Statutory Warning: If you have busy schedules or don’t appreciate humour of any form, I request you not to proceed. For rest, here is the review of the BPCL quiz that KN and me hosted(and backed up by Murthy).
| Questions-Simple | 8 * 5 rounds |
| Audience | 132 + technicians |
| Host | 2 |
| Finalists | 16 |
| Fun | 101% |
| Mistakes | Occasionally |
| Satisfaction | 101% |
The ingredients for a perfect quiz. Sometimes it is just not the questions.
Venue: Bharat Petroleum Corp Limited, Anna Nagar.
Occasion: Vigilance Awareness week.
The climate was gloomy but the enthusiastic level inside the auditorium wasn’t. At 10, KN and I were honoured and we clumsily accepted the bouquet offered. The speeches made by the imminent guests were short and sweet (or we dozed off). After all the formalities were done, the stage was set for prelims.
The chairs in the auditorium were arranged in sets of four (members per team) and everyone started discussing from the very first question. I conducted the prelims and made my usual mistake of giving away too many clues. The prelims round of 30 questions (that included 10 hard core BPCL questions) was done within the estimated time of 40 minutes. We had to put up a fight to get the answer sheets back from the participants.
There was a long gap of 2 hours between prelims and finals which gave us enough time for correction.
While correcting a particular question “….Instead,the street was named after Lord _______?” , everyone had written ridicule answers like Warren and Mountbatten . We laughed over it and it took us few minutes to realize that they understood the “Lord” to be the English designation rather than God. We had to appreciate their “out of box” thinking or make a mockery of our inability to think like the participants.
The correction was done in 45 minutes and we went to have our lunch. The menu was set for a king and they called it their “regular” lunch menu. We kept talking to participants to keep ourselves awake.
The finalists were cheered when their names were called out and the quiz began.
There was commotion and excitement from the word go. The audience was as thrilled as the finalists and displayed it by calling out KN’s name for every audience question. The rounds were quick and KN carried himself as professional as he could. There was a huge applause for the connect round making him proud and blush.
There was a close tie between two teams and the team-A who answered the last question correctly emerged as winners.
Winners:
I place : Mr.A .A . Prabhu Roy,Mr.V.S.Raghavan, Mr.Kani Amudhan,Mr.Nagarajan
II Place: Mr.Koshy Vargese, Mr.G.Ravichandran, Mr.Amit Kumar,Mr.L.Chandrasekaran
III Place:Mr.A.C.Iyer, Mr.Sethuraman,Mrs.Hema Malini, Mr.C.Joseph
IV Place: M/s Lakshmi, Mr.Mukesh .K. Singh, Mr.K.Sethuramalingam,Mr.M.Mohan
Yes, according to them, everyone is a winner.
After the prize distribution and thank you speeches, the entire auditorium was silent letting both of us to savour the experience of quizzing.
P.S.; Special thanks to Mr.Saieeji for letting us conduct this Quiz.
