Another day, another quiz

The contrast with a quiz that happened barely ten days ago couldn't be starker. The Landmark Quiz was held in a large auditorium, with cushioned seats, advance registration, assigned seating, coordinated lighting, visuals, slick presentations and tons of prize money. The Madras Quiz on the other hand was in a small hall tucked away inside Karpagambal Nagar, near Luz - finding the hall seemed to be an elimination round in itself, even with Google Maps. And then it was walk-in registration, find your seats, jump up to see the question on screen, have fun and fight it out to show off who knows more about Chennai - no prizes though, ladies and gentlemen, just the bragging rights.

The teams that went up on 'stage' (a makeshift platform, actually) for the finals certainly deserved their bragging rights. A tough preliminary round sorted out all those who knew only parts of the City and the teams that went up knew a lot, from the names of the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, the Commissioner of the Corporation of Chennai to that of the oil tanker which played a role in resolving the fuel crisis of July 1 and the location of the PK Srinivasan Maths Research Foundation. The finals saw some stiff competition before the winning team (VV Ramanan & Ramkumar Shankar) came through with a 1-answer margin. The point however, as Vincent D'Souza, the quizmaster and one of the founders of Madras Day said, was to create an interest and appreciation of the variety that Chennai city offers.

And the variety was reflected in the events of this year's Madras Day celebrations - heritage walks, nature walks, photowalks, exhibitions, food festival, book releases, the Madras Musings lecture series - now that it is all over, I just can't wait for the next birthday party!