Quizzes: questionable activity or a quest for answers?

It’s an addiction. Children, teens, young adults, adults. Male, female, cisgender, non-gender, whatever. Everyone can get addicted to it. Because this activity has nothing to do with age, sex, appearance, or socio-economic backgrounds. Success in this activity depends entirely on your ability to recall random information instantly, and the “pre-ability” to absorb and store arbitrary factoids in a dark(ish) recess of your mind.

This addiction is called a Quiz. A four-letter word, which like all four-letter words, promises infinite possibilities. It binds together people from varied backgrounds, walks of life (yes, that’s Knopfler – a quiz question for newbies) and food preferences. All united by the urge to pit their grey cells against a Being – the Quiz Master.

The origins of the activity, and the word itself, are hazy. Surprisingly for the subject matter, no one really knows how the word “quiz” came about, what was the first quiz question (I would have thought “To Be Or Not To Be”, that would be the question), who won the first ever quiz, and so on. One would have imagined that this primordial question would have been answered by the myriad quizzards dotted about the planet. But alas, ‘tis not to be. Theories abound, but no irrefutable sources (the bedrock of any quiz) are available. The mystery is huge, and to delve into the various theories would be the equivalent of several Christie novels. Of course, along the way you might learn the name of the first actor to play Hercule Poirot on television.

Quizzing is a hugely popular British Question. It seems to be most prevalent in the Mother Country and her many ex-colonies. In India (Jewel Of The Crowd, sorry Crown), quizzing is a particularly raucous and heated activity in the eastern and southern parts, though the western part does hold its own! Kolkata especially is a hotbed of questionable activities, with children being taught to read and absorb varied bits of trivia as soon as they can say “Ilish”. The north seems to be stuck on “Who invented Chicken Tikka Masala?” (Disclaimer: this is my perception and is not backed by verifiable facts).

The Brooklyn Eagle Quiz on Current Events (a quiz on an American radio channel started in 1923) is widely considered to be the first ever “quiz show”. This has degenerated into macabre, dystopian shows such as the Spelling Bee (in which young students, usually of South Asian origin, are asked to spell words like Appoggiatura and Smaragdine) and “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" (where answers are exchanged for…money!)

The acme of quizzing as an activity for pure intellectual satisfaction, with no lucre involved, is no doubt Mastermind, aired on the BBC. With its classic line “I’ve started, so I will finish” (inspired no doubt by Nelson just after the first shot at Waterloo), the show is capable of reducing the most erudite contestants to sweaty, blubbery, blobs of unanswered questions. The mother country also has another quiz variable – the Pub Quiz. Burns and Shorter had no idea how wildly successful their idea would become as a marketing strategy when they launched it in 1976. More on this in a later post.

But what is it about quizzing that fascinates people so much? There is no single answer. But to me, quizzing is a lot like life itself. Lots of questions. You know the answers to some questions, you get the answers to some questions from others, and you leave at the end with several questions unanswered.

College is a collage

 

“College” is not just a building with classrooms and gowned and capped scholars kicking down the cobble stones (yes, Paul, it’s your line). It is a stage of life that some fortunate children pass through. “Fortunate children” because not every child can do the college phase for various reasons. I exclude those who voluntarily drop out because they found a way of making a billion. Dollars.

A college is a pastiche of myriad stimuli. It is an institution of higher learning, it is a hub of culture, the source of information on the first shave, and gives the first taste of a freedom that does not exist in school. Even in today’s woke culture where kids go back to school with designer clothes, mobile phones that look like a space shuttle controller, and machine guns.

My college was down the road from my school. The environment was familiar, as was the trudge. It was supposedly one of the better bastions of academe for both the sciences and the liberal arts. We were of course part of the liberal, longhaired set. No complex equations or test tubes for us (that freedom I mentioned above…). The sylvan neighbourhood contained the usual confused mix of communities, and merchants catering to said communities.

My first day in college was unnerving, to put it mildly. I was trained in the navigation of complex & large human gatherings (aka crowds) thanks to my school, but nothing had prepared me for the intricate social conundrum that I – a plump, moon-faced, bespectacled lad - faced. To begin with I was in civvies – no uniforms in college. The outfit I had chosen was a hand-me-down pair of trousers and a shirt that looked like it had escaped from a 70s Bollywood movie – pointy collar and all. Most difficult for someone used to a uniform.

