13. The Quiz Show

In Search of Swami series. Semi-autobiographical work about my school days. Sri Vidya Mandir, Salem.

**Find the typo in the above picture

In comparing with school, the hostel gave equal importance to both physical and educational activities. The library was frequently visited by many. Most of the books were mythological & moral - like Amar Chitra Katha. Also, Pustak Mahal books, carefully compiled for children (below 18) covering history of India and world.

Quizzing had a small following in the hostel. Even though, we didn’t have any official quiz team, some seniors organized quiz shows on weekends. I had a separate notebook, were I wrote down the question and answers. There was no internet, so we had to write or make our questions from the library. This was my own quiz book. Some of my friends had a similar kind of quiz notebooks.

Seniors, Pradeep, Senthil and Ramesh were very enthusiastic quizzers. Students from Ramakrishna hall were the usual participants, because Vivekananda halls kids were young and Shradha hall were big boys (10th and 12th class). There were two or three groups, who conducted quiz during Sunday afternoons. Sometimes a rival group will conduct a quiz show and the other groups will participate in it, just like cricket match.

Once, a quiz show was hosted by Saravanan group. The other three participating teams were 1- Ramachandran group, 2-Pradeep (me and Ramesh), 3- Kishore group. Being the host, Saravanan group didn’t participate. All three groups had three members.

The questions were very tough, it was micro detailing preparation by Saravanan group, but surprise was the Kishore group was able to answer most of the questions. We came second and Ram group was pathetic. 

By rule of thumb, we know who got how much IQ (saraku) and definitely Kishore and his team were not up to that mark. We doubted that the quiz was rigged and started to investigate. The process was simple, ask the same questions to Kishore and his team, in a casual way, with a doubtful answer (mostly wrong answer) and observe their body language. If they stick to our doubtful answer and try to move out or avoid the situation in a hasty way, then the quiz was rigged as they don’t want to expose themselves.

It worked. We and Ramachandran team did this CBI work for two-three days.

For example, while washing clothes, Pradeep will ask Kishore,

Pradeep- "Was Krishna Mohan the Home Minister when India-China war took place?"

Kishore- "Yes, it was Krishna Mohan" (He’ll answer without seeing Pradeep)

(Actually, Krishna Menon was the Defence minister)

We did put some four to five questions in different occasions and all were positives. we did nothing further, as the exams approached; we started to concentrate on studies and put the revenge quiz show after the holidays.

After holidays, we forgot this entire incident!

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***Above image by the blogger