The Evolution of a Casual Trivia Enthusiast

I still vividly remember that warm summer afternoon 18 years ago. The Games Room was the venue of the annual GK Quiz contest between the students of VI A and VI B - the two divisions of sixth grade in my school. I was an indifferent member of an audience of 120 students, with 6 chosen students being selected to represent the class for the event. Sure I cheered my class team on every point they earned but truth to tell, at that juncture I don't think I regarded it as anything more interesting than a 'Get out of regular classes pass' for the rest of the afternoon. I often found my attention wandering through the windows out into the open for want of something better to do. Suddenly something the Quiz Master said caught my fleeting attention. "Where would you find the Brandenburg Gate?" Both teams passed the question. The audience had the floor. There was murmurs but no answer. Without realizing it my hand was up in the air, and I had blurted out "Is it Berlin?" The stern faced QM gave me a penetrating gaze and said witheringly "Are you asking or is that your final answer?" Somewhat ruffled, I stuck to my guns and said more assertively "Berlin it is". The QM's face cracked a smile. "You've got it Miss Bhattacharya". The audience erupted with applause; I even caught an acknowledgement from my classmates on the team. That was a powerful moment. To hold in your hands the answer to a question that 120 people or more are clueless about can be very intoxicating. Looking back that was the day that initiated me into the world of Quizzing or Trivia as I know it today.

Over the next years I graduated from being an audience member to a class team member, representing my school in a few quizzes. I started following the Bournvita Quiz contest, Siddharta Basu's Quiz Time and India Quiz more avidly. I never took it seriously though - to me it was like a fling , a fad that would fade with time and that was exactly what happened. The academic years intervened, priorities changed and before I knew it I had moved from Pune to Pittsburgh to Seattle. 

Circa 2007 , a new city, a new job beckoned and I found myself getting over my graduate school friendships and attempting to adjust to the new lifestyle and society in Seattle
On the 15th Aug, AID Seattle had organized an India Quiz. This event which got a fairly positive response had given a fellow Microsoftian, Mihir an idea to bring together individuals who enjoyed the act of Quizzing and see if something came out of it. One fine day in Septermber I found myself duly staring at his mail for a long time contemplating whether to go or not to go. Truthfully speaking I had never been part of the real quizzing scene which is huge in Pune, Karnataka, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, so I was pretty sure that the folks who showed up would be serious quizzers. What would an amateur do in the midst of such heavyweights. I checked with a few of my friends. Their responses echoed my innermost thoughts. "I don't really know anything" "People might laugh if I don't get any answers"  "Its really not my thing." Nevertheless I steeled myself with the consolation that I didn't know any of these people so if I did make a fool of myself, no one would ever find out, and I was really keen to be part of an activity on my own accord (not what everyone else including my friends wanted to do).

So I walked into the room full of about 12 people and that was the day Seattle Area Quizzers (erstwhile Microsoft Redmond Quiz club) was formed. The first couple of years were tricky. It took me a while to get over my inner demons and the fear of being laughed at and being given scornful glances by people if I did not get the right answers. Additionally we followed an individual elimination round followed by a final format in the first two years. For me that meant being in the audience a lot(trust me not the best boost to ones self confidence specially when the audience is really small :)). Many days I didn't feel motivated enough to make it to the biweekly quizzes, so I dropped out for a protracted period. Another thing that bothered me was that the quizzes felt more like formal meetings and I found that people would come attend and leave, just like that and we had very few normal conversations.

Luckily a friend from the quiz club, Harish motivated me to get back to it and give it another shot.  Also around the same time we changed the format of the quizzes to be team based, so that everyone could participate, That was a turning point for both me and the history of  Seattle Area Quizzers. I did make my first club final shortly after that and I think that was one of the things that stopped me from dropping out permanently (so much so for ego boost). That was just the beginning and while I still didn't know a great deal that was being bandied about for most of the time, the team format meant that I at least had a fighting chance of knowing answers to questions which no one else would and it would count for something.

The next step was actually participating in the Seattle wide India Quiz- Chakraview that  AID and Seattle Area Quizzer's jointly organized. 2009 was the first year I seriously considered doing that. I still had self doubts and was hesitant approaching anyone from the Quiz club to be my partner. Luckily Samarth was looking and I offered to partner him. Even on D-Day I was stressed that I would not be able to pull my weight and would somehow fail my partner. I was pleasantly surprised to find that was not the case and we did succeed in getting a fairly competitive preliminary score missing out qualifying by a couple of points. It is quite amazing how much of a confidence boost that can do to ones morale. Suddenly being in a final from among 70/80 teams seemed like an achievable possibility and not an impossible dream and that's exactly what happened.
2010 was a dream year at the Quizzes. Bollywood and Harry Potter have both been my areas of special interest. So contesting those quizzes was a no-brainer. Qualifying for the finals was much tougher but with Jayani and Adarsh as my respective partners we breezed through to the finals, which proved to be much tougher but Adarsh and I managed to win the Harry Potter Finals. But the icing on the cake had to be Chakraview 2010. Adarsh and I partnered again and weathered tough competition to qualify. Finals were nerve wrecking and we lost the initial advantage to the eventual winners right at the outset but fought hard to secure the second place. I don't really care if I can never repeat this; it will remain my most treasured win.

