Sixty minutes is all it took to decide who was going to make it to the finals of the The Hindu Young World quiz 2010. The last leg of the finals was the Chennai regional round and to make it to the grand finale 701 teams from over 163 schools fought it out at the preliminary round. Twenty five questions decided the fate of these teams and the lucky ones were: PSBB Nungambakkam; PS S.S.S., Mylapore; Vidyamandir S.S.S., Mylapore; Kola Perumal SS.S., Arumbakkam; Hindu S.S.S., Indiranagar and Gateway – the Complete School, Sholinganallur.
One grid, 24 squares marked 1-24 and four questions for each team…the format was simple. After explaining the rules quizmaster V. V. Ramanan told the teams that every question was on the buzzer and the questions can be passed. Every right answer fetched them 15 points and a wrong one took away 10 from their scores. However, the interesting part about the grid was the fact that each right answer opened up a square on the picture and if one guessed right would add a maximum of 46 points to the team's score. Frame the question, Multimedia Masala, Mera Bharat Mahan, Anything Goes and Click were some of the popular categories chosen for the round.
Winning the quiz were the boys from Vidya Mandir S.S.S.. Kolaperumal and PSBB came second ad third respectively. For Nandan Bhaskar and Vrshank Subramanian students of Std VIII, Vidya Mandir, their journey to fame began the evening before the finals when they got to know that they had to take part in the quiz. Just two quizzes old they fought it out bravely to make to the grand finale.
“I knew we have to play safe and not take too many risks,” said a very confident Vrshank.
“I had decided not to answer till I was 100 per cent sure,” said Nandan. funtrivia.com, Encyclopaedias, and a lot of reading helped!
The title sponsor was Velammal Educational Trust, The Associate Sponsor was Pepsodent, the car sponsor was Tata Motors. The national sponsors include Eureka Forbes, Black Thunder, Gold Winner, YO Bikes, Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank, Vizag Steel Plant, Cherry Blossom, Reynolds, Britannica Encyclopaedia, Penguin Books, Seshasayee Paper Board,(Success Books) and Firefox Bikes, the beverage sponsor was Dabur. The Regional sponsors were Shriram Chits, Rajan Eye Care, Balaji Dental, Crocs, India post, Textile India, Anoushka, Globus, Lotte, Medimix, Flora, Jeans Park, Mahavir Optics, Pix-delite, Reebok, Viveks and Techknowledge Education. Hospitality partners were Deccan Plaza, food partner was Sri Krishna Sweets, Travel partner was Praveen Travels and water partner Repute.
