When: March 27, 2009 Friday at 2.45 PM (India time)

Quizmaster: yours truly

Writeup about the event:

People thronged the Canteen on March 27th, 2009. The Occasion!! the first of its kind: Ford Quiz, open for employees of Ford in India. Eighty teams of two each lined up for the preliminary qualifiers. Top six teams from the prelims would compete for the top honours in the Finals. All proceeds of the Quiz going for community service. The audio/visual event kicked off at 2.45 PM, with Sri & Balaji (Team no.1), (Wow! this displayed the commitment for community service by top management) seated in the front row.

The prelims had 30 questions with inbuilt tie breakers. Questions ranged from current affairs, mythology, entertainment and sports. The quiz master kept the participants on their toes till the end of the prelims. Once the prelims was through, an army of eight HR members did the scoring while the quiz master was announcing the answers one by one and the participants awaited with bated breath to know the result. Only six teams would play the finals and so there was a nail biting suspense as to who those six teams would be. Some teams agonizingly missed qualifying by a single Point!!

The Super Six were:

Team 1 – Sunil Chandrasekar & Sreeram

Team 2 – Karthik & Shrikanth Ayambare

Team 3 – P.Ashok and R.Ganesh

Team 4 – Samatha & Deepak Chitrapu

Team 5 – Harikrishnan & DG Ganesh

Team 6 – Srinath Balaji & S.Arulpathy

After a short break the grand showdown -Finals commenced at around 4.30 PM. There were totally five rounds – all based on Formula One grids. Team 1 got off the mark early and maintained a good lead over the other teams. The others caught up in the later rounds, but Round 4 (Theme round) totally belonged to Team 1. The other teams actively competed with each other in the last round. The competition was fierce and good to watch.

Team 1 emerged winners and managed to crack almost all the questions that came their way. The other teams were equally placed and it was anybody’s game. In the end it was what some would like to call – Photo finish. Team 1 won the quiz, followed closely by Teams 5 and 2. The audience were in rapt attention and maintained decorum throughout the whole event. There were many oohs and aahs as the teams tackled each question.

The quality of the quiz was high and so was the quality of the quizzers on stage. Even the audience were able to crack some of the questions that the on-stage participants couldn’t answer.

There was a quick presentation ceremony with our HR Director, Pandiyan gave away the prizes to the Winners at 1st, 2nd and 3rd places and audience prizes respectively. Overall, it was an evening where the SUN may have set, but the FUN never set. Everybody had their fill of fun, learning and lots of laughter.

In fact, what started off as a purely Community Development initiative became as intensity as a professional quiz!!

… is not a dangerous thing, after all!

Everybody deserves a spark in their lives – a moment that will change our lives. Something that’s not planned to happen, the unexpected for the pleasant; that’s something we cannot live for or even think of… This was one weekend I had spent differently. To the perennial Monday question of “what did you do over the weekend”, for once, I had an answer that made me feel proud of what I had done.

When I got a call from Anupama from Deepam, I really could not think of anything but the fact that I was the chosen one, a lucky star on my zodiac flashed brighter than it usually did; I answered the call and said YES to the invitation to share knowledge with children of a special nature.

Now I do not believe in calling these children  underprivileged – but in this case, I do, purely for the reason that in contrast to the quiz that I had done the week before for children from a privileged background. Those children had everything at their beck and call; they had the money to buy every doll at the malls, watch every movie at the theatres and were comfortable on DTHs, high definition TVs and video games on demand.

The children whom we met on Saturday did not have any facilities, just an education (for which they are lucky), the patience and interest (for which we were lucky) and the goodness of the Deepam volunteers. In my humble opinion, I considered these children to be close to God and some of the luckiest in the world.

Anyway, sentimental reasons apart, sharing knowledge and interacting with children are challenges for adults – because we always interact with adults that we take it for granted that they understand everything we say. Yes, children do understand everything we say, if we speak their language.

Anupama had left very little time for us to react – she had called late evening on Friday after darkness had overpowered the Chennai skyline. With little time and absolutely no idea about the awareness level of these children, I politely asked the gang if one of them could manage the show. Yaggy promptly said yes, and Vinod too agreed. Sadly Yaggy fell sick the next morning and Vinod had some personal commitments to do; so the mantle fell on me. Luckily for me, Murthy said he would come.

