Even as the peppy ‘Adada Adada' song from Santosh Subramaniam played in the background, a sepia-tinted picture of a suited gentleman flashed on the screen with the phrase ‘first class man' scrawled beneath. Even as heads whirred in making the elusive connection, the answer ‘Ramanujam' was uttered in an unflappable ‘matter-of-fact' tone by the champions of ‘Whiz Quiz 2011' on Sunday.
The annual inter-collegiate quiz organised by Srirangam based quiz club, Quizzociates bore little semblances of a contest with the winning team of C.Sridhar and Visaka Simhan of SASTRA proving they were a cut above the rest from the word go. They wrested the trophy with a 80 plus margin over runners up L.Vishnuprasad and M.Niranjan of the same college.
The quiz held at Tamil Sangam dished out a potpourri served with plenty of straight drives, some cryptic clues and a few bamboozlers. For regular quizzers there were plenty of ‘I knew it' along with ‘on-the-tip-of-the-tongue' moments. Though a pretty straightforward affair, it was the last laps of the quiz that had audience sitting up.
While the penultimate round had participants struggling to spot the link, the final round was a bonus for wordsmiths with answers hidden in words like ‘ailurophobia' (fear of cats) and ‘deltiologists' (collector of picture postcards). In little ways, the quiz ensured that there was something to take back home.
Sample-an acronym that was misspelt by a Boston newspaper but in vogue today (OK).
From Jane Goodall and Bobby Jindal to Elton John and Abhinav Bindra, questions on activism and politics, pop culture and sports jostled the participants.
Posers like the military operation carried out by Pakistan Army to curb Bengali nationalist movement (Operation Searchlight) and the only other part of the body to have unique prints like fingerprints (tongue) could be cracked only by the audience.
Shepherd One as the papal aircraft and ‘You will be nearer to heaven through football than through the study of the Gita' attributed to Swami Vivekenanda saw teams setting the scoreboard ticking.
Two teams from Mookambigai College of Engineering with S.Dinesh and M.L.Mohammed Aadil, and S.Kesavan and S.Sudarsan clinched the third and fourth positions while S.Valliammai and P.Parkavi of Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College and P.V.Subramanian and S.Nityesh of Saranathan College of Engineering brought up the rear.
G.Kedarnath, Secretary of the club donned the role of quiz master.
M.V.Avinash, Associate Vice-President, DSM Soft Pvt Ltd, Tiruchi, gave the prizes. G.S.Subramanian, writer and quizzer from Chennai lauded winners. Around 20 teams from 12 colleges in and around Tiruchi participated.
And for those trying to decode the ‘Ramanujam' connection, ‘First Class Man' will bring alive the mathematical genius on the silver screen with actor Siddharth, the voice behind ‘Adada', donning the grease paint. And G.H.Hardy, the man in the suit, was the math whiz's renowned mentor.
