In pursuit of General Knowledge Are you smarter, or just third grade? By Cecil Pinto
>From 1980 to 1982 I was a member of the St. Thomas Boys School, Aldona, Quiz Team doing the inter-school competition rounds. We won some and lost some, but were always in the top few along with St. Mary’s and St. Britto’s. Considering ours was a village school that was quite an accomplishment. We attended quiz competitions in Mapusa, Panjim and even Calangute but for the life of me I can’t recall a quizzing visit to South Goa. Maybe South Goan schools of that time didn’t have quiz teams because I don’t even recall any competing schools from south of the Zuari. On the other hand years of an unhealthy lifestyle have made my brain cells deteriorate so not only are my memories faded I also don’t have much General Knowledge, as we called it then, left. Our school Quiz Team was quite organized in terms of areas of specialization. I was the expert on the Social Sciences and Linguistics which meant basically I was good at History and Geography, could spell well and knew a lot of acronyms (eg. LASER - Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). Bharat Chodankar was the sports expert and knowledgeable about Goan and Indian politics. Carlos D’Souza was the master at international politics and current affairs as he listened to BBC radio and his folks used to buy national newspapers and magazines. And lastly we had Edward Rodrigues who made the team because 1) his father was a friend of the headmaster and 2) his father had a car and was agreeable to drive us to competitions. Of course it is unfair of me to say that Edward got on the team only by virtue of his influential father. If that was the case we would have objected but we didn’t because, well, quite simply, Edward had pretty sisters. We were so hormonal at the time that we even made him the Quiz Team captain. All to no avail as we never even got to talk to Edward’s sisters, leave alone date them. Keep in mind though that at that time quizzing was not as tough as it is today. There were less countries, ergo capitals, to remember. Yugoslavia and the USSR were still intact. We didn’t have states with made-up combo-names like Uttarakhand, and Goa was just a Union territory with some five-six ministers names to memorize. There were less personalities’ names to remember in current affairs – Indira Gandhi, Sunil Gavaskar, Martina Navratilova, Pratapsingh Rane, Bjorn Borg etc. pretty much seemed permanent fixtures in their respective fields. Unlike since 1988, when the Chief Minister of Goa changed 15 times in 15 years. Today’s quiz contestants have to know so much more, but then there’s also many new ways to access knowledge. We didn’t have Google or Wikipaedia or even TV for that matter and neither did the Quiz Masters - so Questions and Answers were pretty limited. We didn’t have Facebook either and so quiz competitions were also a chance to socialise. The girls from St. Mary’s (green chillies) Quiz Team were more desirable than our home grown St Thomas Girls (blue bottles); or were they? In retrospect I think our Aldona girls were much prettier. It’s just that the grass, or the skirts, always seem greener on the other side. But enough about my generation, which turned out quite ok despite having very limited access to knowledge and the opposite gender. Last Saturday I attended the Chandrakant Keni Memorial Goa Quiz at held at Panjim. What a fantastic event. Adman, advocate and ardent quizzer Harshvardhan Bhatkuly conceptualized and conducted the quiz with panache. An enthusiastic crowd of about 150 were thoroughly entertained and informed by the well chosen Goa centric questions – including audio visual rounds. I was tempted to form a team and participate, but at my age a certain fragile ego develops. Imagine being asked a question like, “XXXX was created when XXXX took over as the Managing Director of ASP, an advertising agency. It was illustrated by Eustace Fernandes. Name both the XXXXs”, and being clueless despite having a background in advertising. Add to that the sheer embarrassment of having a little school girl in front of you knowing the answer. She didn’t get a chance and the correct answer (Sylvester da Cunha & the Amul Girl) was given by a woman with matted straightened hair. And all my life I thought women who straightened, and hence damaged, their hair must be brain dead. Probably one of the reasons why people my age don’t participate in quizzes is not so much because of the fear of losing but because of the mortification of being shown to be less knowledgeable than one you consider inferior in the social status scale – like maybe a fifth grader, or a woman from South Goa, or a member of a Zilla Parishad, or a young man who wears a suit with sequins on it. What a shame for one of such people to know an answer that you didn’t. There was a young father-daughter team at the Goa Quiz who did not make it to the finals, but their zeal and interaction were fun to observe. And of course there were the usual showoffs in the audience who kept their hand raised even when the question was being asked of the teams on stage, just to show everyone they knew the answer. Others, like me, made a big appearance of trying to recall the elusive answer - when in fact they were clueless. Here are some answers I didn’t know. How is the flower ‘crossandra’ better known in Goa? He died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524 and his body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi. Who? Kunhiraman Palat is the first name of this first administrator of free Goa. Who? And some answers I did know. Which brand of cola marketed as ‘Goyan kelli rucchik bori’ was created by Jack Sequeira? In March 1554, what bizarre act did a lady called Dona Isabela de Carom commit? Which freedom fighter penned the famous Denationalisation of Goans, arguing intellectuals to join the Indian mainstream? Here are the answers in random order. Go figure. Vasco da Gama Dr. Tristao Braganza Cunha She bit off the little toe on the right foot from the relic of St. Francis Xavier K. P Candeth Abolim Vasco da Gama Top Cola --------- The column above appeared in Gomantak Times dated 4th June 2009 =====