Landmark Open, Bangalore

Report

The Bangalore leg of the Landmark Open Quiz happened yesterday. Derek O'Brien was the quiz-master. The questions were of pretty high quality, unlike what I had thought when I had heard who the QM was. Derek put up an excellent show, involving and entertaining the audience.

The only gripe was that there was no parity between the standards of the questions in the prelims and in the finals. I guess this is always the case in an open quiz, where there should be something for all the participants. Four of the eight teams that qualified did not score any points in the Finals! But the very best teams too qualified, to the credit of the prelims' question-setters.

The team which had topped the prelims Mustafa (Infosys) (with 32 out of 40!), and the only team with a lady member, lasted till the penultimate round of the finals. It was largely because of the points carried over from the prelims, they didn’t answer too many questions in the on-stage round.

QED from Chennai beat "We Are Like This (W)Only" from Bangalore in a nail-bitingly thrilling buzzer-round face-off. They came back from behind and surprised the seasoned and omniscient WALTO. It was a top-notch performance from Swami and friends! Congrats guys! They had won the Chennai leg as well.

Anustup Dutta of WALTO was "crowned" the Brain Of Bangalore though. Derek O'Brien, in a jovial coronation ceremony, crowned him with an "18-carat, fake-gem-studded, aluminium crown [sic]". There was even a maid-of-honor chosen from the audience!

In retrospect (it seemed fair at the time), the only controversial event in the finals was when Derek cancelled a question to which WALTO had given the correct answer after being passed and the next team had given an incorrect attempt. WALTO would have won if it had not been cancelled...and they had not gotten negatives in the buzzer rounds!!! As Sidhu would have said, "If there were no 'ifs' and 'buts', my aunt would have been my uncle!"

Winning the hearts of the quiz-master and the audience, but no points(!) for his wildly creative guesses, Avinash Mudaliar and his team, Memory Blank, got eliminated in the “Brain Of Bangalore” round. Just earlier, he had buzzed his team out from the mire of first stage elimination. He was asked to stop attempting buzzing by Derek because he had accumulated so many negatives!

The prizes were grand; the toppers won Landmark vouchers worth Rs.30, 000 and a trip to Bangkok. As is common fashion now, there were special prizes for best team name, for the best corporate team and for the best school team as well. In an informal audience vote for best team name, “Quizzingunya Symptoms Personified” beat out “Youtube or Metro” and “Know Or Never (thanks RN for reminding me)”. There were lots of audience prizes as well which were given not only for correct answers but for cheeky remarks as well!

Personal

I had also participated in the Landmark Open. My teammates were Lloyd and Rajesh Mohan. As seems to be the case nowadays, we did not qualify. A far cry from our heyday, sadly, but who knows or cares! :-)

The questions for the prelims were pretty simple really. But somehow, we seemed to mostly have lost the "gift" of shooting in the dark and finding the mark. Of course, encouragingly for us, there were quite a few brilliant flashes of clairvoyance as well. :-) If only we had been on stage… :-(

Trivia Tidbits picked up
(please confirm before use)

Lilith, mythological first wife of - Adam
India came fourth in football at the 1956 Olympics
1957 – Decimal coinage introduced
Statues of yakshas at RBI entrance – Guardians of Kubera’s palace
Swiss lake named after – Yash Chopra
Jorge Luis Borges called “Fight between two bald men over a comb” – Falklands War
Word coined in 90s after Clint Eastwood characters meaning “young, good-looking men who lack intelligence or experience – himbo
Canoe race in Andamans unique – Only race on sand (Answered by audience!)
Tapers,votives, pillars, tea lights, floating – types of – candles
Hooke’s law was published as an – anagram
Sushi Sashimi difference – Sushi served with rice, sashimi without
Victor Hugo called “Europe’s richest vagabond” – Alfred Nobel
Vienna anecdote describing Tagore as god, only thousand years older than what Michaelangelo had painted – Sigmund Freud
Skid lid = Helmet
January 1 – common birthday all horses in equestrian events
Finland only country to broadcast news in – Latin
Fastest in days to get to 1000 runs in Tests – Mike Hussey
Longest gap between ODI and test debut – Andrew Symonds Made test debut after 94 ODIs
Represented India for longest period in Davis Cup – Anand Amritraj
First US commemorative coin 1992 on non American – Christopher Columbus
AIR’s first broadcast was in language – Pushtu
Custer’s Last Stand only survivor – Comanche horse
Painting visual – Yusuf Arakkal
Compartment 2949, Feb 12 (no year), Headed to Triveni – Gandhi’s ashes