"Things have been strangely borne". Nothing more to say.
After so long, I finally got one good true tryst with quizzing. the one opportunity I had been waiting for a very long time and which was eluding me for so long. And even after I got it, it has left me with a sour mouth. Ah, life! It gives you exactly what you want, but in such a way that you wish that you were better off without having got the thing in the first place. Who can fathom the complexities of life?
The day of my last post (ie the 15th), I also was chosen by one of my teachers (my Maths teacher) also selected me for another inter-school quiz that was to be held today. But there was one problem. There were supposed to be 3 two-member teams sent from each school and our school was sending the Class 12 team, our team (me and another class 11 guy) and a third team from Class 9. [Being the masters of quizzing for two years, the class 12 team was given an exception to participate in the quiz {Class 12 boys do not go for any events in the second half of the year, as a rule} and to win it] And the prelims was supposed to be written but only the top 6 teams qualified to the on-stage event. BUT, only 1 team from each school could go to the on-stage. Which meant that us, being the B-Team, had NO chance of even hoping to get higher than the masters.
I was all set to grab this opportunity but had only 2 problems. Firstly, the class 12 team should not have been given the exception. After all, we should also have been given our chance. And secondly, the class 9 team could easily have been replaced by a stronger class 11 or 12 team. Anyways, I braced myself for the quiz as it came (prepared would be a wrong word to be used, as I did NOT prepare at all)
Yesterday, I was talking to AD (The best quizzer of our school, and one half of the class 12 team) and complaining on how on earth would we have a chance at all, with them still being there. And he said "You guys have to beat us to get there. Its a challenge. For there will be teams even better than us that you will have to beat. There you cant do anything. Moreover, if you beat us, then we would be the happiest."
*Sigh*
Another chance for quizzing wasted. Come on! Its like an amateur vs professional. Who do you expect to win?
So today while we were going to the school where the quiz was to be held, I came to know that our school had been the winners for 5 consecutive years and had even gone to the national levels last year. Meaning, we HAD to perform respectably well.
At this note, the quiz started. There were 30 questions, which turned out to be very very easy. (At least for the standard of our school). We got most of them correct and then waited for the quiz-master to announce the answers.
When the answers were finally said, it turned out that we had got 24 correct and the class 12 team had got 25 correct!!! (And the class 9 team had got 18 correct) So near and yet so far. And all the while before the teams were announced, I had been hoping that they somehow make a spelling error or something that they get equal to us, and then we get past them. (If two teams were on equal points, then the team who gets the first incorrect answer loses out. And their incorrect answer came before ours.)
We had our lunch and then the results were announced. As expected, the school standing first was ours. With 24 points.
*Silence*
What!!!
Nobody could believe what was going on. Because if the points were 24, then we had managed to beat them.
Then the quiz-master announced that both the teams from our school had come first, and that the team qualifying had managed to do so on virtue of the tiebreak system in the 17th question.
And that team was ours.
(The points for the 6th team was 17, which meant that even our class 9 team would have qualified, had they also been allowed.)
So we go on to stage, with my mouth wide open. Literally. (Even the quiz-master noted the fact [several times, AAMOF] that the junior team had come up after beating the senior team, and that we were very shocked to be there.) With a huge responsibility on our shoulders. That of 5 years. We HAD TO win it now. HAD TO.
The quiz started off ok. We were joint leaders till 3rd round after which one of the other teams took the lead. We almost cut off the leam at several places, but before the last buzzer round, we were still 10 points behind them. In the buzzer round, we made 2 errors, losing 20 points and then lost all hopes of winning when one of the other schools answered one question with 2 more questions to go. We answer the penultimate question to come up to 3rd place at 40 points (the second placed team was at 50 points while the winners had already won it at 70 points. The next team at 4th place was at 30.)
But we were still having our final question to decide the 2nd and 3rd place.
[Writings in italics are my thoughts, as they were going on at the time.]
Get this answer correct and we will force ourselves to a tie-breaker for the 2nd place.
Get it wrong and we force ourselves to a tiebreaker for the 3rd place.
The team at 2nd place gets it right and they walk away with 2nd place, leaving us 3rd.
They get it wrong and we have a tiebreak for 2nd place.
The 4th placed team gets it right and force us to a tiebreak for 3rd place.
In all other possibilities, we come 3rd, while the 2nd team stays 2nd.
