Malhar 2004 III - Revenge!

The third day of Malhar 2004 seemed to follow a predictable pattern at first, apart from a few minor details. After an interesting one hour local ride from Thane to CST (my first solo), I got together with my contingent (they were staying at a hotel near Xaviers, I was staying with my cousin Varun, an Admin volunteer at Malhar). We had our predictable problems with Malhar Security and were 45 minutes late for our event, North by Northwest. Fortunately, so were the other participants.

The All Topic Quiz

The All Topic Quiz was called North by Northwest, and we were told it would have a travel format. On the elims day, the QM (Khaliq) had loudly asserted, "THIS IS NOT A GEOGRAPHY QUIZ". We were apprehensive, given the previous day's experiences. However, as I later told one of the QMs, it was the best quiz in Malhar. I think the poor chap actually took that as a compliment.

The FC team in North by Northwest consisted of Ulka Athale, Puranjay Parchure and me. The QMs were a guy named Khaliq and a girl called Rutuja (I think). The other teams were FC, IIT, Xaviers, HR College and an unknown OTSE team.

The quiz did have a funny format. There would be 3 rounds of D&P 10+5 at first followed by a buzzer round (+10,-5), following which 2 teams would be eliminated, and the format would change. We took an early lead, answering all the questions in the first round. The questions weren't like those in the Book Quiz (ie they were answerable). We continued this form throughout the first phase, finishing 30-40 points clear of the opposition. IIT came second with Xaviers at third. The HR and OTSE team were eliminated.

In the break between the two phases, some audience questions were asked by the sponsor, DHL. It was an obvious gimmick, as the three answers began with the letters D, H and L. Unsportingly, the prizes were all taken by Jhavierite LA volunteers.

A little while later, the second phase began. A map of the world with a route from Bombay to Delhi going all around the world with stops at various cities of the world was projected with profuse thanks to the Texx guy who sat up all night making it (I still dont know why it took him so long). The funda was basically this, all teams start from Bombay. If you answer correctly, you advance to the next city with 10 points. If you dont answer in two turns, you advance to the next city with a penalty of 2 points. You answer questions on the neighbourhood of the city you are on. Also, no passes. However, as the quiz was a race to Delhi, this was effectively a Ganga Snan of the points we had earned thus far. If my memory serves me, the cities were Bombay, Dhaka, Colombo, Bangkok, Jakarta, Canberra, Suva, Ascuncion, Pretoria, Cairo, Baghdad, Ankara, Rome, London, Paris, Stockholm, Washington, Caracas, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, Islamabad and Delhi.

Here we got stuck on our India questions, and the other teams both went a place ahead. When we were asked where Vijayalakshmi Pandit became India's first ambassador, I answered the UN (it was the USSR). The Jhavieite sitting behind me snickered, "Khaliq had asked where she was ambassador. How can it be the UN? So ignorant!"(or something to that effect). Yeah sister, you showed me which one of us was ignorant. Anyway, we made up this gap at Dhaka, and were a place ahead of our competitors. Not many questions here stand out, so I wont repeat them here. We kept our slight advantage right through to Europe. At Paris we were asked, "What began as a carrier pigeon service in Paris Berlin, etc etc?" We answered "DHL" (it was Reuters). I only mention this as this was one of the few times the Jhavierites laughed with us, not at us. We noticed that although we were not so succesful with our own questions, we answered almost every single one IIT and Xaviers couldnt. In fact, whenever Khaliq couldnt get an answer to the questions from them, he turned to us, not the audience.

Soon we were at Moscow, two places ahead. Khaliq was QM for the round. An evil smile spread across his face. "Give me the funda" he sneered, "on the RNS Kursk." "What funda?" I querried. "The complete funda" he said, evil smile growing. "Ok" I said, evil smile now on my face, "The RNS Kursk was a Russian Golf class SSGN cruise missile submarine based at Murmansk with the Red Banner Norhtern Fleet. She was named after the battle of Kursk aginst the Germans in 1943. She was lost in the White Sea with all hands, taking 110 men to their graves. Her captain was...". "Ok, ok" Khaliq stammered, looking like he'd just been tackled by Joe Rockococo, "I'll give it to you". You may floor me with your lit question, dazzle me with your India trivia or confound me with your knowledge of music, but no one, no Jhavierite at least, screws with me on military technology and hardware.

We were now at Islamabad, the home stretch now visible. A chastened Khaliq asked us, "Who persuaded Imran Khan to rejoin the cricket team in 1988?" We answered "Zia ul Haq", and that was it, we had won! We had finally beaten IIT! Mood-I 2003 was fully avenged, and we (FC) had our first victory outside Pune since 1998.

We (Puranjay, Varun Datar and I) went to Cafe Mondegar for a very expensive but well deserved celebration of this victory, then left for Pune on the Deccan Queen with our contingent.

On the whole, I'd say Malhar 2004 was a success for us. Apart from the quizzing results, FC won a second place in the Instrumental fusion and a third in the Hindi Film script writing. We just narrowly missed winning the LA trophy, which went to IIT (Damn!). We won a lot of (useless) prizes and got ourselves the (all important) certies. Although there were some bad experiences, on the whole Malhar wasnt too bad ;-). Although I had vehemently declared on Saturday that I was never coming back to Malhar, I dont think so now. I shall return!