Spice of life | Reminiscing the golden age of quizzing on TV

My thirst for knowledge had been unleashed. Children would spend hours lost in the atlas in the school library, looking for the answer to a question asked in the show

Back in the 1980s, Sunday was special for reasons other than the fact that it was a holiday. For one, we had day-time TV shows. I still have a clear memory of the wonderful fare lined up, starting from the melodious evergreen Bollywood songs featured in Rangoli to the breath-taking odyssey into space in Star Trek to the hilarious Different Strokes, portraying the relationship between a white father and his black adopted son.

Back in the 1980s, Sunday was special for reasons other than the fact that it was a holiday. For one, we had day-time TV shows (HT File)

However, the best part of Sunday was reserved for the evening when Siddhartha Basu would come with Quiz Time, a national quiz competition between top colleges of the country. I must confess that I did not have any clue about most of the questions but I absolutely loved watching exceptionally bright minds come up with answers to almost all of them. The show kindled tremendous curiosity to find out the answers.

My thirst for knowledge had been unleashed. Like me, many children would spend hours lost in the geography atlas in our school library the next day, looking for the answer to a question asked in the show.

Indeed, weekdays also had their quiz shows. Bees Sawaal was one such quiz with an innovative format wherein someone from the audience would come up with either a personality or book or a historical event thought out that had to be guessed by a panel of two experts by asking not more than 20 questions. So many years have gone by, but I am yet to come across a quiz with a similar concept.

Another memorable quiz related to the English language was hosted by the suave Sabira Merchant called, What’s the Good Word. The word games would keep me engrossed until the end. It was this show that generated a love for the English language in the young generation.

Sports commentator Narottam Puri used to host Sports Quiz, bringing interesting statistics, easily overlooked otherwise, into focus.

Those were the days of no internet or smartphones yet the TV shows generated immense curiosity and enthusiasm that finds an echo even today.

It is disappointing to note that the erstwhile quiz shows have slowly lost their foothold in the great television circus of today. This despite the fact that we now have hundreds of channels and 24-hour programming along with OTT platforms.

What we have gained in technical finesse has been, unfortunately, lost in terms of sheer variety of programmes that are aired today. Surely, the quiz shows were, and still are, the jewels in the crown of TV programming, which we will lose at our own peril. gulbaharsidhu@rediffmail.com

The writer is a Jalandhar-based psychiatrist