Therefore, we HAVE TO get it right. Simple. Save some face while its still there. At least 2nd place
The quiz-master starts saying the question. My hand on the table
"In the NATO terminology for letters...."
Wait a second. I know this terminology. Yes!!
My hand moves to the buzzer, with my finger poised to hit it anytime.
"if A stands for Alpha,..."
The question will make sense only if he asks for India (one of the few that I knew) ,which will be I. Just hope he does not ask for a Q or something. Please let it be something I know.
"what stands for...."
Please be I. Please be I. Please be I......
"I?"
I hit the buzzer immediately.
"Yes?" said the quiz-master.
I grab the mic and shout out "India!!!" and keep it back with a sense of triumph.
"Absolutely correct answer!!"
Which meant that we were going into the tie-breaker for the second place.
Next came the tie-breaker question.
"Cartoons? Everyone here likes them? Okay. In the Scooby Doo series..."
I know cartoons. I know Scooby Doo. I should get it
"... what breed of dog is Scooby Doo?"
Shit. I dont have a clue. Alastair? Dalmatian? Shit. I know this one. Have heard it so many times. Eeeesh!!!!
"Anyone?"
*silence*
"I shall count to three, after which, I shall be asking a new question. Three...."
Please think of something. Something
"Two....."
"Is it Great Dane? I am not sure, but.", my partner says.
Maybe. But dont take the risk. Dont.
"Are you sure?" I ask back. (We had lost 10 points for delaying in answering a previous question, although we knew the answer)
"I think so. Hit it."
"One......"
"Hit it man. Hit it.", he said.
I think so it is Great Dane. But dont take a chance. Should I hit it? Yes? No?
"Hit it."
I hit the buzzer.
"And zero. The time is up. Sorry but you would not be allowed to answer. The buzzer was just too late."
My partner asks "But can we just try?"
"Okay, but you would not get any points for that"
"Great Dane"
"Great Dane is absolutely correct."
*a hush from the audience*
Shit.
"But you should have hit the buzzer earlier. I'm sorry but you would not get any points for that."
"Its ok. We will get the next question." I console my partner.
"We move on to the next question. Who was the first non-Congress Prime Minister of India?"
Yes!! I know it. Had the very same question in a literary quiz in school a few days earlier. Yes!!!!
"Moraji Desai", I shout out to my partner within milliseconds. (I'm sure it was shouting.)
He hits the buzzer.
I pick up the mic and hastily say "Moraji Desai" very loudly and jubiliantly.
*Immediate applause from AD. And a very loud applause at that.*
*Quiz-master says nothing*
Could we be wrong? No. But AD has clapped. And he can never be wrong. Yes!! We have got it.
"You were late in saying Great Dane but you were lucky with the next question. It IS Moraji Desai."
*Applause from everyone else now*
"I told you na, we would get the last question of the quiz again." (My partner had been previously saying that we always got the last question of the quiz. Every time. Record maintained again.)
So that was it for the quiz. We finally stood at a respectable 2nd, after a remarkable recovery. And it turned out later that AD knew almost all the answers. Very simple questions (for him, not for us) that we could not answer.
Even later, we cross-checked the answers to find out that we had beaten them squarely and not by some mistake, as they had missed out one more of their wrong answers.
So we went with the silver medal back to the school. The record for 5 years was broken, but next year, we are SURELY going to win this. Not just this, but also every other quiz that comes our way. Because after coming second, my thirst to be the best has been increased manifolds now.
I now feel happy that I beat AD, but bad, that we could not manage to be 1st. If we were 1st, it would be great and would justify our place. But 2nd is just respectable. And had they been there, they would have surely won, and possibly even gone to the national level. Again.
The biggest irony in the place will be AD's statement "If you beat us, then we would be the happiest." Because even though they were happy, we weren't. We should have at least held their respect by coming first. And thus again, this was a perfect epitome of how we got what we wanted, but in a way that we did not expect. Or like. It was also the perfect example of how words said not-so-seriously turned out to be absolutely true in weird ways. (This has happened to me more then once before. Once, I went to a drawing competition [And my drawing is similar to that of Picasso. Only it does not look weird intentionally.] where I saw the drawing of the best drawer [Maybe drawer isn't that good a term to be used! Maybe painter would be more appropriate] and said "You will come at least second." And afterwards, he actually came second. And first prize? Me!!!)
And so, at the end of the day, i leave satisfied and happy, but at the same time, with a sour mouth.