The next morning (2 hours before the quiz), I started work on the quiz and managed to scramble through 4 rounds – Spelling BEE, a sports round, an Indian personalities & places round, a Hindu epics round and finally a round on music and movies!!

After meeting the other members of the Deepam outfit, an organization aimed at teaching computers for underprivileged children, we started the quiz by splitting the group of 15 children in five teams of 3 each; Murthy and I were quite surprised to note that the children spoke decent English and were able to make their own team names. Thus lovely words such as “Rose”, “jasmine”, “Lotuses” and maybe not so lovely but cool ones such as “warriors”, and “devils” became team names. 

As always the energy levels of children are enormous to judge and we felt amazed. The children were able to answer most of the questions, even though they struggled a bit on the epics round. I ensured most of the questions were based on current affairs – like the Taj Mahal Hotel attacks, Kapil Dev joining the Territorial Army etc.

We rewarded all bright answers that travelled faster than Superman at top notch with chocolates. With loads of visuals, some audios and videos, the children got their fill of entertainment and learning for the day. We anticipated that handling children would be tough, but they were all well behaved. We hope the children enjoyed the session and we want to make this as a calendarized event – to spend quality time and do quality work.

When we walked out of the community hall in the Besant Nagar beach (venue for the quiz), we held our heads high. When we started the IQL, it was aimed at quizzing for ALL. I personally felt that we had done justice to that motto today!

Many thanks for the opportunity to give back something back to the society that we live in. Many thanks to Murthy who turned up and hosted the quiz, in spite of not even looking at the questions in the quiz. Loads of thanks to Rajimuth who contributed valuable questions for the A/V round. Thanks to the organizers who managed to provide us with the infrastructure. And thanks to the children that made our day special.

We wish to make this a quarterly event and also increase the level and participation of the quiz. Those interested to volunteer are most welcome!  

My personal note is: A handful of knowledge shared is worth more than a bookful learned..

Back to the point, I like buying and reading books. I do not have the habit of putting up bookmarks in my books to continue from where I had left, nor do I “doggy-ear” any corner of the page. Instead, I make a mental note of the page number. To forget is becoming humane, and I am no math lover to remember every number. Sometimes I go a few pages before and start all over again, disrupting my reading pleasure a bit, but I don’t complain.

Today on the bus, I was reading my book (I have started reading again BTW). The routine check came when I had reached my workplace – so I turned my book upside down, showed my ID and went back to my book. As I turned the book over, I was horrified – a portion of the page I had been reading was torn!! A shape by no means that would warm the heart of an arts teacher or fetch me an A in a trigonometry drawing class – my heart sank.

I have pledged to be more careful in the future and bring no harm to my precious books…

The six teams that qualified for the finals are as follows. (In order of seating)

Vijay and Ashwin (MILF – Mother India Liberation Fund)

JK and Kiran(no name)

Anil and Kido ( Raju na raha Gentleman)

Udupa and Ramkey (Karpa Gamblers)

Ramana and Devi prasad (common man No.6)

Ashwin prabhu and rajagopal ( banana republic)

Some photos:

We will post a detailed review, photographs and some press coverage asap.

All our energies are drained after all that hard work and commitment over the last 3 weeks, the nightouts, the discussions, the quality time on research on each question has us all out of breath. All those who made it to the quiz – we hope you enjoyed the quiz and found it as much breath-taking as it was for us.  Kindly provide feedback on the quiz, the feel, the way it was hosted, our hospitality – just about everything there was to the quiz.

We wish to thank the participating teams, the audience that gladdened our hearts with stunning answers, all our sponsors, media partners, the entire research team (Sana, Yaggy, Matti, Patrick, Vinod and myself), volunteers who travelled from far and wide to come and be part of the Big Day (Sakthish Kumar, Murthy, Hantan from Mysore, my uncle from Coimbatore, not to forget our members Kamal Rathi, Manas from Orissa)….

We will be back with all the latest, until then gracias and adios amigos!!

The line-up:

Jan 19 – SAIL business quiz, Hotel Savera.

Jan 21-25 – a quizzing festival as part of the Culfest, Saarang at the IIT Madras. Only for colleges

Jan 24 – Open GENERAL quiz, Kurukshetra by Anna University. Venue Anna University Campus at 2pm.

