India Quiz Mains

28 March 2015

Quiz Master: Pratyush Sinha

• 17 Infinite pounce questions

• Clockwise

• 10 points for each

1

• Rick Briggs was an engineer at RIACS (Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science) in 1985 when he wrote a paper for the AI Magazine.

• Back then, it won him an invite to a conference in Bangalore and some interest in Indian academic cricles.

• However, with the advent of internet, inspite (or because) of all the advances in AI, this paper has remained popular in India.

• Why ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• The paper was titled ‘Knowledge Representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence’

• Often (mis)quoted as the NASA report which said Sanskrit is the best language for computer programming and versions thereof

Safety Slide

2

• Considered by many as the greatest blunder of partition, this hilly district with about 98% (85% Buddhist) non-Muslim population was awarded to Pakistan.

• Armed rebellion continued through 1970’s and 80’s resulting in major human rights abuses and refugee crises.

• Which district ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• Chittagong Hill Tract

Safety Slide

3

• In 2004, Jhabua district police chief Mayank Jain was attending a seminar when he noticed that people were looking ‘very respectfully and pleasantly’ at 2 or 3 constables.

• This is when he thought of encouraging a certain practice among policemen.

• Over the next few months about 1100 policemen across the district’s 22 police stations picked it up.

• What idea did Mr. Jain stumble upon ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• Paying an extra stipend for policemen with moustaches

Safety Slide

4

• During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln’s navy blockaded New Orleans and the Mississippi and Manchester’s looms came to a halt, sending cotton prices shooting.

• The Gujarati merchants on Dalal Street made fortunes during this time of uncertainty. These early globalizers worked late into the night when rates were wired in and orders wired out at American and European times.

• However, by this time everyone would be quite tired and the wives would be asleep at home.

• What cultural mainstay, with the help of some Portuguese Jesuit settler of Bombay, resulted in order to satisfy these traders’ needs ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• Pav Bhaji

• Loaves provided by Jesuits

• Bhaji made up of the day’s left-overs at street stalls

Safety Slide

5

• Freelance music directors Vinayak Salvi and Rohan Utpat were given the chance to come up with something interesting within a day.

• Vikas Dubey wrote the lyrics and they got hold of a certain Alamgir Khan to sing it.

• They knew the platform was huge but didn’t really foresee this level of success.

• What composition?

Safety Slide

Answer

• The original Ind-Pak Mauka Mauka song

Safety Slide

6

• Madhepura (erstwhile Saharsa constituency) is a district located in the north-eastern part of Bihar.

• A popular political saying there goes like:‘Rome Pope ka, Saharasa ______ Ka’

• With a bit of poetic license the blank rhymes with Pope and refers to the fact that the area is the strong-hold of a single pastoral community

Safety Slide

Answer

• ‘gope’ to refer to Yadavs

• Pappu, Sharad and Lalu Prada have been MP’s in the past

Safety Slide

7

• Writer : Abrar Alvi• Directorial : Raj Khosla, Abrar Alvi• Cinematography : V.K. Murthy• Actor(s) : Waheeda Rehman, Johnny Walker, Rehman• Singer : Geeta Dutt, Mohammad Rafi • Music : O. P. Nayyar, S.D. Burman, Hemant Kumar • Lyrics : Sahir Ludhianvi, Kaifi AzmiEditor : Y.G. Chawhan• Art Director : Biren Naag

• What were they collectively called ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• Guru Dutt team

Safety Slide

8

• Pabuji is a folk-deity of Rajasthan in India who lived in the 14th century in Rajasthan.

• He is widely worshipped by Rabari herdsmen throughout the Rajasthan countryside.

• According to mythology, what is he have supposed to introduced to Rajasthan (strangely from Lanka) ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• Camels

• Rabaris are camel herders

Safety Slide

9.This wasn’t expected

• The marriage contract between King Manuel I of Portugal and Isabella of Aragon include a clause requiring the former to introduce something to Portugal.

• It was later introduced to India as well, considering the deviant practices of local converts and the number of Sephardic Jews who had fled here.