Wrong medal. Wrong neck
After so long, I finally got one good true tryst with quizzing. the one opportunity I had been waiting for a very long time and which was eluding me for so long. And even after I got it, it has left me with a sour mouth. Ah, life! It gives you exactly what you want, but in such a way that you wish that you were better off without having got the thing in the first place. Who can fathom the complexities of life?
The day of my last post (ie the 15th), I also was chosen by one of my teachers (my Maths teacher) also selected me for another inter-school quiz that was to be held today. But there was one problem. There were supposed to be 3 two-member teams sent from each school and our school was sending the Class 12 team, our team (me and another class 11 guy) and a third team from Class 9. [Being the masters of quizzing for two years, the class 12 team was given an exception to participate in the quiz {Class 12 boys do not go for any events in the second half of the year, as a rule} and to win it] And the prelims was supposed to be written but only the top 6 teams qualified to the on-stage event. BUT, only 1 team from each school could go to the on-stage. Which meant that us, being the B-Team, had NO chance of even hoping to get higher than the masters.
I was all set to grab this opportunity but had only 2 problems. Firstly, the class 12 team should not have been given the exception. After all, we should also have been given our chance. And secondly, the class 9 team could easily have been replaced by a stronger class 11 or 12 team. Anyways, I braced myself for the quiz as it came (prepared would be a wrong word to be used, as I did NOT prepare at all)
Yesterday, I was talking to AD (The best quizzer of our school, and one half of the class 12 team) and complaining on how on earth would we have a chance at all, with them still being there. And he said "You guys have to beat us to get there. Its a challenge. For there will be teams even better than us that you will have to beat. There you cant do anything. Moreover, if you beat us, then we would be the happiest."
*Sigh*
Another chance for quizzing wasted. Come on! Its like an amateur vs professional. Who do you expect to win?
So today while we were going to the school where the quiz was to be held, I came to know that our school had been the winners for 5 consecutive years and had even gone to the national levels last year. Meaning, we HAD to perform respectably well.
At this note, the quiz started. There were 30 questions, which turned out to be very very easy. (At least for the standard of our school). We got most of them correct and then waited for the quiz-master to announce the answers.
When the answers were finally said, it turned out that we had got 24 correct and the class 12 team had got 25 correct!!! (And the class 9 team had got 18 correct) So near and yet so far. And all the while before the teams were announced, I had been hoping that they somehow make a spelling error or something that they get equal to us, and then we get past them. (If two teams were on equal points, then the team who gets the first incorrect answer loses out. And their incorrect answer came before ours.)
We had our lunch and then the results were announced. As expected, the school standing first was ours. With 24 points.
*Silence*
What!!!
Nobody could believe what was going on. Because if the points were 24, then we had managed to beat them.
Then the quiz-master announced that both the teams from our school had come first, and that the team qualifying had managed to do so on virtue of the tiebreak system in the 17th question.
And that team was ours.
(The points for the 6th team was 17, which meant that even our class 9 team would have qualified, had they also been allowed.)
So we go on to stage, with my mouth wide open. Literally. (Even the quiz-master noted the fact [several times, AAMOF] that the junior team had come up after beating the senior team, and that we were very shocked to be there.) With a huge responsibility on our shoulders. That of 5 years. We HAD TO win it now. HAD TO.
The quiz started off ok. We were joint leaders till 3rd round after which one of the other teams took the lead. We almost cut off the leam at several places, but before the last buzzer round, we were still 10 points behind them. In the buzzer round, we made 2 errors, losing 20 points and then lost all hopes of winning when one of the other schools answered one question with 2 more questions to go. We answer the penultimate question to come up to 3rd place at 40 points (the second placed team was at 50 points while the winners had already won it at 70 points. The next team at 4th place was at 30.)
But we were still having our final question to decide the 2nd and 3rd place.
[Writings in italics are my thoughts, as they were going on at the time.]
Get this answer correct and we will force ourselves to a tie-breaker for the 2nd place.
Get it wrong and we force ourselves to a tiebreaker for the 3rd place.
The team at 2nd place gets it right and they walk away with 2nd place, leaving us 3rd.
They get it wrong and we have a tiebreak for 2nd place.
The 4th placed team gets it right and force us to a tiebreak for 3rd place.
In all other possibilities, we come 3rd, while the 2nd team stays 2nd.
