A simple life lived the extraordinary way!!: September 2008

Posted by Jagat Jyoti Saikia In: Assam, Quizzing

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!!

Posted by Jagat Jyoti Saikia In: Autobiography, Life

Life... or something like it!!

ife has become so hectic off late… too many things happening concomitantly that I’m not getting time to reflect and introspect. It’s like the present has done a double somersault and grabbed the hands of the future… leave aside the garbs of the past… as if I’m standing still and the world is rushing past me. A time comes in everyone’s life when inspite of our individual dreams we also share our life with someone special and live our collective dreams. Wherein we become happy just because someone else is happy and smiling!! It’s something inexplicable and mayn’t make sense at one go… but from some other frames of reference it makes perfect sense…

When I try to write something… it seems to me that the whole world has become invisible and as if I’m in a trance. It feels like I've been transported to a secluded beach… in my younger self… making castles and weaving stories… and when I manage to write down a few incoherent lines (so called prose!!) I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to write anything else again… but it’s the uncertainty which makes each of such experiences worthwhile and closer to my heart. The high of putting your abstract/insane thoughts into the written form is like an orgasm of the mind… and you hope that it lasts for a lifetime!!

I always had a vivid imagination since childhood… and everything I try to write comes to me in the form of a visual imagery… the wind, the sky, the flowers, the dew drops, the walk in the beach, sunsets, rain, tears, smiles… and the words follow…

All said and done I know that there is nothing extraordinary about me… but I just try to live my simple life in an extraordinary way!! Life is beautiful and life’s calling… touchwood!!