• What was introduced ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• The Goa Inquisition

Safety Slide

10

• A funny film about architecture students in their final year of college, it was based on the writer’s own experiences of studying in the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi.

• The film featuring Shahrukh Khan, RoshanSeth, and the writer has acquired a sort of cult status in India having inspired filmmakers like Dibakar Banerjee.

• Which film ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones

Written by Arundhati Roy

Safety Slide

11

• Thonmi Sambhota is said to have been the fourth of seven wise ministers of the emperor Songtsen Gampo, the founder of the Tibetan empire in the 7th Century, to be sent to India. He was the only one to return to Tibet.

• King Songtsen Gampo is said to have retired for 4 years post his arrival to master the new discovery.

• What is it that Thonmi had brought back ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• Tibetan script based on Brahmi and Gupta scripts

Safety Slide

12

• A Welsh mathematician born in 1675, he was a close friend of Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley. A lot of people recently geeked out over some notation he gave.

• I wouldn’t mention him in this quiz but for his son who, though reportedly couldn’t construct a sentence in Welsh, was some sort of a linguistic prodigy.

• Name the son. (Or the father. They had the same name)

• Bonus– what notation did senior propagate ?[Write it down]

Safety Slide

Answer

• Sir William Jones of Asiatic Society of Bengal fame

• Senior started using the greek letter pi for the ratio of the circumference of a circle and its diameter

Safety Slide

13

• This is one of the works first translated by Sir William Jones. A bedrock of Hindu traditions, it has drawn both praise and disparagement in modern times.

• Friedrich Nietzsche deemed it "an incomparably spiritual and superior work" to the Christian Bible while Dr BR Ambedkarburned a copy of it.

• What work ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• Manu Smriti

Safety Slide

14

• Legend has it that sage Manu stepped off his ark here to recreate human life after a great flood had deluged the world.

• The city gets its name from a corruption of what would translate as ‘Manu’s abode’

• Which place ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• Manali from ‘Manu-Alaya’

Safety Slide

15

• Who is leading the Sikh Regiment in this pic from World War I ?

• The location is somewhere in Asia Minor

• [Pic on next slide]

Safety Slide

Guru Granth Sahib

Safety Slide

16

• A model at Udaipur’s City Palace showing a Rajput and his Marwari horse with some accessories.

• Why is the horse being to made to look so unfashionable ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• Horse was fitted with a trunk so that elephants thought of it as a baby elephant and did not attack it

Safety Slide

17

• Member of Parliament Jay Panda recently tweeted this pic.

• What did we get to know as a result of this ?

• [Next slide]

Safety Slide

• Lok Sabha does not have a seat numbered 420

• END OF ROUND-1

Chakravyuh Round

• 3 x 5 = 15 Infinite pounce questions

• Counter-clockwise

• 10 points for each

• Followed by some shenanigans

• 300 points at stake

• Ask for a sheet of paper

• Further instructions explained as round progresses

Safety Slide

1A

• The company was started in 1923 as a paper and newsprint trading organization. It entered manufacturing in 1963 with the production of industrial oxygen. Today, it is a leading producer of industrial gases, fluorocarbons, multiplexes and cryogenic engineering.

• Name this conglomerate whose most famous company works in an entirely different sector.

Safety Slide

Answer

• INOX

Safety Slide

1B

• The family hails from a Marathi Kshatriya clan. Among the several versions of how their name came about, the most persuasive explanation happens to be that Nandaji, a fairly prosperous farmer holding the headship of more than one village was an avid cow protectionist . He came to be known as ‘one who is ready to fight for the cause of cow protection.’ The name stuck with the family and over time evolved to its present form.

• What family name ?

Safety Slide

• Gaekwad from ‘gae-kaiwari’

Safety Slide

1C

• An American and British structural biologist, he is soon going to take over a position held in the past by the likes of Isaac Newton and Ernest Rutherford.

• Who and what position ?

[Part points]

Safety Slide

Answer

• Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

• President of the Royal Society

Safety Slide

Infinite pounce resumes from 2A

• Connect 1A/1B/1C

• Write it down on a sheet of paper

• Call this C1

• Keep the sheets with you until I tell you next

Safety Slide

2A

• Map showing the presence of what outside India ?