I still am not a serious quizzer and I am brazenly unaware of a bunch of topics but that doesn't bother me much, I have gotten better with time, I have carved my niche. I have felt the same heady rush that I felt 18 years ago in the school gym room, time and time again and know why I keep going back to the biweekly quizzes. Along the way I also forged friendships that I will treasure and learnt about strange and interesting trivia. Suddenly Quizzing had gone from a side activity to a prime one that I eagerly look forward to.

Unspoken Words

"The words that hurt the most are the words left unsaid". But "Silence is golden" after all, especially so when words have the power to wreak. How does one know then when to speak up and when to hold ones peace? There are so many times when if you do not speak out at the right moment, it might be too late to undo the damage that has been done. It is human nature to misunderstand and assume. It is the simple misunderstandings which sow the seeds of rifts between human hearts. We chose to keep quiet many times thinking that what we might say will cause unnecessary pain and sorrow to people close to us. We keep waiting for an opportune moment to broach unpleasant subjects, but as time passes it becomes increasingly uncomfortable and difficult to confront topics which slowly get relegated to the backburner but nevertheless have enough spark to cause quite a conflagration later on. Little do we realize that even though we may not speak out our feelings, the unspoken thoughts can poison our minds and subtly the change the way we behave towards the other person. There are times when we wish to reach out to someone we care about, but dare not do so for the fear of how our behaviour towards that person will expose us or that person to public scrutiny. It might be argued here that if you really care enough about the person and vice versa, public scrutiny should be the least of your concern, but the truth is society has its way of insiduously influencing your thoughts and action at the subconcious level. At other times we are stopped by false feelings of prejudice and ego issues. Whatever be the considerations guiding our decision not to speak out about something we feel strongly about, the net result is that once we lose the golden opportunity to take the bull by its horns, it is often to late to return back and make amends and expect things will remain unchanged. I am not advocating impulsive and rash confrontations, which I feel are best avoided. Chances are that they will cause more harm than good. Sometime it is best to let both parties cool down before they can be sensitive to each others point of views since angry people make horribly illogical arguments. The trick is therefore to find the right timing to iron out the creases in a any relationship. Patience , understanding and good judgement go a long way in conflict management. How and when we chose to address something which is disturbing our peace of mind is left to each ones individual discretion since we all cope very differently, but one fact holds true for all of us, that our unspoken feelings of jealousy, hatred, fear, anger , love, concern, disappointment, frustration can undermine our relationships if we do not vent them out eventually, and can cause us to lose out on precious memories.

Love Unplugged :)

After a failed relationship , tugging at the lessons from the past desperately in search of a hero, in an elusive pursuit of happiness, after spending a cynical enternity looking for closure, exploring the many hues of friendship overburdened by expectation, we finally learn to let go.
Disclaimer and Parental Guidance : Reading between the lines is highly inadvisable :)

Sounds heavy? Quite natural. For a change, why not delve into the more mushy affairs of the heart. Ever tried to define love? Not that it matters , since love is one of the most incomprehensive of emotions. Yet its probably worth a try to come up with some of the cliched definitions of love . The compilation of definitions is certainly not original; on the contrary it is a collective expression of myriad experiences of multiple people across a timescape.

Love is daring to dream the impossible dream and believing that it will come true.
Love is the act of giving unconditionally without expecting anything in return.
Love is knowing when to speak and when to keep silent
Love is when silence speaks louder than words
Love is about sharing not just the laughter but also the tears
Love is not having to care if you will be laughed at
Love is letting go of someone, but never giving up on him/her
Love is having the courage to say you are sorry
Love is never having to say Sorry but meaning it nevertheless
Love is about forgiving even before hearing the word sorry
Love is about accepting someone for whom he/she is and not what you want him/her to be
Love is about changing yourself not because someone asks you to, but because you want to
Love is about daring to trust someone with your darkest fears and deepest secrets
Love is ovecoming the fear of loss
Love is an act of faith
Love is the only war that one can lose and yet be as happy the winner

Whew enough of mushiness for a day :).
Shall keep adding to the list, as new defintions come through :)
So much so for breaking through the writers block mould, Let the
posts begin :)

