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!