Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive. Stayin' alive. Ah, ha, ha, ha… and the quiz master is dead. Or so Berty Ashley wants us to believe as he abruptly stops dancing, clutches his heart dramatically and collapses on stage.
Surya Venkat, the other quiz master, promptly takes the mike and poses the question that gets everyone’s grey cells working, "How do the Bee Gees save Berty’s life?" After some deliberation, a beer guzzling quizzer suggests that the beat of the song is the right pace at which one would perform CPR, and voila! Berty springs to life and the guy who got the answer right wins himself two rounds of whiskey.
Welcome to the Madras Pub Quiz, where knowing the right answer could mean winning mugs of beer to sip on, appetisers to munch on or entire main course meals for the night. There are also lunch coupons, brunch coupons, shooters and starters that are given away for each right answer. T.V. Abhinav, also a quiz master, says that the winners often share their spoils, making it a fun night of trivia and merry-making for everyone in the room. “If it is once a month, it creates a demand,” says Sampath Kumar, Food and Beverage manager at Savera Hotel, who came up with the concept of instant gratification for each answer and threw in all the freebees for the winners. The idea is to infuse fun into the process of quizzing and making sure people go home having won something interesting and learnt something new.
The third edition of the quiz, which is held on the third Thursday of every month at Bay 146, was conducted and formulated by four guys — molecular biologist Berty, architect Surya Venkat, decision scientist Abishek Swaminathan and Abhinav who is in film production. Quizzers themselves, the boys now enjoy asking the questions rather than answering them. They say that they take almost a month to choose the right questions, “The fun, superficial questions are the hardest to come up with,” explains Surya.
They try to bring in local flavour, often repeating themselves in Tamil, throwing in humour and emphasising the Madras element of the Madras Pub Quiz. Every week, there’s the quintessential question about Rajinikanth — this week’s question predictably had half the pub excitedly waving their hands to give the answer. The quiz masters walk around the pub, encouraging members seated in different parts of the pub to speak up. Not all the questions are easy though — some make the whole pub go silent. As people chug on their beers and work their brain cells, they huddle together in discussion over the answers.
At the end of the day, however, it’s an evening not just for quizzers, but for anyone who wants to relax and be a part of something novel and interesting in the city. The atmosphere is casual, the quizzers are in high spirits and the questions are fun. The Madras Pub Quiz puts an entertaining spin on being a nerd, and even offers you a plate of nachos for being a nerd who gets the right answer.
