Guwahati: For Assam’s tight-knit circle of long-time quizzers, this year’s edition of the Guwahati Quiz Fest or GQF was no ordinary competition. It was the resurrection of a dying tradition— one that they had breathed new life into, almost by chance.
On a sweltering April weekend, hundreds of enthusiasts from Assam and across India, from schoolchildren to quizzing circuit veterans, converged at the auditorium of the historic Gauhati Town Club to compete in various events at the fest, held after a hiatus of seven years.
The air crackled with excitement and a touch of anxiety too, especially for expert-level contests such as ‘Gyan Ashwamedh — The India Quiz’, conducted by quizmasters Deepanjan Deb and Bhrigu Talukdar. The questions were tricky, requiring not just quick recall of trivia, but concentration and in-depth knowledge.
Take, for instance, this brain-teaser that left participants on the edge of their seats: “Nanik Motwane came up with the idea when he saw Mahatma Gandhi addressing meetings in his low voice. The company, unofficially called the ‘Voice of India’, shifted base from Sindh to Bombay and took the name from an overseas business that was wrapping up its operations. Which company?”
The answer, in case you were wondering, is Chicago Radio.
Overall, the fest spanned three days, drew at least 300 participants, and featured an array of six quizzes, marking its long overdue return as the biggest quizzing event of Northeast India.
And it may never have happened if a bunch of Guwahati quizzing old-timers— scattered all over the world—had not reconnected on WhatsApp, during the 2021 lockdown.
Eventually, what started as a distraction from isolation and grief turned into a dedicated community that used virtual spaces such as Zoom as battlegrounds of serious online quizzing.
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‘Assam Quiz Adda’
“In 1990, this US company agreed to start business in the Soviet Union in exchange for the following: Stolichnaya vodka, 16 submarines, one frigate, one cruiser and one destroyer. Who thus entered Russia?”
The answer is Pepsi.
As for the question, it was volleyed during a business quiz conducted online by quizzer Kapinjal Chowdhury in June 2021.
It was a few months after a group of old friends, acquaintances, and rivals from the Guwahati quizzing circuit of the late 1990s and early 2000s (including this writer, who was then in Melbourne) reconnected through word-of-mouth and social media on a WhatsApp group called Assam Quiz Adda.
Over time, the group expanded from a handful of people to over 70 members currently.
The idea for the online adda came from Deepanjan Deb, an accomplished quizzer who has won several national contests, including the Economic Times Management Quiz in 2012 and the Tata Crucible Regionals in 2011 and 2012.
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Assam Quiz Contest
Deb, an executive at Gallup, spent several years in Mumbai before returning to Guwahati during the first Covid-19 lockdown. It was there that he started devoting time again to his passion for quizzing in Assam. He has always been active in quizzing in other places in India after he left Guwahati for studies and work purposes many years ago.
“I participated in a quiz at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital (GMCH) just after the first Covid-19 wave was over. This is when I got to meet some old acquaintances from the Guwahati quizzing circuit in January 2021. That’s when I thought about creating a common platform to re-connect with fellow quizzers,” he says.
“And so, Assam Quiz Adda was born with just four to five people in February 2021.”
It wasn’t long before this group started holding online quiz contests across a wide range of subjects, from business and pop culture to sports and the Mahabharata.
The first such quiz was via Google Meets in April 2021. There were less than 10 participants.
However, when Anurag Talukdar, a veteran of the Guwahati quiz circuit and an early member of the group, shared an image of the quiz on his personal Facebook page, word spread quickly.
Many more quizzers who had lost touch with both the sport and with their peers, joined the Assam Quiz Adda WhatsApp group.
Over time, the quiz meets evolved into a serious activity, with specific time slots allocated to accommodate the varying time differences across continents.
The quizmasters dedicated themselves to meticulous preparation, while participants took the quizzes as seriously as they would any physical prize-money competition.
Deb explained that once all the old quiz mates gathered, the online contests allowed even those who had left quizzing to make a comeback of sorts.
“The platform also allowed us to build a camaraderie during such difficult times, cutting across time and distance,” he added.
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Assam — pioneer of quizzing in India?
In 1967, Neil O’Brien, celebrated as the father of quizzing in India, conducted what is widely regarded as the first public open quiz in Calcutta’s Church of Christ the King in Park Circus.
This contest, the Eddie Hyde Memorial Quiz, is still going strong.
