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Here’s my report on a monthly quiz group that I joined in 1992, and which is still going strong….
Hi Everyone!
I must say, the one word that is most misused in QuizFamilies (after
the word “Basically”, which we use while we grope for answers that
may, by some random chance, be correct) is…”sitter”.
When any quizmaster, mistress, King, Queen or Knave tells you, “This
is a sitter” …whether he or she is talking about the question or the
quiz….DO NOT believe the words. It takes quite a while for the real
lollipops to start appearing, and then, ofkose, they always go to
Other Teams And Not Your Own.
A great case in point was Socro’s initial announcement, that he’d put
together the quiz in the last 12 hours, so it would consist of
“sitters and supersitters”…so many of his koschins went unanswered
by everyone, that he had to “re-run” them, so much so that I hereby
dub the December quiz the “Rerun Quiz”.
I am including the koschins here, so you can judge either the
toughness of the quiz (or the Ignorance Quotient of our group) for
yourselves. (I will be sending the audio round, which was actually a
crossword, separately.)
Let me just fill you in on the stuff apart from the koschins. The
teams were named “Happy”, “Sneezy”, “Grumpy”, and “Sleepy”, and much
hilarity ensued as we tried not to look happy or grumpy or sleepy,
according to which team we were sitting in! Little Ameya had a great
explanation for the connect on the team names: “It’s various ways of
holding our face”….great answer, Ameya! Our witty repartees are
coming from younger and younger people!
Our wit (if one of you cracks a good joke, and I am in the room, I am
entitled to say”we” are witty!) is renowned…just after the “What is
the second full moon in one month called?” (Blue Moon) question,
someone objected to “What is the name of an area of Venice, which is
now used generically for such settlements?” question (Ghetto). Raghu
quipped, “What’s your problem? We get an easy question once in a blue
moon!”
The quiz start was delayed for a bit while Ganu went to get
bondas…and these then figured very largely in the whole quiz, with
some of us saying, “So many questions have been re-run, we want a
re-run of the bondas also!”
Socro started the quiz, and the minute he projected his desktop on to
GV (I’ll explain what this was, a bit later), Raghu queried, “Why do
you have so many icons on your desktop?” In fact, Socro started
feeling, with our queries, that the quizmaster was being quizzed
himself 
GV…this stands for “Ganu’s Veshti”. The hosts not having a proper
white surface to use as a screen, this article of Ganu’s wardrobe was
pressed into use, hung like a Gobelin tapestry for Socro’s Famous
Projector.
We carefully abstained from witticisms on the veshti, but it put me
in mind of the khadi cloth that was used in some rural Gujrati cinema
hall..someone had the brilliant idea of dubbing the khadi, “Gandhiji
ki Dhoti”. Alas, after advertisements such as “Gandhiji ki Dhoti mein
Ek Phool Do Maali” and “Gandhiji ki Dhoti mein Ek Tha Tiger”, the name
had to be changed….
Break was a great time, too. Ganu of DAB (Delicious Alu Bonda) fame,
Hema and Janani, had provided a solid dinner for us. Sevige baath,
curd rice, dahi vada, sarkkarai pongal, and hot-hot masala chai and
filterkaapi….I was looking, and feeling, like a python when break
was over.
Socro’s “audio crossword” was a very innovative and interesting round,
but the quality of the sound had Jayakumar riposting, when asked,
“What is the next word?”…”We can’t even understand the preceding
words, how are we to give the next word!” I have attached a photo of
the crossword…but Socro, you can’t have a two-letter word sort of
hanging in outer space, like that! (Especially because I got it
wrong.)
Socro threw chocolates to those who gave correct answers, but I do
seem to remember some auctioning of leftover chocolates at the
end…..! Thank you, Socro, I had my chocolates as a lovely dessert
when I came home! I don’t normally buy these as I have no children at
home…so the enjoyment was even more pronounced!
Oh….I must mention the Dumb Charades round. We had to find the
author of the book that inspired the movie…and here’s the list:
Sleepy: Ganu: Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice); 2nd round (Hindi
films), Satyajit Ray (Shatranj Ke Khiladi); Sneezy: Deepa: J R R
Tolkien (The Hobbit); 2nd round, , Amrita Pritam (Pinjar…inspired
work by my team mates!) Grumpy: Sravana: Dan Brown (The Da Vinci
Code); 2nd round, Jyothi, Ruskin Bond (Junoon…the only one that no
one could get!) Happy: Janani, Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby…I
must say, all the rest of the teams got what Janani was conveying much
ahead of her team!); 2nd round, Jhumpa Lahiri (The Namesake) Janani
also did Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre) for fun, and she did a great
job!
Our DC rounds are great entertainers, and are surely responsible for
our ending the evening with gales of laughter!
I’ve added a couple of photos from the evening, too…please, all you
QF members, add yourself to the QF group that Sharmila has created. We
can exchange even more jokkus (and insults and info) over that! Here’s
the link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/408207439247509/?ref=ts&fref=ts
(I’ve posted Sunday’s photos there, too.)
Enjoy the lovely cold weather with adhrak-chai, hot soup, toasty
bhuttas, menchina bajji, and anything else….here’s wishing you all
the best for the festive times (or at least, the holidays!) ahead, and
looking forward to meeting you all in the New Year!
Cheers, Deepa.
[Do it at your own risk though]
, there are also stairs at the base of the fort, so be ready to get tired on your way to the top, again this shouldn’t be very tough.
