Sep 20, 2008

Down memory lane...

It happened to me some 4 years back while I was in my engineering days. I boarded a city bus and since there were no vacant seats I had to stand in the back side of the bus… to make matter worse the Guwahati buses have roof which are on the shorter side and being of a lanky kind (~6ft) I was finding it difficult to stand straight… After some time luckily I got a seat and was hoping there won't be much traffic enroute. Just then a young guy (~20-21 years) sitting next to me asked whether I was the same guy who won the Telegraph Open Quiz Show Regional finals which was conducted by Derek O'Brien's team a few weeks back. I was pleasantly surprised… and replied that I was the same person! It's a small world for sure…




Excerpts from The Telegraph newspaper:

Quizzing is sometimes like the 100-metre dash in the Olympics? It's all about speed and photo-finish. Three young men, calling themselves MI3, crossed the finish line a fraction of a second ahead in the tie-breaker to emerge winners in the Guwahati leg of TOPS on September 4. Jagat Jyoti Saikia, Manas and Biswajit, however, will not be able to make it to the Calcutta finals due to exams. Taking their place will be Vedanta, Pranami Tamuli and Hrishikesh Mali-- Class XI students of team Mensa, who came in second after losing the tie-breaker, despite tying with MI3 with 105 points after eight rounds..
After continuous quizzing from Class 4-5 onwards… and traversing the entire Quizzing life cycle… I can look back at some very sweet, satisfying moments… those calls from a gal who became a 'fan' after we went to her college n won a state level inter-college Quiz… to the more than 1.25 lakh rupees that I've won so far as prize money… to the hundred odd certificates and the newspaper clippings of our wins… to meeting stalwarts like Derek, Giri, Harsha… to the Pub Quizzes in Guwahati… and the quizzes that we used to organize in our backyard while in school where we used to save our pocket-money to buy prizes like fancy pens, posters and chocolates… to the over flowing cabinets at home full of golden silver medals n trophies n shields… to be taken in a procession with the winning trophy in a small locality after winning a Quiz organized in the memory of a young lad… being given so much respect by the departed guy's parents as if I have helped in his soul's eternal peace. And I still remember how a young lad cried after losing another Quiz to my team... those days we were quite invincible as far as quizzing was concerned!! It has been many years since this wonderful journey began... Old quizzers like old soldiers die hard… they just fade away into the sands of time… hope I can stay in the limelight a bit longer!!

1 comment:

hasHAN hazaRIKA said...

Nice to see an Assamese blogger around..Very nice blog!!
keep posting!!

i write here
http://bakwasdairy.blogspot.com/