(Personal Copy, Starring Left to Right Standing Dr Vikram Venkateswaran, Abhimanyu Lal, Prashant Agarwal, Sheetal Bahl. Sitting Supratik Sen, Abhyan Kumar, Samrat Das Gupta, Abhishek Malhotra and Alok Shekhar)
Serendipity means 'discovery by chance' and that is how I was catapulted into the world of quizzing. Those who know me for the last few years think my quizzing career has been a well thought of move. The truth is I was least interested in it.
I was literally bull dozed into it in tenth standard by a friend. Well I won't like to name him but he is a big consultant today and he filled my brain with all the mindless garbage that consultants normally spout. I guess he is good at consulting because I did exactly what he told me to do but with disastrous results. We finished last. But I was bitten by the Quiz bug. It was exciting to be on stage and remember random trivial facts about people you never care or know!!!
One example - How do we better know Vernon Howell? Well I knew this one. It was actually this question that got me started with quizzing. It was that lunatic bunch of people in Waco Texas who called themselves Branch Davidians and the FBI went in to get them .There was mass slaughter and mayhem and finally everyone on the ranch ended up dead. Their leader was Vernon Howell AKA David Koresh.
How do I care if the guy thought he was Jesus or that he had 10 wives ? Well Draupadi from the Mahabharata had 5 husbands , that‘s how liberated we were then. Does knowing about this Whacko from Waco make this world a better place? Perhaps not but this is what drives most quizzers, the magical ability to retain random facts. From then on I have been hooked.
It has been a long journey of sorts - Columban Open in 1993 in DPS RKP colors to reprinting KMC at Suratkhal in 1999. The finale was becoming the national champion at the AIMA National Student Management Quiz at 2007 representing IMT Ghaziabad.
People often ask me how I remember all this crazy stuff. Well the truth is that I don’t know!! I never took to quizzing by intention; it was the guile and smooth talk by a consultant. They say consultants make you do things that you don't really need.
Maybe I was better off without quizzing who knows ? Till then we can always blame serendipity!
Always liked quizzes. didn't know u had the interest too
ReplyDeleteHey Ved
ReplyDeleteBeen quizzing since 1991 its been one of my core interests. Have been quizzing for a long time through school, Medical School and B school.
Why does all the crazy shit have to happen in Texas ?
ReplyDelete@Neato not sure about that I have never been to Texas. But you are right a lot crazy stuff happens there.
ReplyDelete