This past Sunday witnessed yet another spectacular quiz in Chennai. Many of the city’s quizzing elite were seen arriving at the Student Activity Center of IIT, Madras, braving the afternoon heat, to participate in the Deccan Chronicle Open Quiz co-hosted by Pragyan 12, the International Techno Management Fest of NIT, Trichy. The quiz which was entirely conducted by the “Balls By Picasso Quizzing Society” of NIT, Trichy, received tremendous commendation by some of the most proficient of the Quizzing circle. Further, it had no age limit and saw widespread participation from a very diverse spectrum of school-goers, college students and corporate employees. One was definitely in awe to spot 12 year olds competing with such enthusiasm alongside people decades older to them.
The preliminary round comprised 35 mind-boggling questions and saw a hefty number of fervent people, literally jumping in their seats during the conventional discussion of the answers. It was astounding that an overwhelming lot of school children joined proactively in this interactive session and were of course pampered with customized Open Quiz t-shirts, special Pragyan badges and packs of mouth-watering Oreo biscuits, sponsored by Cadbury, upon giving correct answers.
The final round saw the best eight teams battle it out on stage, to prove their mettle as consummate quizzers in an amalgamation of topics as miscellaneous as World War, Mythology, Indian Politics, Money Scandals, American Sports , and even Alcohol . Amidst a participation of over 150 teams, it was the team “QED”, “Insignificant Others” and “Still Mind swept” which tasted glory; the first being declared Winner with a cash prize of INR 27,000 and the last two as Joint-Second winning INR 21,000 each. Consolation prizes of Gift Vouchers from Flipkart were also given away to the other finalists.
Moreover, the best teams in each of the categories of school, college and corporate were also accoladed. The team from P.S. Sr. Sec. School comprising Anirudh, Aravind and Akash excelled amongst their peers. While the duo of Vishnu and Ranjith from IIT, Madras triumphed in their category, winning an all expenses paid trip to Pragyan 12, whereas the trio of Chakkaravarthy, Siddarth and Vinid of Infosys Ltd bagged first place amongst representatives of Corporate Institutions.
Overall, The Open was a huge success with the feedback being overwhelmingly positive and a big thanks to IIT-M for giving us a home away from home in Chennai.
Pragyan’12 , the international techno-management festival of NIT,Trichy is being held between Feb 23rd -26th.
