There was a time when people changed their wedding dates to participate in the Landmark quiz, one of the city’s longest-running competitions, held annually on Aug 15. “Some would travel all the way from Delhi and Mumbai and sometimes even Singapore and Dubai to be part of it,” says Dr Navin Jayakumar, ophthalmologist-quizzer, who has almost single-handedly conducted the quiz for the past 60 years, even during the pandemic when it moved online.
“Even today in Chennai, on Aug 15, you’ll see about 450 teams of three each at The Music Academy, the venue,” says Navin, who continues to conduct the open quiz which is now associated with Zifo, after Landmark closed.
The tradition continues, despite other forms of entertainment and pub quizzes taking over.
One of the first cities to introduce open quizzes, Chennai’s tryst with quizzing dates back to the 1950s, with intercollegiate events.
“I remember participating in quizzes while studying in Queen Mary’s College and Presidency College,” says Saranya Jayakumar, Dr Navin’s mother, now 85. “Being a book worm helped. Also, I was in the quiz capital of the country, Kolkata, for long. In my experience, women have always been interested in quizzes; only, most get consumed by housekeeping.”
Navin began as a quizmaster while at Madras Medical College. In the 1980s, at historian S Muthiah’s request, he started conducting the annual quiz at the Chennai Book Fair.
In Dec 1987, he and fellow quizzer Gopal Kidao founded the Quiz Foundation of India, one of the country’s oldest quizzing groups still active. The response was strong. “We wanted people to keep quizzing after college. Any group of three friends or family could form a team,” says Navin.
Aparna Sriram from Porur, who has been participating in quizzes for the past 25 years, recalls how she used to participate with her parents in the earlier days. “It was like a once in a year gala, and as a family we would watch quizzes on TV and take the ones in newspapers, as preparation,” she says. Now that her parents are older, she forms a team with friends and even won the women’s annual quiz last year. “The kind of questions have changed, they are a little trickier, but the love remains,” she says.
Framing questions too was a different ballgame, says Gopal, and the sole reference points were newspapers and library books. “And now, with AI, you can generate the entire quiz with the right prompts, with a click.” The questions were also simpler those days, such as the ‘capital of Peru’, while now, it can’t be that obvious with the kind of information available.
Some of the crowd, he says, has moved to pub quizzes in Chennai, where fun pop culture events are held, but the important thing, says Navin, is that it still brings people together. “It’s all about enjoying the process. It is a sport.”
Pub quizzes are held on a lighter vein though, and focused on the fun element, says Arjun Mohan, a regular quiz master at Watson’s, T-nagar, since 2018. “They have been quite popular, and we pick simple questions but with a quirky twist. Initially it was completely informal, now there are some rules, people shouldn’t shout out answers and should write them down on answer sheets. The table with the maximum score wins.” Expectedly, prizes include a bottle of alcohol at times, but the best part is that people who’ve never taken part in quizzes join in, says Arjun.
A matter of concern, says Navin, is that quizzing has always remained a male-dominated activity. This year, on March 8, International Women’s Day, they are conducting an all-women’s quiz, for women, by women, with questions about women - Purple Riband Quiz. All four hosts will be women, including Saranya, who is now 85, while the youngest is just 13.
Open quizzing in India originated in Calcutta, among different parishes of a church, and was open to anyone. The person who conducted them was Neil O’ Brien, father of Derek o’ Brien, well known in quizzing circles
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