Will take this chance to publicly congratulate Harish and his team members - Shom, Amit and Vivek from MDI for pulling off a keenly contested University Challenge Quiz round against NITC, Kozhikode. Harish has now been called every possible name from the four strings that make up his name - "Venkata" joining the ranks of "BVHK", "The Bhamidipathi Express" etc.

They missed a couple of good trivia questions ("Omar Khayyam" the tentmaker among them), were somewhat reluctant to go for the buzzer, I thought, but also got a couple of tough ones (liked the speed of Vivek's "Colorado" answer). They went early for the "Baltic States" answer (it was obvious where the question was going). They got three questions on R.D.Burman (all sitters - "Bhoot Bangla", "Parichay" and "1942 - A Love Story") and got 5 out of the 6 Indian Presidents who had also served as Vice-Presidents.

It's good when the earlier show is telecast even before the next round is shot, so everyone can watch it without the results of the next round casting a shadow on proceedings. Good luck to the guys with their next round coming up very soon.

ISB, Bangalore and AFMC, Pune are the 2 other teams I know members from - also know their first round results, but in interests of suspense, won't mention it here.