The classroom was a sea of female shapes, and I wondered if the college was actually an all-girls institution, and someone had pulled one on me. However, I stiffened the sinews, shot the cuffs, and entered as nonchalantly as I could. The female faces turned as one to stare at this blot who had dared sully their temple.

I walked rather stiffly to the last row and sat on one of the benches that looked like a refugee from some not-so-fussy prison. The professor (“teachers” in school morph into “professors” in college) – again a lady – marched into the room and I could sense the bonhomie between the female faces and the lady professor. A sisterhood against the male blot on the back bench. The professor took attendance (guess it was too early to withdraw all school habits). At the end of the exercise, I realised with a feeling of horror that I was the only male in the class.  A rock in a sea of one hundred and five mermaids. I would have called it quits right then if it wasn’t for a few familiar faces in the merry throng before me (more on that later). And I noticed a few sympathetic glances sent my way.

The day finally ended, and I trudged back home, prey to nameless fears about the future.

I will not get into the details of the next five years in this hallowed establishment of learning and literacy (acronymically speaking). Suffice to say that it shaped me, presented experiences that smoothened out the rough edges in my make-up, and helped me build friendships that have lasted to this day. I learned the exotic tribal art of “bunking”, a community activity that promotes camaraderie, leadership, and deep philosophy. Incidentally, the tribal leader who introduced me to bunking dropped out after two years and became a monk. Giving "bunking" a whole new, transcendental meaning.

I also learned how to manage the multiple social riddles that a hapless teen faces when thrown into the deep end without a ring. I learned the importance of managing freedom with responsibility, and the need to find someone to foot the bill for a restaurant sandwich.

And most importantly, I learnt the difference between a school and a college. In school, one absorbs knowledge. In college, one absorbs life.

School, or A Witch’s Den?

 

‘tis the Season Of Learning. In other words, School’s In after the summer break. In many geographies, the new school year starts in September. In some, it starts in April in a desultory manner, especially in those latitudes where summer is not so much bright sunshine as the very real risk of sunburn / dehydration, but the full circus starts in September. In a few countries, school starts in June. I come from one such country.

I have never much liked rain. “Wet outside” is not my ideal state of being. This dislike (“hate” is too strong a word) was compounded by having to go to school in what meteorologists describe as “convective cloud formation associated with rainfall and fresh winds with a speed of 40 km/hr over some areas”. In short, the combination of intemperate weather and the need to gain what education one could gain produced one very damp and sodden student. Which darkened my views on that most noble of institutions – the school recess. (Read more on my thoughts on rain here).

I went to a school which took “mass education” very literally. There were over 3,000 students at any given time in the complex, absorbing knowledge in 3 languages. Each grade (1st to 10th) had over 10 “divisions” labelled alphabetically (A, B, C…), and each division had at least 60 students. Do the maths. Assemblies in my school resembled one of those parades on Red Square. This also meant that one could go into any division and not be turfed out for being in the wrong room, because the teacher had no means of knowing who was supposed to be where.

What about Roll Call, you ask? A non-utilitarian concept meant for effete schools with under 20 students per “division”. Usually found in the South of one’s hometown.

I was a rather shy and reserved lad in the pre-teen and teen years. The onset of visual aids at an early age, the need to wear shorts as part of the uniform even after the voice had broken, and a stammer, all combined to make me crave that “Solitude, where we are least alone” (per George, Lord Byron). The situation was compounded by the fact that the school was a “mixed” school, i.e., it provided gainful education to boys and girls. Simultaneously. In the same room! Imagine the plight of a wee lad, unaccustomed to the company of strange ladies, forced to engage in education with skirted beings assembled to starboard and giggling under their frilly lace handkerchiefs.

The divisions were built around an invisible caste system, wherein the bright students were in the first three divisions, and the rest were arithmetically divided into the balance divisions. That was rather mean on average students like myself, with no access to brighter minds and kindly teachers who went over and above the call of duty to drill knowledge into brains whose neurons fired so frantically that they almost made the students keel over.

