.5 points
Anannya Deb

28 points
Govind Grewal
Kaustuv Gupta

27 points
Rohit Ajitkumar
Shrikant Narasimhan

26.5 points
Prasann Potdar

26 points
Souvik Basu

25.5 points
Francis Rodrigues

25 points
Atulya B
Brian D'Souza

24 points
Kedar Sastry

22 points
Amit Pandeya
Anand Sivasankar
S Balakrishnan
Vijay Shankar

20 points
Sajith Pai

17 points
Avinash Mudaliar
Bikash Mohapatra
Mahesh Murthy
Mukund Sridhar

15.5 points
Akash Bansal

14 points
Akanksha Mohan
Mitul Kodali

13 points
Devang Ghia

12 points
Sireesh Talluri Rao

11.5 points
Sarat Rao

10 points
Amit Sharma
Dhananjay Shettigar
Kashyap Pandeya
Rahul Gaur
Rushi Bhavsar
Sandeep Rajpurohit
Srini Rajagopal

9 points
Mukund Krishnan

8 Points
Manish Mishra

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

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

4 points
Arvind Krishnaswamy
Gopal Kidao
Mithun Srivatsa
Neelabh
Rajendra Parmar
Ravi Venkatesh
Vijay Chittoor

The next quiz will probably be on January 4, 2009. Watch this space for further updates.

The Christmas Quiz

To account for the Christmas holidays, the 18th quiz of this season will take place a week early, on December 21. This Sunday. Arvind Krishnaswamy will conduct, hopefully in a Santa Claus suit. Be there -- or wait till next Christmas. The details:

QM: Arvind Krishnaswamy

Time: 3 pm, Sunday, December 21, 2008 (Please be there by 2:40 pm. Ha!)

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 a meeting.

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.

Newcomers are welcome at BQC quizzes, and do not need to form teams before coming. Teams are normally formed by a draw of lots at the venue itself, and everybody gets to take part. The questions are generally not the boring "you-know-it-or-you-don't" types, but accessible and workoutable ones.

The winning team get free reindeer. Er, wait, we're out of stock. Okay -- they get stinky socks to hang by the fireplace. Fine?

And Then There Was One

Rajiv Rai did not place in the 17th quiz of BQC's third season -- but that made little difference to the league table. By winning two tough quizzes just before that, he ensured that he extended his lead in the standings to a point from where one of his nearest contenders will have to win five quizzes in a row with Rajiv not scoring to overtake him. Forget it.

Vibhendu Tiwari also continued a good run, and is now second in the standings. Sumant Srivathsan had early leads in the first two quizzes, but ultimately managed not to place in any of them, and slipped to third overall. [Update -- the last two sentences no longer hold; we made a mistake by giving Vibhendu points for a quiz he did not attend. Now corrected.) Udatta Duarah made a move up the charts.

The first of these three quizzes was conducted by Mitesh Agarwal on November 16. It was a wonderful, well-balanced quiz, and ended with Rajiv's team sneaking ahead of Vibhendu's Aadisht's.

Two weeks after that, Atul Mathew conducted a quiz, followed by Gopal Kidao, our guest of honour from Chennai, asking questions from an India quiz. (They also took part in the half conducted by the other, swapping places on the same team.) This quiz ended in a tie -- and Rajiv's team beat Udatta Duarah's team in the tiebreaker.

Aadisht Khanna was QM on December 14, and the quiz was nail-bitingly close, with all eight teams in the top three at different points of time. Udatta's team won on the tiebreak, as his partner Atul Mathew jumped on the only BQC question ever about a porn film. He will be remembered for this.

The results are below; mea culpa for being so late with them. They are incomplete, with latecomers' names not included. In Mitesh's quiz, I know that Vibhendu's team came second, but as he seems to have been a latecomer himself, I don't know which team he was part of. All these details will be filled within 24 hours. Many apologies. [Update: Corrections have now been made to this post.]

BQC Quiz 15 -- Mitesh Agarwal

1st Rajiv Rai, Mukund Sridhar, S Balakrishnan. 2nd Aadisht Khanna, Ajith Prabhakar, Ameya Samant. 3rd Anannya Deb, Prasann Potdar, Devang Ghia and Mithun Srivatsa.