Jan 25 – Mylapore Quiz as part of the Sundaram Mylapore Festival. Venue Karpagam Banquet Hall, South Mada Street, Mylapore. Time: 2pm

Jan 26 – Odyssey Quiz has been cancelled. We will be hosting an India quiz, the first of its kind on the very same day

VENUE : Edgbaston, Birmingham, England

MATCH : 2nd Semifinal of the 1999 World Cup, Australia Vs South Africa

In my pursuit to pen down my exclusive coverage of the Tied ODIs and Tests, I bring you one of my all time favorite matches. For many reasons this match is close to my heart: one simple reason that Cricket World Cups are special occasions. That void was filled in the 7th world cup played in England in 1999.

After a gap of 16 years, England hosted the World Cup again. This was a Cup with new formats such as the birth of the Super Six Stage and the teams were more evenly grouped and matched. It all promised great fan fare and good cricket all around.

The match we shall relive today shall be the best ever World Cup match for many years to come. Those who witnessed this match were verily blessed with a cricketing fairy tale of mighty goodness.

This was the most important and most interesting match – since both teams were world beaters and both had performed exceptionally thus far, it was winner TAKE ALL! And also the result of the previous match between the same teams in the super six stage was a staggering match which went down to the wire. And it was Steve Waugh’s brilliance that had taken Australia to this stage.

The teams:

Australia:
Adam Gilchrist (Wicket Keeper), Mark Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Darren Lehmann, Steve Waugh (Captain), Michael Bevan, Tom Moody, Shane Warne, Paul Reiffel, Damien Fleming, Glenn McGrath.

South Africa:
Gary Kirsten, Herschelle Gibbs, Daryll Cullinan, Hansie Cronje, Jacques Kallis, Jonty Rhodes, Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusener, Mark Boucher (Wicket Keeper), Steve Elworthy, Allan Donald.

Toss:
South Africa won the toss and elected to field first in this all-important game.

Australian Innings:
Australia did not get off to their flying starts that we had seen over the course of many a ODI – Pollock pouched Mark Waugh for a catch to Keeper Boucher in the 5th ball of the match for a blob! It was a beauty of a delivery, with pace and bounce and just kissing the face of the gloves, and Australia were one down for 3. Gilchrist was joined by Ricky Ponting, and the two set upon their task in an arduous manner. Pollock extracted pace and bounce and bowled beautifully with Kallis who was getting considerable sideways movement off the pitch. With veteran Allan Donald into the attack as second change, things remarkably changed – Donald picked up two quick and important wickets of Ponting and Lehmann in quick succession. Australia was reeling at 68/4 in the 17th over when Gilchrist was out to Kallis.

But Steve Waugh with a robust 56 off 76 and Bevan with a rather sedate 65 off 101 were just pulling back things when Waugh was caught behind off yet another great Pollock ball. Pollock and Donald, the deadly pair was at their deadliest in this match.

Together, they quickly wiped off the middle and tail of Australia and the super team was all out for just 213 in the last over. Pollock bowled a dream spell 9.2-1-36-5 and Donald chipped in with hostile bowling figures of 10-1-32-4. if Donald hadn’t messed up his batting and running between wickets, surely he deserved a lot more accolades for his bowling. His great bowling was submerged in foolhardy running at the end.

South African Innings:

So the target was set at 214 for South Africa. Considering normal circumstances, this would have been an easy task. But this being DO or DIE for both teams and with the World Cup at stake, the game was never over until it was won.

Things were not going Australia’s way until Warne came on as second change in the 11th over. Warne bowled what is being described as one of the best ever spells by any bowler in ODI cricket, especially world cups.

Warne clipped Gibbs’ off stump with a magnificent ball, pitching outside the rough and opening up the batsman. Gibbs took a while to realize he had been out. One has to watch Warne in this match to see him at his best. In walked Warne’s bunny Daryl Cullinan, and Warne smacked his lips. Cullinan absolutely had no clue whatsoever to Warne’s magic, and he succumbed as usual. A measly 6 runs came off 30 balls; Warne picked up Kirsten similar ball, and similar result. OUT! Warne was just too good at this stage. Hansie Cronje lasted all of 2 balls of Warne, the second was edged to first slip, Mark Waugh ever ready to pouch yet another great catch. 3 wickets in 8 balls meant that Warne was all worked up! Cullinan and Kallis struggled to make runs, and it seemed Cullinan would not get out to Warne. And he didn’t. A crazy mix up saw Cullinan take a dangerous single, and that too testing the arm of the best Australian fielder – Michael Bevan. And Bevan has had enough throw practice to hit the stumps with precision. South Africa were 61/4 in the 22nd over.

