LONE WOLF

I did something last night which i never ever expected myself to do.. I stayed back at IIT for the lone wolf quiz that was supposed to go from twelve in the night till the first rays of the sun appeared.. I do agree, the hope of free vodka influenced my decision more than wanting to stay for the sake of the quiz..

I guess the cops knew about the drinking too.. They were there at the OAT till about 1:30.. The quiz began an hour late.. I couldn't believe that so many people were actually vetti enough to watch the quiz.. A major part of the audience were people from Quiz Federation of India (QFI).. Those guys have a pretty good sense of humour..

They went about the quiz in a very slow and relaxed manner which was okay given the fact that they had the entire night ahead of them.. At about 1:45 the QFI guys started passing a bottle of beer amongst themselves and people started smoking.. The guys who conducted had vodka as their theme i guess.. They had a round called absolute round and all of them had brought absolute vodka bottles.. Before the quiz, the caption on the screen read
God made grass,
Man made booze,
Choose your pick,
Main Quiz OAT
Guess their objective was clear from the beginning..

I am not an avid quizzer, so i may not be a good judge of things but i still think the way the guys answered the questions were phenomenal.. I have no idea how these guys are able to corelate all these things and even more surprised by how they came up with such questions.. Adi made us all proud by getting an answer about 'Pulp Fiction' right.. The brilliance here was that none of the QFI guys knew the answer.. Kudos Adi!!!

The Long Visual Connect had 28 images.. Phew!!! Swami (Last year's winner) actually cracked it within 12 images.. The next correct answer came at 24 i think.. The first break was at 3:30.. Think most guys there got high at this point only.. All of us went outside in J's car to a place called 'Hi-Look Cool Bar' outside IIT.. The bread omlette there is amazing..

When we got back, the quiz had started.. The effect of alcohol was pretty obvious in the audience.. The audience prize for correct answer was vodka again BTW.. The best question in the quiz as far as i am concerned was the second Long Visual Connect.. Here, instead of using images, they had used videos.. Hats off to Ramkumar (Kabala) for actually cracking it when he did..

The best part of all this was that it all happened in the presence of 2 professors from IIT who were part of the quiz team.. They didn't seem to care and were enjoying the proceedings.. It was a pity none of us had any alcohol with us.. It might have made the night a whole lot more memorable..

I always had this impression that IIT was Nerd Central.. Yesterday showed me how wrong i was.. Chetan bhagat had shown a similar scenario in 'Five Point Someone' but i wasn't convinced.. These IIT guys know how to have fun.. Work while you work and play while you play seems to be their moto.. Another thing that surprised me yesterday was the number of girls who stayed back to watch the quiz.. I didn't know Chennai had stop being extremely conservative..

We left by five thirty cause we had college that day.. Guess the quiz would've gone on till six or six thirty.. Gau later told me 'Pota' (not sure if that is how it's spelt) won the quiz.. He was leading comfortably anyway.. Nice experience.. Next time though, we need to make sure we don't go there empty handed..