Odyssey Quiz 2008!

1. 1928 – Simon Go back! 2008- Symonds Go back!
2. Thinking Tree! We have no branches!
3. Tasmac! The spirit of TamilNadu!

These were some of the interesting team names in the Odyssey Quiz 2008. But that won the best team name & Rs. 6000 was
“Please record your message after the beep. We are the answering machines!”

The Odyssey Quiz was as usual unusual. This was the 7th edition in which the quiz master Pravin Ghode & the finalist teams provided some fantastic quizzing, exciting and nail biting moments. In the end it was “META QUIZZICKS“, the team from Bangalore lead by ArulMani (looked like a Yogi; thanks to his Long beard!) hitting a century(a whooping 114 points), bagged the first prize followed by QED – ‘Charming’ Swami, V.V.Ramanan & another guy finishing second who were not out in their 90s! (96 points).

A question in the finals was “A Saint was teaching Sanskrit on the banks of Ganges & a sadhu advised rather than teaching Sanskrit, worshiping God & praising him will attain Motcha. Who was the saint & what were those slokas” The saint was Adi Sankara & BajaGovindam. When the quiz master asked Swami to sing some verses of Baja Govindham he was shy & reluctant. Then Ghode said “Man! This is Music Academy & you are given a chance to sing Carnatic music so easily. Can you afford to miss it still?” Swami, any way had not sung!

Here are some interesting questions which I noted down. Try your quizzing funda!

1. Chikkur Balaji Temple, located 25 Km from Hyderabad does not accept monetary donations & there are no VIP Passes, but attracts 1,00,000 people per week. Why? (Clue: Some guessed it

was crowded by IIT Aspirants & that was close to the answer!)

2. In 1877 – First test match was played; 1971 – first one day was played; 2005 – First 20-20 was played? What is special about all these matches?

3. It was the Mechanical craftsmen in Europe who designed the clock in the 16th Century. What feature of the clock was mainly a result of them being Mechanical Craftsmen?

4. TamilNadu’s PIN Code runs from 60 to 64. If the postal code starts with 9, what region does it specify?

5. This particular bird is very hard to hunt & this difficult nature gave birth to a term in English which meant “very hard & not so easy”. Name the bird & the verb.

6. “Touching the Void“, a book on Mountaineering was released on 1989 & won critical acclaim but not was a best seller. But in 1996, Jon Krakauer, wrote “Into Thin Air” a book which details the author’s May 10, 1996 ascent of Mount Everest,released & this was a best seller. This, in a peculiar way, also boosted the sales of Touching the Void & at this time, Touching the Void remained for 14 weeks in the Best Seller column in WSJ (or NYT). What caused the upsurge in the sales of Touching the Void?

7. What similarity does the movies Gouravam & Sivaji films had?

8. How do we better know Plantation Chair?

9. Tamil script was reformed mainly to remove Sanskrit words. Why was Malayalam script reformed in 1981?

10. In route maps shown in flights, what are deliberately not shown?

11. Who owns the copyright for the “Laws of Cricket”

12. who composed the AIR Signature tune & what were the music instruments used?

13. Who were fondly called as 41 & 43 among their family members?

14. On 7/7/7 Seven wonders were announced. On 8/8/8 what will happen?

15. How do we call 10th Power of minus ? (The question is complete!)

16. This particular dish, prepared by salt & flour has its name derived from the same terms in atleast four languages. What’s the dish?

17. Complete the list: Brahadeeswaram Temple, Mahabalipuram Temple, Gangai Konda Cholapuram temple, Another temple (which I do not remember), ——-

Updated: 18. What relates Electronic Voting machine & the Romance sequences in Rameswaram in the film “Kannathil Muthamittal“