Rhodes and Kallis steadied the ship with an 84 run partnership, but then Rhodes tried a shot too many. A slog against Reiffel, and the ball rose in height but did not cover the distance beyond Bevan, taking a running catch at deep square leg.

Pollock followed his good bowling with a cameo batting performance – a quick 20 off 14 balls came. A partnership of 30 between Kallis and Pollock drew South Africa closest to their chances of reaching first ever Cricket World Cup final. But Warne that Magic Crusader spun yet another astounding ball, Kallis did not read it, Waugh gleefully took the lob at cover. The greatest spell in this World Cup ended, much to the delight of the Proteas. But it had done the damage.

Now the stage was set for a tight finish to this amazing match of more see saws than a children’s playground. Exactly six balls after the dismissal of Kallis, Fleming castled Pollock, thus finishing his little cameo. But with Zulu Klusener, this match was all but over. The score was 184/7 in 46 overs.

All boiled to 38 off the last Four overs. McGrath-Fleming-McGrath and final over by Fleming. Boucher, being rather new to pressure, managed to do his part of playing the singles. McGrath knew best to bowl at these stages. Klusener and Boucher managed to make 5 runs off that 47th over.

Fleming was in charge for the first three balls of the 48th over – all being great Yorkers well dug out by Boucher. Somehow Boucher managed a single off the 4th ball, and the ball was in Klusener’s court to hit. People strive in pressure and Zulu loves it! It seems he was born with so much pressure that he keeps such a cool head and bats as easily as sleeping with a soft pillow on a featherbed. Six runs came off the last 2 balls with 2 clean strikes.

Boucher had his bitter taste of a deadly McGrath delivery, his short batting digging out was all over – a Yorker knocked out the middle stump and it was now time for Boucher to loosen his gloves. Score – 196/8.

Steve Elworthy came in with battered bowling figures and little batting experiences. And he could not last no more than 1 ball. A risky single became a horror when McGrath ambled down to deflect the stumps off a Reiffel throw to get rid of Elworthy. Things were real hot and more sweat was seen now on everyone’s brow.

198/9 and Donald walked in with a nervous grin and butterflies in his stomach. Luckily he did not have to face McGrath. Klusener struck the next ball of McGrath with great power and believe me, at Long on, Reiffel could not hold on to what would have been a good catch – the ball lobbed on to dribble over the fence – SIX valuable runs. Off the last ball, Zulu took a single to take strike for the last over.

9 off 6 balls – the team that would keep its cool would win. With Klusener in the middle and on strike, Australia was looking down and out. Fleming began his run up for the last 6 balls of the match. The field moved in, anxiously, everyone in the stadium and those watching were on the edge of their seats and hearts.

The first ball was a backfoot drive an amazing astounding strike hit with the speed of a bullet, and it raced cutting across everyone on the field. Nobody, and I mean nobody could have ever stopped that from crossing the boundary.

The next ball was fuller, and Klusener had answers ready for that ball. It was dispatched with the rage and power of a bull at its maddest – it streaked through Mark Waugh at long off and hit the fence. The scores were TIED.

With the match ending in a tie, (according to new rules for this World Cup) Australia would go to the final by virtue of their win over the same team in the Super Six stage.

Now things were simpler than ever – 1 run off 4 balls. All 11 Aussies were inside the 30-yard circle. Singles were not going to be allowed. The third ball was pulled by Klusener – mishit and rolled straight down the wicket – what was Allan Donald doing? Backing up too far, he nearly got himself run out. If that throw by Lehmann was good enough, Donald would have been run out by miles. That instant Donald would have seen his heart in his mouth.

Pressure breeds real warriors to show their gut, it also shows the real cowards and those who take it to their heads and hearts. HOLD YOUR BREATH FOR THE NEXT BALL. A mishit pull again – and the most foolhardy single was taken by Klusener. He who had planned and executed this match so very well thus far lost his mind for that single. Donald was in no position to take that single having seen his heart pop the previous ball. He dropped his bat, lost his mind and started late for a single that was never to be.

While Zulu managed to ground his bat at the non-striker’s end, Donald had no words for this situation – absolutely no words for the sensational finish. Gilchrist knocked over the bails easily, Donald could not face the world.

