India Quiz Oman - Observer Report

A friend, seeing the report in the Oman Observer, called up to ask how the quiz went. He was bemused hearing my response, saying the article painted a completely different picture.

Reading through the article, I could only reply that it matched the actual event in quality. The reporter has simultaneously assaulted the English language and facts, without the least bother. I would normally have expected the organizers to have submitted a write-up for the newspapers to publish, so that the journalists don’t need to do their job. This doesn’t seem to have happened in this case, leaving our writer to cook something up on his own.

Here’s the article

THE Oman edition of the spectacular show of Federal Bank India Quiz held at Al Falaj Hotel Le Grand hall on Thursday with a fully packed audience under the patronage of the Indian Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman, Anil Wadhwa, was indeed a grand success. Ibrahim Saif al Hamdani, Editor-in-Chief of Oman Daily Observer was the Guest of Honour.

The Quiz Master and the Director of the show, Kannu Baker did a brain brushing style of presentation by hurling questions that impart knowledge of the uniqueness of India by inducing a spirit of patriotism in quizzing. The gala event of India Quiz with cultural synthesis show was a thrilling experience to one and all and also a new initiative in quizzing while bringing forth the unknown facts and the rich culture and heritage of India was well accepted by the audience.

There were six teams comprising two members that were selected for the final round of India Quiz after a bottleneck elimination round. Sunil Makhani and Pranav Laxman were the winners of the show from more than hundred teams from various states of India who just gave it a try in their selection round. “Which section of the Indian Constitution stipulates that there should be a President for the country?”, “Which state in India has the longest coastal area?”, “Who was the Arab traveller who helped Vasco-da-Gama to reach Kozhikode, a district in the south Indian state of Kerala?” participants of various age groups, professional acumen and varied IQ levels remained spellbound as the grandmaster threw arrows of questions one after the other. Some of them raised clues and guesses and some bright ones made it through.

More than 60 per cent of teams were working class from various professions, and 40 per cent teams represented various schools from grade XI and above and it was a unique show with mix of people. The questions were comparatively of very high standard with uniqueness in covering the entire segments of India. “It is something innovative in spreading India’s rich culture and heritage among Gulf expatriates and I wish all success to Kannu Baker and his team for organising such a wonderful new initiatives and keep the spirit of organising more shows like this in the future”, Anil Wadhwa said.

It’s a part of the whole GCC Quiz show by the Vision Tomorrow Communications, a Corporate Event Management Company in association with Federal Bank as the brand sponsor, of which Bahrain show would take place in the second week of June and the quizzers in Saudi Arabia will have their attempt in the week following. In Oman, UAE Exchange, SRK Group and LuLu were the support sponsors. New India Assurance Company and Teejan Furnishing were the Country sponsor of this Oman Edition of India quiz.

What’s Brain Brushing? Bottleneck elimination? Not only has he got the winners' names wrong, he's also got wrong names of the wrong winners.

Comparatively high standard questions??? Cause no one could answer anything? To put the record straight, I was forced to narrate my version of the circus.

Update: The Oman Tribune dated June 1 also carries a report on the quiz. Same error on winners. Otherwise different write-up. Seems the organizers did give out some release to the newspapers, each of which chose to edit it differently. Could not find the link to this though.