My First Quiz

My initiation into the (not so) glamorous world of quizzing is complete. And it will be a memorable one, if for some of the wrong reasons.

To begin with, I couldn't find the place. It was in a part of town that I hardly ever visit and I didn't have the proper address. I was just told the general locality and that the venue was in the PSPL building behind Domino's Pizza. To make matters worse I soon found myself stuck in the middle of a traffic jam. It was the festival of Gudi Padwa (as I later learnt) and some bloody idiots had decided to take out a procession. So there I was, with camels, a brass band and other frustrated commuters for company. Ten minutes later I managed to sneak out of the mêlée into a side lane, only to emerge out onto another road, completely lost.

There seemed to be very few people around who looked like they would have even heard the word "pizza" before, so asking for the nearest Domino's was out of the question. It was the intervention of sheer providence that I finally managed to arrive at the venue; sweaty, angry and frustrated.

Can't have had a worse possible start, I think. That's when I was given a rather cruel reminder of the veracity of Murphy's Law. My partner Kunal T is supposed to go to GS Labs for some work related to his BE project and won't be able to make it!

So now I am angry AND alone. Course many of my friends were there; but all with partners. Who, after all, would land up at a 2-member quiz without a partner? Who, that is, except an idiot like me!

I decide I might as well sit and take the Elims alone. Just as they are about to start, the Quiz Master inquires on the microphone, "Is there anyone without a partner?"

Two hands stick up; one of them mine. I glance at his face and think, "Two heads better than one!" I wave him over to my seat. I soon discovered that I was wrong; sometimes two heads aren't better than one! The guy was quite obviously at his first quiz too. He knew nothing. Wait! He knew less than nothing. He couldn't even figure out the workable questions. Save for one question on Hindu mythology, he got nothing right. When the answers were revealed, I realized all his guesses (the few that he actually made)were wrong. Speaking for myself, I managed to get 13 right. That meant that our overall score was 14, not bad when you consider that the last team to qualify for the finals was only something like 21-23. And if you also take into account the fact that I was alone (in effect, considering my partner's uselessness), it was a pretty decent effort methinks!

The quiz itself was pretty good. I liked it and am looking foward to some more. Unfortunately, I've been informed that this may just have been the last quiz of the season (although there may just be one more coming up sometime in May)!

Anyways, I have tasted blood. It may have only been a minuscule drop that I had to lick of the floor, but it was blood nevertheless. And I shall be back. Watch out, you quizzers! This bad boy ain't gonna go away quietly. There's some major ass-kicking coming up!