Random Talk : Hosting Quizzards

Remember how in the earlier Random Talk I mentioned public speaking? That was a direct result of me having to host the Inter DAV Quiz on the 14^th of November at my alma-mater; DAV Gill Nagar. Before I get on with explaining the details of how I ended up hosting the event, I want to share my experience of doing something like this.

Before I go on and start writing something funny about my experience I do need to come clean and admit that, contrary to my façade of coolness, this was a very daunting task. A lot of preparation was needed and I would not have been able to do it without the help of so many others. But seeing as how I am a guy with a huge ego, I am going to focus on myself before I mention any of them.

I started working on the quiz slides around five days before the event and it started with a gathering of ideas and brainstorming levels. The topic of the quiz was our incredible country India, and it was for students of sixth, seventh and eighth grade. Not grades I am a part of. So the daunting task of not picking questions that are too hard began. Slowly as the days neared the idea came into focus and the prototype slides for “Quizzards” were born.

The idea behind the quiz was that it would all be randomized and computerized that there is no “bias”. The only role that I, as the “Quiz Master”, had to play was bringing some flavor to the setting using my fantastic delivery skills. Soon the levels were adding up and we settled with six levels. The first one “Individuality”; where in each if the three members of the team had to answer the same questions without discussion on a piece of paper so that their average could be the beginning scores.

The second round was “Audio Cues”, which was made up of audio cues and the team had to guess the famous Indian personality who could be heard in the audio cues. The third was one where the teams had to guess personalities based on clues. The fourth was based on monuments and the fifth was a rapid fire round. The sixth and the final round was a conventional quiz round with questions and options and answers.

A lot of effort was put into all the sections and in the end I ended up with a working files which came up to 2 GB; all audio cues included. The day of the Quiz came and I took the stage, unfunny jokes and all, and put up a pretty good show, if I say so myself. In all honesty, I was a nervous wreck, who was good at putting up a façade. I did mess up in places, which only I knew and if you asked me immediately after if I had done a good job, I would have laughed at you.

But, despite all these confessions of truth to you guys the moment when my Principal Smt. Vasantha Balasubramaniam congratulated me, and one of my old English teachers, Mrs. Meenakshi Radhakrishnan got up on stage and praised me, I couldn’t have been more proud. As the other teachers congratulated me and as the participants walked up to me and they felt like I was a relatable and fun quiz master I couldn’t help but smile.

In that moment, standing in front of all the students, and being appreciated by a lot of my teachers, I couldn’t help but feel proud of what I had been able to accomplish. I couldn’t stop the feeling of victory when I realized that I had proven many naysayers, who had chosen not to encourage the weird kid who read books and had a small bit of creativity, wrong; even if many hadn’t been there to see me do it.

I couldn’t have done it without so many people backing me up. My mom and dad who helped me pick out the questions and hyperlink slides, one of my teachers Mrs. Lalitha Sriraman, all the volunteers all the supporting staff and of course, my principal Smt. Vasantha Balasubramaniam. So many teachers and students and staff came together to make the event such a memorable one and, I will say this from the bottom of my heart; it was a day I will never forget.

So, what’s the moral of this story? The moral is that if you have an event planned and you want an awesome host feel free contact me. I will do it for free too… for now. But in all seriousness, I will be more than happy to help anyone out, because this is something I really enjoy doing. The other, more important moral, is that if you stick to your passions, one day you will smile back at the naysayers and say that you did what they said was not possible.

And also special thanks to P.Harica for the amazing painting that the school presented me with as a memento. It’s permanently affixed on my wall, you will be happy to know. And a bigger thank you for not making it modern art ;-)

Peace out!!!