I struggled to understand most of the education that was fired like cannon shells at myself, and this led to my being enrolled in a phenomenon called “private tuition”, which merits a full post by itself. Mathematics and Science were beyond the pitiful limits of a brain more attuned to words and a fantasy world where there was no need to explain why A squared + B squared equalled C squared. I mean, why?? And what was I going to do with the knowledge that inert gases were not what I thought they were?

But the years passed by, through rain and shine. In 9th grade I managed to slip into the C division because I took French as a 3rd language (bless the French, I always say). One’s ego and sense of self-worth inflated like a balloon filled with the best helium money could buy. By the way, for the non-Indians reading this, most Indians are at least trilingual by the time they leave school. Many are pentalingual. Which adds a lot of depth and flavour to our arguments. And which speaks volumes about the quality of education in our schools.

In spite of the trials and tribulations I went through, I did manage to rise through the ranks and clear each grade with reasonably decent results, all thanks to the tenacity and determination of the schoolteachers to hammer in reams of education into receptive or unreceptive cerebrums (somethings do stick from Biology…).

And finally, one glorious April day, in spite of being in classrooms full of the slings and arrows of outrageous education (sorry Bill), I managed to scrape through the 10th grade and pass out (feet first) with an honourable discharge. And went on to a rite of passage called College.

So, in short, school was what Bill meant when he said, “Hell Is Empty And All The Devils Are Here”. But it had its compensations. Like the relief one felt on leaving it, and the knowledge that come what may, I did not have to go back to school.

Little did I know that I was entering a school called Life! Where "We are all just prisoners here of our own device". Guess Don also went to a kind of Dotheboys Hall.

The Name's Bond. Raksha Bond-han

 

It’s that time of the year in the native when ladies, under the guise of a festival called “Raksha Bandhan” (Securing Security), extract protection money from their brothers. Yes, Yes, I know it should be the other way round – the sisters paying the bros for their protection – but I suppose the ladies didn’t get the memo from Il Consigliere! Or they ignored it – sisters can identify a good deal when it lands on their laps.

There are many stories and tales about the origin of this festival, and most natives know most of them, so we shall not get into that. Robustly cultural, the festival takes on different hues and different emotions for all of us. To the extent of pushing the boundaries of siblinghood to “Orally Anointed Brother / Sister” who are not biologically related but are emotionally tied in a bond that transcends ages. There was also that theory, propagated in textbooks across schools in the native, that “all Indians are my brothers and sisters”, thereby questioning the sanctity of another relational matrix. Thankfully, it was ignored. This festival is also useful for converting amorous males into deflated siblings – the orally anointed variety.

I have a number of sisters across the Family Line. Most are elder to me, save one, who is not only the youngest, but is also the Brat of the family. From an era when brats were (and are) much loved siblings. Growing up with this band of sisters was an incredible experience. Not only were they a window to a world of possibilities, but they were also a shield from that self-same world when it became a bit too heavy for one’s frail shoulders.

One lamented the fact that these sisters went into a new world and relationships after marriage, but thankfully the gents who took away our sisters were kind-hearted enough to allow the bonds to continue and prosper. Of course, knowing our sisters, the gents didn’t have much of a choice. “Fait accompli” is a phrase coined expressly for sisters. And yes, the gents also had their sisters, who went into their own new worlds, and so the chain went on.

Over the years we bros have seen our sisters building bonds, creating families, taking on the multiple roles that are the lot of women everywhere. We have seen them managing joy, grief, stubbed toes, toilet training, illnesses, graduations, and myriad other peaks and troughs in their timelines. Always with a smile, sometimes with a frown and rarely with a glare. Incidentally, a sister’s glare is a red alert – something bad is usually afoot for the bro who has received the glare. The best solution for him would be to go off to the jungle and hide.

To my sisters, and to sisters everywhere, the bond shall neither be shaken nor stirred. The thread you tie stays firmly tied. And to the ladies who left their bros and came into our family, you only strengthen the ties.

Razor sharp close shaves

As a wee child I used to be fascinated by the shaving process. Watching the guv’nor do his daily ritual with brush, soap and water was possibly the nearest thing to the perfect start of a day that one reads about in verse and song.

I also had several family members (male, of course) who resembled a moving mass of hair rather than a human, and I suspect they shaved at least twice a day. They got to mind the celebrated Russian novelist Vladimir Brusiloff, peering at the world through dense shrubbery.

