The Sunday Quiz Huddles
There is something extremely magical and therapeutic about a huddle.
The Indian cricket team huddled up together and went all the way to the final in the last edition of the tournament. If you see Jerry Maguire, you will see a bunch of single women crowding together and bitching about their struggles. No point huddling up like that. Apparently i have been informed alcoholics anonymous sessions are like that too.
Every Sunday, in a run down art studio called pix, in an antiquated building aptly called "Hindustan mart" off Dover lane in Kolkata a bunch of nerds, some of whom actually dress pretty decently huddle up together asking each other mundane things about the world.
I have now become a part of this group for the last 2 weeks and intend to continue huddling up with them for my remaining nine months here in kolkata. Any session would probably begin with something as varied as exobiology and end with crypto zoology. For the uninitiated and the interested, the former is the study of extraterrestrial animals and the latter the study of mythical animals known to inhabit our mother earth.
What bugs sometimes, though is the heavy kolkatan emphasis, on questions and discussions on middle ages and Grecian history beyond the ages. But Middle Ages are better than a heavy dose of Middle Earth.
Yet that is what the charm is. Quizzers of different ages, shapes and sizes and sexes, make the rounds so much more interesting. Wherever I participated except here, this sport sure wasn't an equal opportunity employer. If I got to learn about the Seven Wonders of the World, somebody else got to to learn about the Fortune 500 companies. A fact for me is an interesting trivia for someone and vice versa too.
Love the amateurish feel to it, love the welcome they accord to each new member of the tribe, love the sheer range of questions they ask, and love the spirit with which the old pass the carefully built links of this tradition to the new.
Bangalore may now have better quizzers, Delhi may now have more money floating, and Mumbai more television quiz shows, but none would ever have a tradition as old as the Kolkatans.
It’s been a privilege to huddle with them.
The Indian cricket team huddled up together and went all the way to the final in the last edition of the tournament. If you see Jerry Maguire, you will see a bunch of single women crowding together and bitching about their struggles. No point huddling up like that. Apparently i have been informed alcoholics anonymous sessions are like that too.
Every Sunday, in a run down art studio called pix, in an antiquated building aptly called "Hindustan mart" off Dover lane in Kolkata a bunch of nerds, some of whom actually dress pretty decently huddle up together asking each other mundane things about the world.
I have now become a part of this group for the last 2 weeks and intend to continue huddling up with them for my remaining nine months here in kolkata. Any session would probably begin with something as varied as exobiology and end with crypto zoology. For the uninitiated and the interested, the former is the study of extraterrestrial animals and the latter the study of mythical animals known to inhabit our mother earth.
What bugs sometimes, though is the heavy kolkatan emphasis, on questions and discussions on middle ages and Grecian history beyond the ages. But Middle Ages are better than a heavy dose of Middle Earth.
Yet that is what the charm is. Quizzers of different ages, shapes and sizes and sexes, make the rounds so much more interesting. Wherever I participated except here, this sport sure wasn't an equal opportunity employer. If I got to learn about the Seven Wonders of the World, somebody else got to to learn about the Fortune 500 companies. A fact for me is an interesting trivia for someone and vice versa too.
Love the amateurish feel to it, love the welcome they accord to each new member of the tribe, love the sheer range of questions they ask, and love the spirit with which the old pass the carefully built links of this tradition to the new.
Bangalore may now have better quizzers, Delhi may now have more money floating, and Mumbai more television quiz shows, but none would ever have a tradition as old as the Kolkatans.
It’s been a privilege to huddle with them.
posted by tanmay at
11:39 PM
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