How I learned to stop worrying and love quizzing
As far as I can remember, I’ve always had a good memory.
Even as a kid, recalling cricket scores, country capitals or even the roll numbers of my classmates was something that was rather easy. I didn’t put any effort into memorizing these minutiae. They just happened to stick in my mind.
I was in the 4th grade when my school held a quiz contest for our age group. I’d never participated in any event before. Elocutions and Debates were scary. What if, in front of all my classmates, I forget the fourth line in Wordsworth’s ‘Daffodils’?
But a quiz seemed exciting. I’d have a teammate or two, the quiz would revolve around current affairs and the like (I religiously used to read the newspaper every day) and a quiz wouldn’t have the intensity of an elocution. I signed up.
The quiz happened the next day and my team performed quite well. My knowledge of sport trivia held me in good stead while my teammate took care of more academic topics like history and politics. We won the quiz in the end, getting book vouchers as prizes. This would be the start of something beautiful. Invariably, answering a question meant piecing together clues, discussing possible answers with my teammate and then hoping for the best. Often we’d be way off target, sometimes we’d be sure the answer was one of two things..and go for the wrong one. But every once in a while there came moments of clarity where we knew the answer and would anxiously wait our turn till the question came to us. And when it did, the heart would skip a beat as I’d blurt out the answer on the mic and wait (for what seemed like an eternity) to know whether the answer was right. The quizmaster would agonizingly prolong this moment for as long as he could before shouting out that the answer was in fact correct. The crowd would clap and we’d hi-five each other and laugh nervously for ten seconds before focussing on the next question.
I’d discovered the joy of quizzing.
I entered the world of quizzing, taking part in inter-school competitions. It wasn’t always smooth sailing. We’d sometimes not even qualify to the finals but when we did, the exhilaration of being on stage and representing school was magical. We even made it to the televised round of a nationwide quiz. Under the intimidating glare of the lights and cameras, my elocution fears came back to haunt me as we were outclassed pretty thoroughly on National TV. This didn’t deter me one bit though. This new hobby that I’d discovered had turned into much more than just that. Throughout college, I’d attend as many quizzes as I could, some even in colleges in different cities. There were perks of course. Winning meant getting gift vouchers, t-shirts and the occasional gadget while also bunking a day of college. Not too shabby for the perpetually-broke college student!
Even these days, I spend a lot of my free time quizzing. Not necessarily attending quizzes but also reading up on esoteric subjects, looking for tidbits of information that are waiting to be discovered. And when such a tidbit is uncovered, there is a joy that is only matched by the happiness I felt a long time ago when I discovered the joy of quizzing.
