Baikonur, a remote mining town in Kazakhstan, occupies a unique place in the history of modern India. How? That was one of the questions put to high school students at the inaugural edition of an inter-school quiz competition organised by Coast Guard here on Saturday.
The clue was that an Indian took centre stage in an event that happened in Baikonur on April 4, 1984 and it was an “out of the world experience”. The right answer was of course the maiden space voyage by an Indian, Rakesh Sharma.
But some thought it was Kalpana Chawla. One of the contesting teams even said: “It was the day Rakesh Sharma went to the moon”.
But getting it right wasn't the priority in the quiz which took place on board the Coast Guard vessel ‘Sagar'.
Many of them were budding quizzers. Most of the students, representing over 30 schools, had never taken part in a quiz before. They were there to learn.
Indeed, there was much to learn. Not many knew that in a standard issue 10 rupee currency note, one of the 15 languages in which the denomination is mentioned is ‘Nepali'. Or that the reason why India celebrates ‘Pravasi Bharatiya Divas' on January 9, a day to commemorate the contributions made by overseas Indians, is because that was the day Mahatma Gandhi returned from South Africa back in 1915. The theme of the quiz was ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan'.
The eventual winners were two bubbly youngsters from SBOA School and Junior College, Anna Nagar. R. Aditthya, one of them, said: “We quiz for the love of it. My partner is my best friend. Also, we never really prepare for a quiz. All the information you need is out there. We just keep our eyes open, look around and maybe read the newspaper.”
But another participant, Deepak Suresh of St. John's Higher Secondary School, said: “Quizzing is anyway a niche. So you usually see the same guys in every competition. Most of my peers are interested in dancing and singing, not quizzing. Very few people even read books these days. Most are just too busy chatting online to do anything else.”
Anna University Vice-sChancellor P. Mannar Jawahar participated and presented medals.