Letting Go

How difficult it is to let go of something or someone? It is basic human nature to want cling to anything that we value as precious. Parents nurture children , shielding them from the wickedness of the world and always being there for them. They build their universe around their children. Yet as the children grow up , they know with a reasonable degree of certainty that they cannot hold on to their children forever. It is for the good of their children only that they step back, and release their hold, and let their precious babies take the first tentative steps of their own. Though overwhelmed by concern at how their child might suffer and fall at first when he/she is suddenly without the parental crutches, parents must do so at the right point in time voluntarily before the child demands the freedom himself/herself. I wonder how heartbreaking it must be to knowingly sever the umbilical cord that attaches you to someone with whom you shared such a deep bond. But it would be obviously impossible for the child to remain attached to the parents alone. The first realization that there are other people and activities in the child's life that are becoming increasingly important to him/her can be cruelly shattering to the parents. Acceptance of this fact is an act of great courage. If it is hard for the parents to draw back from their child's life, it is equally hard for the child to initially accept that he/she now has to learn to start facing the world alone, and not rely upon the constant attention and attendance of his/her parents. When children start missing attention from a quarter to which they are accustomed to and have grown to expect as their right, it is natural for them to feel neglected and ignored. And this may be despite the fact, that of late they may have been neglecting their once closest companions without much regard, enamored as they are with their newer friends and other worldly attractions. Still they would have taken it for granted that their parents would always be there whenever the lights of the brighter world would dim. So it is a rude shock for them for them to wake up to the reality that they have drifted apart enough from their ultimate support system and it appears to them that their once closest friends have now become complete strangers. At this juncture they might withdraw into their shell, become uncommunicative , rude and cranky. Responding to such a situation requires all the patience
and strength of resolve on part of the more mature party. To make a person feel loved and wanted without tying him/her up by the shackles of dependence or wrapping him/her in an emotional bondage is a delicate balance that needs to be achieved. Letting go of someone is no mean task especially if there exists a strong attachment . There is always a lurking fear of losing him/her forever if you loosen your hold. However sometime it is necessary to recognize that if you hold on to someone too tight because of the fear of letting go , it might stifle the relationship and the worst fears of loss might be realized . It is a bitter sweet realization that sometime you need to be cruel in order to be kind, and by releasing the person you really care about, you are actually strengthening the bonds of love that tie you both. And it is this realization that can quieten all our fears and pave the way for everlasting happiness. Like the famous quote "If you love something let it go free. If it doesn't come back, you never had it. If it comes back, love it forever"

The Burden of Expectation

Expectations are onerous and lead us astray. They make us feel tied down and indulge in petty
thoughts. Expectations make us react strangely to circumstances, and blind the reason and rational thoughts that would otherwise take precedence. Expecting too much is an emotional
drain if the expectations are not met, and leave you feeling cheated and betrayed

The Many Hues of Friendship

Friendship is one of the most precious jewels studding the diadem of humanity. Faith , trust , and honesty are probably the three cornerstones upon which the foundation of friendship is built. Deception , treachery and betrayal are the bejewelled daggers that stab the heart of a true friend. Thoughtlessness and Indifference are the poisons that can nip a budding friendship even before it blooms . Jealousy and Ego are the insidous serpents that turn one friend against another. Friendship is never easy. Friendship can be cruelly heartbreaking at times, and be pleasurably rewarding at others. Friendship does not mean taking someone for granted, on the contrary it involves understanding each other to such a great extent that words are no longer required to convey one's feeling to the other. Friendship involves acceptance. Friends do not try to change each other, they accept each other for what they are , blemishes and flaws nothwitstanding. Friendship is like a tenuous silken thread that binds people , a delicate bond that demands careful handling since once a the thread gets knotted, even after careful efforts to disentangle it, the bond never truly remains as beautiful. At times friendship entails sacrifice and pain. But distance and time do little to diminish the intensity of true friendship. Finding Friendhship is almost akin to finding true love, and I do feel that once you find your true friends you should never let them go, and let them know how much you value them.

Cynicism Revisted

One of the cardinal rules for a happy life is never to develop strong emotional attachments. In course of our interaction with people around us our lives invariably end up getting emotionally entangled with those of others. Sometime it is great because we have a strong support system to fall back upon. What a comforting feeling it is to be able to share your deepest secrets, fears, worries and more importantly your happiness with people you care about. We develop strong feelings with respect to certain individuals with whom we have close contact. We end up having high expectations of such people, feeling supremely disappointed if their behaviour deviates from what we expect of them. However social conditioning cautions us that while developing possesive instincts in any close interaction is fairly normal, it is always advisable to exercise cicumspection and not to let our emotions run away with us. The riskiness of developing an overt emotional dependence upon specific people is generally harped upon. It is like pouring out a part of your soul to someone. Gautama Budha referred to "Desire being the root cause of sorrow". It is drilled into our consciousness to question every individual's motives and to be naturally distrustful of every scenario. None of us is born a hardened cynic. Its life's experiences that force us to rethink and readjust our levels of trust and innocence.
Cynicism comes at a price though. By embracing a cynical outlook, one may protect oneself from potential hurt and pain, but what we sometime forget is that very protective shield might rob the joy that comes from implicit trust and faith in a relationship. On a parting note I strongly believe that while the sensitive are vulnerable and appear to be potential victims of unhappiness inherently they are happier in their blissful ignorance and peacefulness than the cynical whose mind is constantly clousded by fears and anticipation of potential trickery and faithlessness.