Masterminds!

With the addition of a quiz we easily started conversing and interacting and also enjoyed an interesting afternoon.
 
“It soon became a force and we now bond much closer as a group. Quiz is the master of our game and without it we would feel a little lost. Even today, we all wait for the quiz day to arrive to help boost our energy levels – to help us live through the rest of the month! It is an intensive three-hour experience – but an exhilarating one.”

To the credit of the group no member has ever left unless they have moved away from the island. Geeta, who teaches Hindi at Sacred Heart School, believes that the secret to the quizzing attraction is the competitive spirit it generates.

She said: “Human nature is naturally competitive and somewhere each one of us wants to prove ourselves. The desire to win is very addictive … it is the source of energy that makes you tick with the quiz.

“We are deadly serious and we are very committed but at the same time we have lots of fun. Every group is keen to win and we fight over every half-mark. Nobody takes it lightly and for those three to four hours, the child in each one of us is absolutely alive.

“We are totally in the present moment and we are so involved that you really have to be part of it to believe it!
“The bottom line is that if I can answer at least three or four questions my ego gets a major boost. If you get a reputation of being good it is a further boost and that brings a  special joy.”

The interesting aspect of the quiz challenge is that the winners take home nothing apart from ‘deep satisfaction’ said Geeta. “We just get the honour of winning the quiz that month. It is a tremendous pleasure, the hangover of which stays with you for two to three days!”

Members have likened winning the monthly challenge as exhilarating as winning the Cricket World Cup. Competitor Lalit Bakhru even posted on his Facebook social networking site wall: “The winning streak continues – World Cup, Anna Hazare (anti-corruption campaigner whose demands were agreed by the government of India) and now the Quiz!”
Some rules that the game has established over the years include punctuality – there is negative marking for people who come late. The host couple must also NOT distract members by providing a grand meal because the quiz itself is the important factor of the day.

The teams of two are pre-selected by each monthly quizmaster and married couples are never allowed to play together. Geeta explained saying: “This is to prevent disputes or mistakes from being carried home!”
The quizmasters have the liberty to bring their own personalities into each game they host. This often involves specialised topics.

Members have also introduced different variations into the game such as time keeping buzzers and another provides tokens for every correct answer instead of recording scores.

On one memorable afternoon the group even invited their children to participate in the first three rounds on the subject of ‘Walt Disney and his wonderful land – Disneyland’.

With the advent of technology and access to the internet, quiz afternoons mean fancy powerpoint presentations projected on a big screen complete with video and music clips. However, this was not always the case.

In the early days Jayesh said that the host couple had to rely on cuttings from books and magazines, personal videotapes and music albums to add pizzazz to the rounds. He said: “It used to be a very painstaking process. We used to purchase quiz books on our annual trips home!

“We had to read out the questions, write the answers, cut out pictures and paste them. It was a big family affair and used to take a long time.

“The internet has changed the entire outlook of our quiz. We now play around with information and create unique connections. For example, people were asked to spot the link between typhoons and some famous people.

“However, the idea is not to make it so difficult that the participants cannot answer the questions and lose interest in the game. We want challenging questions but we try to keep it at a level that at least one of the groups is able to find the answer.”

But one question that Geeta confessed seemed very simple but foxed everyone was the order of the Hindi alphabets, a language most members learned throughout school.

The quizzing fever has also rubbed off on the group member’s children. Jayesh and Geeta’s son Pratik won the first Bournvita quiz contest in Bahrain at the age of 12. In the next year, Sakshi Arora, former member Rajeev Arora’s daughter was the winner and this year’s runner-up was Mir Bhatia, son of Ameena and Vinay Bhatia.

Geeta also helps organise all her school quiz competitions. She has also travelled to Kolkata in India with her son and his teammate to take part in an all-India school quiz competition.

The members have also formed smaller groups to participate and win in other competitions around the island. Despite having all this experience Geeta said that it is ‘never a cakewalk!’

“We have to watch the news, read newspapers and try and be constantly up-to-date,” she added. “Despite all the preparation there is always someone who is better than you at one of the topics.”

Other members of the quiz group include Mukta and Vishwanath Beharay, Sejal and Himanshu Gandhi, Mrinal and Hemant Joshi, Shama and Sujoy Uchil, Rupa and Gopi Subramaniam, Manasi and Avinash Phadnis, Isabella Andrews and Sangeeta Palicha.