Keeping quiet

Keeping quiet and remembering Garrincha

Have conducted 5 quizzes in 5 weeks, so understandably, I'm a little of tired of standing in front of people and pestering them with questions and more questions. I was actually hoping to take it easy the last couple of months, quizzing-wise, but the bug just keeps biting hard. A maun-vrat is perhaps in order.

Anway, today, a bunch of us were at ACES 2007, and at the end, we started talking, as we usually do there, about the ESPN Sports School quiz. This was probably my most favorite competitive TV quiz show, because of the superb participants, the hosting of Harsha Bhogle, and the nature of the questions (trivial, but fun). It wasn't the fairest format, but it made for great viewing. It's a huge pity that the series stopped, reportedly for lack of sponsorship.

We have a couple of former ESPN school quiz winners and participants at the BCQC and in Pune, and they have done much to raise the profile of quizzing in their respective schools and cities, and to raise the profile of their own schools and cities in the rest of the country. We have Aniket whom we all remember as the little kid from Rangubai Junnare, Nasik, Suvajit from DPS Farakka, the team from Birla High school and so on (some of them have graduated to the senior open circuit and still do very well).

And of course, there was Abhinava Vidyalaya and the Rohits, Bahulekar and Chandrachud. Even before the episode had been telecast, I knew from Salil that the school had won, but that didn't rob me of any excitement of actually watching it go right down to the wire in the last final. No non-East Zone team had won it upto that point. Harish, Samrat, I and others would keenly keep track of teams from West Zone, such as from Pune, Nasik and Bombay, and knew that they had the potential. Esp. after seeing Aniket and the Rohits in the previous year of competition.

Finally, "Garrincha" sealed the win for Abhinava and Pune. Still remains my most favorite quizzing moment.