• I am pretty sure most of you would have seen it hung on a wall at some mall or some such place.

• [Next slide]

Safety Slide

Answer

Safety Slide

2B

• Film critic Anupama Chopra wrote that during the making of this film, the love-struck hero would often, during some intimate scenes, pay lightboysto disturb the lighting so that mutiple shots would be required.

• He did end up successfully wooing and later marrying (though not without controversy) his co-star.

• Who are the actors involved whose names I have not told yet ?

• [no part points]

Safety Slide

Answer

• Dharmendra and Hema Malini

• ‘Tumne apna naam nahi bataya’

[Dharmendra goes into the connect]

Safety Slide

2C

• Spen Valley was a parliamentary constituency between 1885 and 1950 in the valley of the River Spen in West Yorkshire.

• Shaukat Usmani, a founding member of the Communist Party of India contested the 1929 general elections from this constituency as a candidate of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

• What was so unique about his candidature ? Perhaps the only such example ever.

Safety Slide

Answer

• He contested the elections while residing in India

Why was he residing in India ?He was in jail for the Meerut conspiracy case

[Shaukat Usmai goes into the connect]

Safety Slide

• Connect 2A/2B/2C

• Write it down on a sheet of paper

• Call this C2

Safety Slide

• X is an Ottoman Turkish word meaning military personnel and

Safety Slide

3A

• In an interview to The Hindu a few years ago, he mentioned that he receives 3 letters from a paanwallah in Allahabad every year.

• One on New Year’s, one on his birthday and one on the anniversary of his almost 8 day journey.

• Who is this Ashok Chakra winner ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• Rakesh Sharma

Safety Slide

3B

• The classical musician (lets call him U) was pretty adamant that he wouldn’t sing for a film. The story goes that to dissuade a certain director from pursuing him further, he demanded INR 25000 per song when the going rate for top playback singers was less than INR 500.

• To his surprise the director agreed immediately. U, thus voiced one of the most famous musicians from Indian history.

• Give me the musician and the character from history.• [Hint – So much frivolous wastage for a movie. Guess,

guess.]

Safety Slide

Answer

• Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan voiced Tansen in Maghal-E-Azam

• [Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan goes into the connect]

Safety Slide

3C. Blatant wiki rip-off. Sorry guys.

• Known for his courage and determination, he was the original ‘comeback king’ of Indian cricket.

• He had numerous conflicts with the establishments and he once famously called the selectors a ‘bunch of jokers’

• Interestingly, he is also the only international cricketer to have been out both handling the ball and obstructing the field

Safety Slide

Answer

• Mohinder Amarnath

Safety Slide

• Connect 3A/3B/3C

• Write it down on a sheet of paper

• Call this C3

Safety Slide

4A

• In 1986, while still at college, he set off to follow on foot the outward route of Marco Polo from Jerusalem to Mongolia and wrote a highly acclaimed bestseller about the journey.

• He subsequently wrote 3 more travel books- on Delhi, on the demise of Christianity in the Middle East and on trouble in South Asia before switching genres to history

• Which well know literary figure ?

• If it helps, he is distantly related to Virginia Woolf

Safety Slide

Answer

• William Dalrymple

Safety Slide

4B

• Pandit Ravi Shankar

• Zakir Hussain

• TH Vinayakram

• ________________

• AR Rahman, H Sridhar, PA Deepak

• Ricky Kej

• Fill in the blank and complete the list.

Safety Slide

Answer

• Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt

• It’s the list of (more or less) all Indian Grammy winners

• [Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt goes into the connect]

Safety Slide

4C

• After a few recent high profile incidents of violence against women, a number of companies in India in a certain sector have introduced a colored variety of their service.

• Similar such services across the globe from London to Puebla to Melbourne.

• What service that you may definitely notice if you roam around Delhi a bit ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• Pink Cabs for women

• [Pink goes into the connect]

Safety Slide

• Connect 4A/4B/4C

• Write it down on a sheet of paper

• Call this C4

Safety Slide

5A

• Y is a stew made of wheat, barley, lentils, and meat and is quite popular in Middle East, Central and South Asia.

