Humour by Rehana Munir: Could you repeat the question, please?

Thrilling, cruel and addictive, quizzing is a rush-of-blood sport that fulfils our need for self-actualisation

At a recent pub outing, two friends—both dear to me but strangers to each other—recalled a pre-pandemic pub quiz they were both at. X remembered how Y’s team left in a huff following a Game of Thrones question that the latter’s team deemed invalid. Something about there being more than one language invented for the show, a fact that the quizmaster failed to take into account. The two spoke about that long-passed moment with such whiskey-fuelled passion, it made me feel a grand nostalgia for quizzing, a sport I’m naturally inclined towards, but typically rubbish at.

From KBC to Slumdog Millionaire, quiz shows have long held many in thrall, chasing the momentary rush of a fact remembered (Parth Garg)

Lock kiya jaaye

I often think of what my area of specialisation would be on Mastermind India, the quiz show that put nerdy people under a scary spotlight for the amusement of voyeurs like myself. I think it would have to be B-and C-grade Bollywood 90’s music —iconic soundtracks such as Meera Ka Mohan and Sapne Saajan Ke. Such cheap thrills have I enjoyed, mugging up the answers to terrifying questions and then watching a repeat telecast, this time with shocked friends who had no idea about my deep interest in Swami Vivekananda’s early works, or industrial solvents between the wars. Now that we watch TV shows on our own, like islands floating on a sea of unlimited broadband, we deny ourselves these dodgy pleasures, and are infinitely poorer for it.

Kaun Banega Crorepati brought my grandmother hours of unmitigated pleasure in the dreary days when there wasn’t much else to look forward to. Mr. Bachchan—often dressed as a magician at a kiddie birthday party—held her in thrall much more than the gameplay. Two decades after it first aired, the show still makes the public’s mind tick like no other for all its questions, speeches and gimmicks that pander to the powers that be.

It’s workout-able

Slumdog Millionaire is one of those India-centric films made for the western gaze that unfailingly gets my goat. (I can hear echoes of Trevor Noah’s criticism of Leonardo DiCaprio’s South African accent in Blood Diamond in my dismissal of the inauthentic street speak in Slumdog.) Even the usually smackingly good Gulzar sa’ab and AR Rahman came up with the slapdash Jai Ho, bewilderingly awarded an Oscar. But the quiz-show-based plot, adapted from the Vikas Gupta book Q&A, was sweetly satisfying. A good spin on the “It’s workout-able” boost delivered by prodding quizmasters everywhere.

Season two of Sex Education—that tremendous Netflix dramedy that takes the shame out of (not just) teenage sexuality and ushers the joy back in—ended with a national school quiz championship hosted by Stephen Fry, in which Maeve, the gifted but troubled protagonist, competes. The polymath Fry was at the helm of QI (Quite Interesting) from 2003 to 2016, a long-running quiz show in which comics attempt to offer not just the right answers to obscure questions, but the most interesting ones, even though they may be incorrect. A uniquely British blend of irreverence and intelligence that is the antidote to a Slumdog-esque exercise in exotica.

The quizzing personality

We all have a friend or two who can be described as quiz-obsessed. “Ask me anything” was one such specimen’s go-to line whenever he felt low on confidence. He’d ask us, his friends, to fire quiz questions at him which he would rapidly answer, ostensibly regaining his self-regard in the process. This kind of personality thrives on trivia; no detail is too small or insignificant, no subject too abstruse. The minutiae of life is what they deal in, not for any deep or meaningful purpose, but for the momentary rush of a fact remembered. Fascinating weirdos.

I confess to having gone through a phase of quiz addiction myself. My fix was the QuizUp app, an insidious little monster that sucks you into a cerebral pursuit, only to expose your susceptibility to intellectual vanity. I’ve duelled against Bolivian techies and Moroccan caterers on subjects ranging from world music to geological phenomena, with varying results, but always with the restlessness of a child eager to prove herself to a daunting teacher. I can safely say I’m not too bad when it comes to literary quotes, this side of the equator. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

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From HT Brunch, November 21, 2021

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