In Assam, meanwhile, the late Dilip Kr. Barua, a professor of economics and recognised as the father of quizzing in Northeast India, organised the first intra-institutional quiz at Guwahati’s Cotton College (now Cotton University) during the institute’s college week in early 1967.
However, according to seasoned journalists and experienced quizzers Dilip Sarma and Dipankar Koushik, Assam’s quizzing legacy predates that of the entire country.
In a December 2013 article published in the Assamese daily, Amar Asom, Sarma and Koushik wrote about Karunabhiren Rajkhowa, the winner of a quiz contest held at Cotton College in 1964.
“The first quiz conducted in Assam was organised by the United States Information Service Information Services, Calcutta. It was held at the Cotton College Union Hall on 30 July’ 1964. The Quiz Master for that particular quiz was Daniel M. Miller,” Koushik told me over the phone.
“It was an inter-institutional quiz and the winning team was from Assam Engineering College (AEC). I believe that this was the first-ever public quiz not just in Assam, but in the whole of India,” he added.
Quizzing in India took off from the early 1970s, with radio and open quizzes gaining traction.
Among the most popular quizzes in the country was the Bournvita Quiz Contest, which started off as a radio quiz hosted by Hamid Sayani in 1972. In 1975, his better-known brother, Ameen Sayani, took over the reins.
Akashvani Guwahati also featured quiz contests and, according to Koushik, radio quizzes were broadcast in Assam even before 1972.
“As a serious quizzer and more importantly, a chronicler of quizzing history of Assam, I have found documentation that Akashvani Guwahati broadcast their first quiz in 1961,” claimed Koushik, who is also the co-author of a book on Professor Dilip Kumar Barua and on Assam’s quiz history Uttor Purbanchalor Quizzor Jonok – Dilip Kumar Barua.
For millennials, The Bournvita Quiz Contest is primarily known through the beloved television show, hosted by Derek O’Brien—Neil O’Brien’s son—during the 1990s.
This quiz became the dream trophy for any school quizzer and became one of India’s longest-running television quiz shows.
However, televised quizzing in India started in 1985 with Quiz Time, hosted by Siddhartha Basu on Doordarshan, although the exact date when it aired first is difficult to pinpoint. The first televised quiz on Doordarshan Assam also took place in 1985.
Ochintya Sharma, ex-vice president of Samsung India and one of the pioneering quizzers from Assam, has vivid memories of participating in the first television quiz in the state.
“I started quizzing from the mid-1970s and Dilip Barua was the major quizmaster in this period. One day in early May 1985, I got an invitation for a TV quiz to be conducted by Prof. Barua. I accepted it and we had two rehearsals before the final shooting on 21 May 1985,” Sharma recalled. “The recording was not done in any studio, but in a classroom in Cotton College. There were four two-member teams.”
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The return of GQF
Quizzing has always been a serious and passionate pursuit in Assam. However, it was the Assam Quiz Adda group that played a crucial role in bringing together quizzers of different generations from the region onto a dedicated platform.
As a result, the biggest quizzing event in Northeast India, the Guwahati Quiz Festival (GQF), experienced a revival in early April.
The founders of GQF — which started in 2014 and continued until 2016 before it was discontinued for various reasons— are also active members of this group.
“The Assam Quiz Adda WhatsApp group helped us connect with all quizzers of Assam who were and are active in the Guwahati quizzing circuit. This helped us re-group and restart the Guwahati Quiz Festival successfully after the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Bhrigu Talukdar, co-founder of the GQF.
While the festival has wound up, it seems to have sparked a fresh enthusiasm for quizzing in Assam.
Many more quiz festivals are now being conducted in various parts of the state, including interior locations. And updates about such festivals and competitions are usually shared first in the Assam Quiz Adda group. Members also chat with each other to form teams and find quiz partners for such competitions.
The group has succeeded in not just reinvigorating the quizzing circuit of both Guwahati and the rest of Assam but has also brought in a sense of camaraderie and belonging.
“We got in touch with people whose contacts we had lost. And this reconnection during the pandemic also helped us when we were in various stages of lockdown across the world,” said Dr. Vinay Upadhyay, a clinical biochemist and quizmaster. “This Adda group has enabled many people to make a return to quizzing and that in itself is wonderful.”
Shaheen Ahmed is an independent researcher, writer, and an avid quizzer.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)