A heart attack struck all South Africans in the stadium and an eruption of glee on the faces of all the Aussies- they had reached the finals. And this match had been tied from the open jaws of a Dinosaur, saved just before it shut its jaws. The Aussies had made a remarkable comeback thanks to Warne.

All sorts of adjectives sprung up at this stage – Hansie Cronje had his hands on hips looking dourer than Mr.Grouchy or Mr.Grinch. The South Africans had 2 balls to spare and just a single separated them from a win and a place in the Final.

Jaws dropped and eyes pooped to watch the end overs – and they had a great treat by all means. The heat was turned on and the hearts were pumping like mad.

As my heart slows down and I catch my breath, I conclude that this was perhaps the best ever ODI match that I have witnessed in my entire life. So be it for so many other players and lovers of the game of cricket.

This day was definitely that of the bowlers and the batsmen had little say in the matters. While Pollock and Donald routed Australia, Warne rocked the whole world with his magic, and it was vintage Warne to pick up the man of the match award.

It was very ironical that South Africa was very much in the same situation in the next World Cup as well, and that also they tied and lost their place to play further. Some lessons to be learnt for them, maybe?

Just goes to show that you can do anything when you believe in yourself. To quote Chef Gusteau: “If you focus on what you left behind, you will never be able to see what lies ahead”.

Adrenaline-rushing first few moments lead up to a fascinating watch over the next one hour, as the creativity and fun begins. Witty lines add to the comedy and the storyline is fast paced and charming.
It’s a food lover’s delight, a message that cooking is fun and anyone can be good at it

The voice-over blends with the nature of the character and the mix of characters provides for most of the human emotions of anger, love, jealousy and most importantly, the value of thought and intellect.

The quality of the animation is tops, especially the scene where Remy and the cookbook get wet – one can see and feel the wetness, the droplets of water. And the scenes with food! The food looks and feels so much like real food that your tongue drools with eagerness to taste it.

This creativity is what makes this movie one of the finest.

Virtual integrates so seamlessly with the real that you simply cannot believe that what your eyes see is computer generated. Pixar has done it again (after the grand success of “The Incredibles”), to prove that they are the best – the closing credits are innovative as well. No stone unturned in the innovation category – Ratatouille sweeps it all!

Killer lines, great animation, brilliant storyline and music, scenes etching human (and animal) thoughts and of course, lovely mouth-watering food! What else can you ask for in a movie? What are you waiting for – hurry up, the stew’s getting cold!

This was a movie which I did not want to end. Rather like feeling hungry and wanting more, even after a full, delicious meal. I would rate this in my top 50 movies of all time. Bring it on!

Rating: 8.5/10

Harrison Ford has his slick ways and punny ways of doing things, living life dangerously in the fast lane as Indiana Jones. This time, Indy lands himself a beautiful lead-actress for that touch of glamour (frankly, it wasn’t required at all). As they meet, they go through dangers that lurk in the shadows and they are chased all the way to India. There, they meet a prince en route to their quest for a sacred stone and the missing children of a nearby village, and confront his witchdoctor, who salvage* Ma Kali’s blessings through human sacrifices.

Amrish Puri has given a brilliant performance as Mola Ram – he looks fierce and fits the bill as a witchdoctor in India. I guess some people outperform themselves in certain roles – Amrish Puri’s Mola Ram will go down in history as one of the finest villains ever. There is one scene (amongst many others) where he exclaims: “Kali Ma protects us! We are her children! We pledge our devotion to her with an offering of flesh… and blood!” – this scared the wits out of me!

The little prince provides a dangerous proposition for the viewers – whether to admonish his brash and evil acts or to adopt his cute looks. Indiana’s little sidekick Short Round (Jonathan Ke Quan) steals our hearts with his acting.

There are some moments when Indians are shown in poor light – this is where Lucas really stumps us, after all that hype of his adopting Hinduism for his Star Wars sagas. Maybe he was making amends later in Star Wars! But he could have done away with those morbid scenes, and surely, there was no need for the lead actress at all.

Tantric, mystic and terrific scenes smolder each one of us in terror and delight of fine cinema, sans modern moments of cell phones and weapons of mass destruction. Here man faces man in dark moments of hypnotism.

The special effects are awesome, and that too for a movie made in the timeline of the early 1980s (1984 to be exact)

Sacrilege to those who cannot stick to this storyline! You are doomed to be glued to your seats in this gripping tale of dripping sweat and blood and the final triumph of good over bad

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow–
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out–
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.