I despaired of ever having enough dermal growth to merit more than a token scratching of an otherwise innocent face, interrupted midway by a foul pair of spectacles which looked more like windshields than ocular aids. The angst was deepened in the latter part of school, when I had classmates who claimed (as adults in schools are wont to do) that they shaved several times daily.

I am no pogonophobe, but men who looked like Assyrians coming down on the fold were excluded from my social circle upon pain of dry shaves.

Coming to teenhood, the epidermis still refused to sprout, and I was left forlorn, condemned to a hairless hell that threatened to deepen an existential angst. I used to gaze wistfully at the array of shaving creams, after shaves, and razors that lined the shelves of the neighbourhood pharmacy. The owner of the pharmacy did not help matters by waxing lyrical about the merits of menthol v/s plain, cream v/s foam, and multi-blade v/s single blade. The maniacal gleam in his beady eyes as he gazed sideways at me while extolling these questionable virtues to profusely clean-shaven customers excited a desire to inflict grievous bodily harm on his closely-shaven face.

And the guv’nor continued with his daily ritual. Which now seemed an infliction of barbarous proportions rather than a celebration of the dapperness that he was known for.

I at last reached man’s estate and started praying fervently for lush tendrils of growth to adorn my rather chubby face, now graced with the kind of spectacles that John Lennon wore. I pottered around doing odd-jobs and to my jaundiced eyes every boss I worked with flaunted a spotless chin and reeked of the latest after-shave lotion. I even started chanting an invocation called “The Hökutoppur”, hoping that this ancient Icelandic song would invoke various Nordic gods to bless me with Viking-esque growths which would involve long hours of shaving. But…nada.

The years passed. I finally started shaving but it was more a token gesture (like elections) rather than a full commitment to facial governance. And even these gestures caused pain as my face remained smooth as silk. Not for me "the heavenly touches on earthly faces" of ol' Bill (ya ya he was as bearded as a clam.) Since I had started earning my keep I invested in multi-blade razors, electric shavers, aloe-enriched foams, and gels with chamomile extracts, to be ready for the day when I could plough through the foliage like a lawn mower gone doolally.

And at long last, came the day! When I noticed a heavier than usual stubble. A proper, dark mantle upon my chin, rather than a smudge. When mom commented that I looked like something from under a stone. I grabbed my latest, 5-blade, titanium-edged razor made from the same material as the space shuttle. I lathered on the rich, bergamot-scented foam gifted by a beautifully-shaven friend who took pity on me one rainy Sunday. My hands moved over my chin and cheeks like Sir Zubin leading the Vienna Philharmonic through a thunderous Straussian symphony. The smooth skin that emerged was as bewitching as Venus appearing from the sea.

However, I have not reached the stage of daily shaves, and never will. I have made my peace with this dermatological anomaly, and in keeping with my Gemini character I now sport a rather lush beard that startles passers-by and makes them hurry on away from me. 

After all, close shaves are for those who walk close to the edge.

The thin end of the wedge (of cheese)

I have always wondered whether Tolkien meant "Lord Of The (Onion) Rings".

I have always been on the thin side of plump. Which means that I am not unhealthily thin or not-thin – just thinly plump. Call me thump. As a tot, as a child, as a bespectacled teen and as a bespectacled (now despectacled) adult, I always needed a larger-than-usual of everything, be it clothes, foods, shoes, or just my personal space. Strained midriff buttons, popped trouser bands and outgrowing belts faster than they could be upgraded were pastiches of a life lived for food. I was born large, and I just continued along the merry way. More of me to love and admire is how I see it.

I am a food lover (“foodie” is quite overused nowadays). I may not live to eat but I do believe that food (one of my favourite four letter words after “Baxi” and before “wine”) is meant to provide meaning to life. Growing up in a household and within a larger family context where food was treated with respect, and formed an important narrative in every gathering, I learnt to appreciate the nuances of food. I also learned not to have hangups about food, not to waste food, and appreciate that food habits varied within families, communities and even countries. I grew up swinging both ways where food is concerned and love potatoes as much as the steak that sizzles by their side. I even look kindly upon those people who go ecstatic over bitter gourd (karela for the natives)

So yes, food was, and is, an important construct in my life. I am fairly easy-going as a person (thumps can’t afford to antagonise anyone – we can’t run very fast) but woe betide the purveyor of less-than-optimal food offerings. Many are the restaurants and individuals who have got an earful from me for supplying provender that was fit only for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. My online posts are full of diatribes against restaurants who came within the measure of my wrath for giving bad food. (I keep saying sorry to Bill but it’s all his fault for creating these words and phrases.)

