Tuesday, August 26, 2008

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!


5 comments:

Vincent D' Souza said...

We really appreciate the earnestness with which many bloggers and reporters have reported Madras Day 2008.
You are one of them.

Most online posts are mmmms and Brrrrrrs and such relations. We need to have reportage and this has happened too.

While we sweat it out to catalyse the event we also need the community to lend a hand, participate and document Madras Day.

Perhaps, these people will go on to host events.
And I hope Shantaram and your group will do so next year.

Yes, Madras Day Quiz has always been a warm event. Maybe we should have a party at the end of it next year!

Shantaram said...

>> Vincent>> All for the party - even if I end up off-stage at the quiz, as I have for the past 4 years :(

Karthik Narayan said...

Thanks for this report - I also did my bit last year :)

BTW also I seem to have featured in your photo unwillingly :)

We would like your permission in using some of the photos taken and put up in this blog.

Shantaram said...

@ Karthik: Hmmm... can't figure out who you are from this photo ;)

Sure, you can use pictures from here for non-commercial purposes - but am hoping you'll be able to credit them to this blog? And would also like to know which ones you'd be using.... thanks!

Karthik Narayan said...

Great thanks - We will most certainly use it during the Madras Quiz and credit you for it.

Maybe we can meet up - if you have any interesting titbits on Madras could you share them with me? karthik.globalsoul@gmail.com is my id