Neil O’Brien was a legend in the Calcutta quizzing scene. Most of the time, his team DI (short for Dalhousie Institute Club) was unbeatable. He was also the quizmaster for the annual DI quiz and his questions were always interesting and covered a wide range of subjects. He laid down the framework and the format for half a dozen quizzes, which used to be in Calcutta every year at various clubs and venues. It was because of him that Calcutta was the quizzing capital of India for a long time.
It was between 1978 and 1985, I was part of a team called Motley Crew. And that's when I came into contact with people like Neil O'Brien, Sadhan Banerjee who did the annual North Star quizzes. It took us about two years to get into the fray. And after that I'm happy to tell you that Motley Crew and DI were the chief rivals who competed against each other. It was, for me, a very pleasurable and exciting time. I would say that the quizzing scene in Calcutta at that time was really was unlike the rest of India's. It was only in the 90s that Bangalore and Madras came into the picture.
His two sons Derek and Andy also used to take part in his quizzes (Andy used to sit in his DI team and Derek in another). They used to take it lightly, they were good in sports and movies. But it was Neil who was the real champion quizzer. As a QM he was always in control. Other QMs would lose their cool and get a bit worked up if the audience was a bit unruly. Nothing like that happened when Neil conducted it. It was always a classic kind of quiz. It was more like the British quizzes — like University Challenge or Brain of Britain, that sort of thing. The questions were almost always fair and nothing too trivial, the types which shouldn't be asked. He had that sense of asking the right questions and having the right variety in his quiz. I always found his quizzes most enjoyable.
When I started quizzing in Calcutta, Navin (Jayakumar, who hosts the annual Landmark Quiz) had joined the (Madras) medical college — he used to be a part of the medical college team. He was familiar with the kind of questions Neil used to ask because I personally used to write it all down. It was a long time ago (I don't have the book now). But Neil was the face of Calcutta quizzing.
He was easy to talk with, polite... we didn't exactly meet outside quizzing circles (laughs) but I knew his wife because she was always there to cheer his team on. All his sons were into quizzing as well. But since I left Calcutta in 1985, I only went back for the North Star finals because our team used to win the Madras round. We'd changed the name from Motley Crew to Memory Banks by then. And I used to look forward to being once again in familiar surroundings. That (quiz) was the highlight of the year. And Madras didn't have such a quizzing scenario until later. Bangalore was a little ahead with the KQA.
I'm just quoting from what others say, so I can't say it as a fact. But they said that in Calcutta during the 90s, quizzing was not as it was before. There was a certain lack of interest. I don't know how or why, but other centres were more flourishing. Neil was still conducting the annual DI quiz and up until the 80s it was a really great time. There were people of all ages, not just colleges. There were a few clubs too.
Another thing is the Calcutta quizzing format was different from what you see now. It was a fairly long-drawn affair, with every quiz lasting for three days. It was not a set of questions asked as a prelim and then the eight best teams making it to the stage. This was a proper (oral) quiz. About 32 teams in all would participate in four different rounds and every evening, two from each round made it to the final. Each evening would last at least three hours before the final two were selected.
Neil was the one who introduced this format. I'm assuming so because... when I started quizzing, everything was already laid out! There wasn't anybody else as good as him.
We had a big audience in DI, in the club and in other clubs too.The ambience of the DI club contributed to the charm of the whole event. It was the home of Calcutta quizzing. And it was always held in the open.
The Calcutta style of quizzing introduced me to art, the Raj Period, the history of Calcutta, there were lots of different subjects. And Neil, having a background in English literature, always had questions on word origins, strange turns of phrase. I used to like them because I too had an English literature background. But Neil had something from everything: religion -- not just Hindusim, but Islam and Buddhism, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata. When I said the quizzes were very British, I didn't mean Western-oriented but it had a certain classic association. The secret of a good quiz question is that it shouldn't be too trivial. There should be some body in it. The sort of questions that Neil asked back then, were questions worth asking. They were never trivial.
(As told to Ramakrishnan M)