Therefore, we HAVE TO get it right. Simple. Save some face while its still there. At least 2nd place
The quiz-master starts saying the question. My hand on the table
"In the NATO terminology for letters...."
Wait a second. I know this terminology. Yes!!
My hand moves to the buzzer, with my finger poised to hit it anytime.
"if A stands for Alpha,..."
The question will make sense only if he asks for India (one of the few that I knew) ,which will be I. Just hope he does not ask for a Q or something. Please let it be something I know.
"what stands for...."
Please be I. Please be I. Please be I......
"I?"
I hit the buzzer immediately.
"Yes?" said the quiz-master.
I grab the mic and shout out "India!!!" and keep it back with a sense of triumph.
"Absolutely correct answer!!"
Which meant that we were going into the tie-breaker for the second place.
Next came the tie-breaker question.
"Cartoons? Everyone here likes them? Okay. In the Scooby Doo series..."
I know cartoons. I know Scooby Doo. I should get it
"... what breed of dog is Scooby Doo?"
Shit. I dont have a clue. Alastair? Dalmatian? Shit. I know this one. Have heard it so many times. Eeeesh!!!!
"Anyone?"
*silence*
"I shall count to three, after which, I shall be asking a new question. Three...."
Please think of something. Something
"Two....."
"Is it Great Dane? I am not sure, but.", my partner says.
Maybe. But dont take the risk. Dont.
"Are you sure?" I ask back. (We had lost 10 points for delaying in answering a previous question, although we knew the answer)
"I think so. Hit it."
"One......"
"Hit it man. Hit it.", he said.
I think so it is Great Dane. But dont take a chance. Should I hit it? Yes? No?
"Hit it."
I hit the buzzer.
"And zero. The time is up. Sorry but you would not be allowed to answer. The buzzer was just too late."
My partner asks "But can we just try?"
"Okay, but you would not get any points for that"
"Great Dane"
"Great Dane is absolutely correct."
*a hush from the audience*
Shit.
"But you should have hit the buzzer earlier. I'm sorry but you would not get any points for that."
"Its ok. We will get the next question." I console my partner.
"We move on to the next question. Who was the first non-Congress Prime Minister of India?"
Yes!! I know it. Had the very same question in a literary quiz in school a few days earlier. Yes!!!!
"Moraji Desai", I shout out to my partner within milliseconds. (I'm sure it was shouting.)
He hits the buzzer.
I pick up the mic and hastily say "Moraji Desai" very loudly and jubiliantly.
*Immediate applause from AD. And a very loud applause at that.*
*Quiz-master says nothing*
Could we be wrong? No. But AD has clapped. And he can never be wrong. Yes!! We have got it.
"You were late in saying Great Dane but you were lucky with the next question. It IS Moraji Desai."
*Applause from everyone else now*
"I told you na, we would get the last question of the quiz again." (My partner had been previously saying that we always got the last question of the quiz. Every time. Record maintained again.)
So that was it for the quiz. We finally stood at a respectable 2nd, after a remarkable recovery. And it turned out later that AD knew almost all the answers. Very simple questions (for him, not for us) that we could not answer.
Even later, we cross-checked the answers to find out that we had beaten them squarely and not by some mistake, as they had missed out one more of their wrong answers.
So we went with the silver medal back to the school. The record for 5 years was broken, but next year, we are SURELY going to win this. Not just this, but also every other quiz that comes our way. Because after coming second, my thirst to be the best has been increased manifolds now.
I now feel happy that I beat AD, but bad, that we could not manage to be 1st. If we were 1st, it would be great and would justify our place. But 2nd is just respectable. And had they been there, they would have surely won, and possibly even gone to the national level. Again.
The biggest irony in the place will be AD's statement "If you beat us, then we would be the happiest." Because even though they were happy, we weren't. We should have at least held their respect by coming first. And thus again, this was a perfect epitome of how we got what we wanted, but in a way that we did not expect. Or like. It was also the perfect example of how words said not-so-seriously turned out to be absolutely true in weird ways. (This has happened to me more then once before. Once, I went to a drawing competition [And my drawing is similar to that of Picasso. Only it does not look weird intentionally.] where I saw the drawing of the best drawer [Maybe drawer isn't that good a term to be used! Maybe painter would be more appropriate] and said "You will come at least second." And afterwards, he actually came second. And first prize? Me!!!)
And so, at the end of the day, i leave satisfied and happy, but at the same time, with a sour mouth.
Wrong medal. Wrong neck
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