Monday, March 08, 2004

On the University Challenge Quiz

By committing the worst case of quizzing hara-kiri I have ever seen, the team from the Indian School of Business has probably ensured immortality (albeit for the wrong reasons) for itself rather than if they had merely won the quiz , as was widely expected before the finals. ISB had swept all before them in the preliminary rounds, had a stiff challenge to overcome versus MDI, Gurgaon (our own Harish was in that) where they came back from behind to win. Their opponents in the final, a group of undergrads from Sardar Patel College of Engg. Mumbai had had a more severe route to the finals, with a very engrossing and nervous semi-final round. 90% of the time, ISB were coolly swatting away the questions as usual, while SPCE struggled to make the important breakthroughs inspite of some desperate buzzing. Then all of a sudden, ISB lost 20 points by needlessly buzzing incorrectly to make a 50 point lead vanish into thin air as if they had Houdini amongst them. SPCE held on by the proverbial hair to win the 1st UCQ by the smallest margin. Capt. Shankar blames it on arrogance, while Samrat says they did a South Africa. It was a performance that would have made Greg Norman cry - a clear and present SNAFU. Sorry JK & Amalesh, commiserations from all, but you blew it though you were the better team. Many congratulations to Shrijit, Bharat, Ninad & Nishad from SPCE.

Report from The Telegraph (Thanks Anti)

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