The chance to live in Paris was the acme of my quest for good food. I will refrain from getting too dense about the kind of food this paradise for gourmands offers. Suffice to say that I understood the true meaning of ambrosia while in this city of cities. My current domicile, Dubai, has exposed me to more food choices than the V & A has paintings. And let me not forget to mention Nigeria, where the food may not always be elegantly plated, but is hearty, bounteous, and cooked with a lot of love. And ferocious spices. A month in Hong Kong proved to me that one can eat whatever does not eat one. And the food choices within the native are worthy of a separate post. So, what does one do?

Returning to my grammage, I must confess to occasional frenzied bouts of efforts to drop the load. Growing up next to one of the largest open spaces in Mumbai should have been motivation enough to get going, but the mere sight of people in designer athletewear made me mildly nauseous. A popular gym near the house got my custom for a year but it was more for the interesting company and the sandwich guy at the gate. Ditto the Olympic-sized swimming pool. The taste of the “vadapavs” in the pool canteen continue to linger on the palate. I do get these bouts even today, but I have learnt to control them and channelise that urge towards better things. Like writing blogs about food. And reading food blogs.

I did have a phase where I actually dropped the grammage and discovered a jawline. Thankfully the phase was short-lived. I reverted to the “round is a shape” philosophy fairly quickly.

I do not for a minute intend to imply that eating per se should be the raison d’être of our existence. All I wish to say is that good food, like good books, good wine, and good company, does more for our physical, moral, and mental well-being than any exercise, yogic contortions or marathons.

After all, it’s a matter of perception. A V-shaped bod is good. No one said it shouldn’t be an inverted V shape. And “fat” is just one vowel away from “eat”…!

p.s.: you can read my earlier food posts here , here and here 

Tide in the affairs of men

 

There is a tide in the affairs of men.

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat,

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.

-      Brutus and Cassius, in conference.

Although this is fiction from a completely different era, context and geography, the lines, especially the first two, always remind me of 26 July 2005. A day which the good folks of Mumbai will never forget. I certainly will not.

Today, 19 years later, the day continues to evoke vivid memories.

The tide and flood which rendered the city afloat on a full sea (‘twas high tide after all) was one of those freak weather phenomena which are increasingly getting normalised. 944 mm of rainfall – about 50% of the annual rainfall – fell on the city in less than 24 hours. “Unprecedented” is too weak a word for this catastrophic weather event.

Many stayed put where they were, hoping to ride out the situation to the best of their resources. But a vast majority of people (this author included) tried to return to home and hearth for various reasons. The inevitable roadblocks, traffic jams, flooding of railway tracks and closure of the airport compounded a situation for which there was no playbook. Long lines of people trudging through waist-high water, cars abandoned on the road, trees on the roads, and destruction of homes and infrastructure painted a picture in darkest tenebrism. Bleaker than Dante’s Seven Hells. Noah’s flood was a mere bucketful in comparison.

Many people have asked why this happened and continue to ask even today. While there may be no straight or easy answers, suffice to say that nature’s obiter dicta cannot be tossed aside like a broken umbrella. Just like karma, nature too can be a bitch, of frightening proportions. Mankind’s blithe ignorance of the laws of nature and the disdain for the need to co-habit with nature, and not try to master it, will continue to produce such mind-bending calamities.

And the overriding question - did we take the current when it serves - to ensure that such events do not recur? No. We are seeing more of these natural disasters created by man’s intrinsic ability to shoot himself in the foot where nature is concerned. This must stop. We must go back to building harmony with nature. Or lose our ventures.

As for myself, how did I spend the day nineteen years ago? I was headed back home in a colleague’s car, with an old monk as co-passenger. Though I was on the road for over twenty-four hours, the monk’s sage counsel to “be wet inside and dry outside” guided me to my destination.