BQC Quiz 16 -- Atul Mathew and Gopal Kidao

1st Rajiv Rai, Sajith Pai, Anand Sivasankar, Ameya Samant. 2nd Udatta Duarah, Ajith Prabhakar, Prasann Potdar, Bikash Mohapatra. 3rd Gopal Kidao/Atul Mathew, Arvind Krishnaswamy, Sandip Sen, S Balakrishnan.

BQC Quiz 17 -- Aadisht Khanna

1st Udatta Duarah, Atul Mathew, Kaustuv Gupta, Amit Sharma. 2nd Vibhendu Tiwari, Devang Ghia, Mayuresh Gaikwad, Shreya. 3rd Govind Grewal, Akanksha Mohan, Vijay Shankar, Atulya Bharadwaj.

And now for the league table:

BQC Season three Standings (from Seventeen quizzes, as of December 14, 2008)

96 points
Rajiv Rai

53 points
Sumant Srivathsan

51.5 points
Aadisht Khanna

48 points
Udatta Duarah

47 points
Vibhendu Tiwari

42.5 points
Amit Varma
Rishi Iyengar

38 points
Ajith Prabhakar
Ameya Samant
Atul Mathew

37 points
Sumit Roy

29.5 points
Anannya Deb
Pradeep Ramarathnam

28 points
Govind Grewal
Kaustuv Gupta

27 points
Rohit Ajitkumar
Shrikant Narasimhan

26.5 points
Prasann Potdar

26 points
Souvik Basu

25.5 points
Francis Rodrigues

25 points
Sandip Sen

24 points
Kedar Sastry

22 points
Amit Pandeya
Anand Sivasankar
S Balakrishnan
Vijay Shankar

20 points
Sajith Pai

18 points
Atulya B

17 points
Avinash Mudaliar
Bikash Mohapatra
Mahesh Murthy
Mukund Sridhar

15.5 points
Akash Bansal

15 points
Brian D'Souza

14 points
Mitul Kodali

12 points
Akanksha Mohan

11.5 points
Sarat Rao

11 points
Devang Ghia

10 points
Amit Sharma
Dhananjay Shettigar
Kashyap Pandeya
Rahul Gaur
Rushi Bhavsar
Sandeep Rajpurohit
Sireesh Talluri Rao
Srini Rajagopal

9 points
Mukund Krishnan

8 Points
Manish Mishra

7 points
Ajay Ravindran
Arjun Swarup
Avinash Umapathy
Kaustubh Chakravarti
Norbert Fernandes
Raamesh Gowri Raghavan
Rahul Bhaskar
Shreya
V Sreeharsha

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

4 points
Arvind Krishnaswamy
Gopal Kidao
Mithun Srivatsa
Neelabh
Rajendra Parmar
Ravi Venkatesh
Vijay Chittoor

The next quiz will be conducted by Arvind Krishnaswamy on December 21. Details to follow within five minutes on this blog.

Slumdog Non-Millionaire

"If thy wants to be rich," thunders Shylock near the start of William Shakespeare's famous play, "be not a quizzer but a moneylender. Therein lie the rewards of life."

And yes, in the real world, it may seem that we slumdog quizzers never get rich -- in monetary terms. But our afternoons of enjoyment at BQC quizzes have their own value, and cannot be measured in rupees or paise. And here's the staggeringly amazing part -- the enjoyment is free!

Yes, BQC quizzes are open to all, and you are hereby invited to the 17th quiz of BQC's Season Three, to be conducted by Aadisht Khanna this Sunday. Memorize the details carefully -- as soon as you finish reading this post, this website will vanish, so burn these words in your memory:

QM: Aadisht Khanna

Time: 3 pm, Sunday, December 14, 2008 (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 a meeting.

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.

Newcomers should note that they do not need to form teams in advance -- teams are formed by a draw of lots. So if Bipasha Basu and Katrina Kaif turn up for one of our quizzes, which is not unlikely, they might well be on the same team as you, oohing and aahing in admiration, and resting their palms on your thigh, as you answer those difficult questions about things they have never even heard of. Motivation enough?

ps. And ah, I plead guilty on not putting up reports of the last two quizzes. By tomorrow...