• It requires slow cooking over 8 to 12 hours to get a paste like consistency and gets its name from the Iranian word for ‘patient and merciful’.

• Z is a variant of Y popular in the sub-continent especially as a breakfast during Ramazan. Z sounds very much like the masculine of a traditional Indian dish of rice and lentils.

• Give me Y and Z• [Part points]

Safety Slide

Answer

• Y – Haleem

• Z – Khichra

• [Haleem goes into the connect]

Safety Slide

5B

• Anand Narasimhan along with Tina Sharma Tiwarioften host the Newshour in Arnab’s absence.

• They started the trend #ShameinSydney last week after India’s exit from the World Cup.

• This later backfired and was panned throughout social media.

• Such a ridiculous stance from the duo was very surprising considering Narasimhan’s background in sports broadcasting.

• What ESPN-Star TV show was his first claim to fame?

Safety Slide

Answer

• He was the winner of ‘Harsha ki Khoj’

• [Harsha Bhogle goes into the connect]

Safety Slide

5C

• A Chinese journalist from Tianjin, Tseng sailed to India in 1937 to meet Mahatma Gandhi. He stayed several months in India during which time Gandhi was quite taken in by the young fellow, giving him the nickname ‘Shantidoot’.

• Tseng came back to India in 1977 and died here leaving behind a grand-daughter who would marry an Indian.

• Who would be Tseng’s fiery great grand-daughter ?

Safety Slide

Answer

• Jwala Gutta

Safety Slide

• Connect 5A/5B/5C

• Write it down on a sheet of paper

• Call this C5

Safety Slide

Differential scoring

We will now evaluate C1 to C5

• 1 Team: 25

• 2 Teams: 15

• 3-5 Teams: 10

• 6-7 Teams: 5

• Exchange sheets

Safety Slide

Answer

• C1 – Baroda

– INOX is based in baroda

– Gaekwad’s ruled it

– The scientist was brought up and educated in the city

Answer

• C2 – Bikaner

– Haldiram’s started in Bikaner

– Dharmendra was MP there

– Shaukat Usmani belonged to Bikaner

Answer

• C3 – Patiala

– Rakesh Sharma and Mohinder Amarnath were born in Patiala

– Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan belonged to the Patiala Gharana

Answer

• C4 – Jaipur

– William Dalrymple is the co-founder and co-director of Jaipur Lit Fest

– Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt belongs to Jaipur

– Pink city

Answer

• C5 - Hyderabad

– Hyderabadi Haleem is quite famous

– Harsha Bhogle and Jwala Gutta are from Hyderabad

Differential scoring

• Connect C1 through C5

• [Hint – It’s a residential connect]

Answer

• Hyderabad House, Baroda House, Patiala House, Jaipur House and Bikaner House are the 5 buildings in the Princes’ Park around the statue of King George V at the end of King’s Way

• Give points for Princes’ Park, Delhi, Rajpath, George V, King’s Way or anything that suitably conveys that these 5 princely states got the prime most land possible to Indians in Lutyen’s Delhi

LVC

Question No. Points Negatives

1 40 -20

2 35 -20

3 30 -15

4 25 -15

5 20 -10

6 15 -10

7 10 -5

8 5 0

8 slidesNon-exhaustiveNo connect within the slides

+40/-20

+35/-20

+30/-15

+25/-15

+20/-10

+15/-10

+10/-5

+5/0

Safety Slide

Answer

• Indian Geographical Indications

MadhubaniPaintings

Mysore Paintings

ThanjavurPaintings

Cheriyar scrollPaintings

NirmalPaintings

Banarsi Saree Chanderi Saree

Sambalpuri Saree

Puneri Pagdi Lucknow ChickanEmbroidery

Bagh print

Bikaner Bhujia Guntur Sannam Chilli

Phulkari

Blue pottery of Jaipur

15/-10

Mysore Sandal Soap

Feni

10/-5

Tirupathi Laddu

5/0

Darjeeling Tea