INDIA QUIZ26th August, 2011

Built around 1303, this place is known as the second of the seven cities of Delhi. It apparently got its name because the foundation was built on the heads of 8000 captured Mongol soldiers. Name the city.

Connect:

A 20 year veteran of the East India Company, X succeeded Streynsham Master as the Governor of Madras in 1687, after Streynsham Master. However, his flagrant profiteering in defiance of company regulations led to him being relieved of the post in 1692, when he retired to London with a large fortune. His claim to fame today rests on a donation of £ 800 that he made in 1718, 3 years before his death. In 1999, a magazine called him the most overrated philanthropist in American history. For what was this donation made?

Id guy in the foreground (Indian)

Connect:

When Yuddhisthira was king of Hastinapur, two farmers came to him to settle their issue. One of them had sold a plot of land to the other. Shortly after the sale, the buyer had found a rich treasure under the field. Now, the buyer said that the treasure belonged to the other farmer as he had only bought the field and not what was under it. The other said the treasure should go to the farmer who bought the land as the sale was of the land and everything under it. Puzzled, Yuddhisthira asked them to come back the next day. However, when they did come back the following day, their arguments had changed totally with each farmer now claiming the treasure for himself. What had happened overnight to bring about this change in heart?

Connect:

Identify the missing picture

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While waiting for his guest, X (a world famous documentary filmmaker) spoke into the camera: ‘So, I am standing in the garden of Y. There are birds in the trees. Guards are standing in the corners. It is quiet…Oh, I hear a sound. People are straying around, the guards are running. But I do not think that something bad has happened…The guards are no longer standing in the corners. But the birds are still in the trees.“

What caused the commotion that is being described by X?

The case was heard in the Greater Bombay sessions court in 1961. Though the accused (a naval officer) had surrendered and confessed his crime (murdering Prem Ahuja, his wife’s lover), there was a tremendous outpouring of public and media support for him, led by the weekly tabloid Blitz. The verdict returned was got guilty. However, the judge sent the case for retrial by a bench of the Bombay High Court and the Not Guilty verdict was overturned. The intense public and media interest led to a change which made this case a landmark in India. What was this change?

As reward for his penance, X asked Shiva to make him the most powerful being in the world. Shiva gave him a large Shivling, and promised that if he could carry it all the way to Y, he would have his wish. As X progressed on his way, the Gods, afraid he would succeed in his quest, rushed to Vishnu for help. Vishnu made X have a strong urge to urinate. X, handed the Shivling to a Brahmin (Vishnu in disguise) and left to relieve himself. When he returned, he saw the Linga had already taken root in the ground, and in his efforts to pull it out, he only managed to bend it in the shape of a cow’s ear.

Id X and the place which got its name from this incident. (No part points)

X (June 30, 1893 – March 24, 1950) was a British Marxist, political theorist, economist, author, and lecturer, who served as the chairman of the Labour Party during 1945-1946. He served as Professor of Political Science at the LSE from 1926 till his death. Having taught many of independent India’s new leaders, he had a major influence on Indian economic thinking after independence. According to one former Indian Prime Minister – “At every meeting of the Indian Cabinet in the 1950s and 60s, there was a chair reserved for the ghost of X. Among other things, Ayn Rand used him as the model for the villain Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead.

Id the man in the ad and what this ad is about.

X features in the Limca Book of Records for receiving the largest ever measured response in the history of Indian television. It ran from 1993 to 2001. Hosted by Renuka Shahane and Siddharth Kak, it once received 1.4 million letters in a single week for the viewer questions it asked. Since internet/SMS were not around back then, the letters were sent in on postcards. This led the Indian Postal Services to start a new ‘product’. Id the show and what the Postal services came out with as a result.

Sloppy Firsts, page 7: "Bridget is my age and lives across the street. For the first twelve years of my life, these qualifications were all I needed in a best friend. But that was before Bridget's braces came off and her boyfriend Burke got on, before Hope and I met in our seventh grade Honors classes."

page 14: "Priscilla was my age and lived two blocks away. For the first fifteen years of my life, those were the only qualifications I needed in a best friend. We had bonded over our mutual fascination with the abacus in a playgroup for gifted kids. But that was before freshman year, when Priscilla's glasses came off, and the first in a long string of boyfriends got on."

A B

Sloppy Firsts, page 23: "He’s got dusty reddish dreads that a girl could never run her hands through. His eyes are always half-shut. His lips are usually curled in a semi-smile, like he’s in on a big joke that’s being played on you but you don’t know it yet.

page 48: "He had too-long shaggy brown hair that fell into his eyes, which were always half shut. His mouth was always curled into a half smile, like he knew about some big joke that was about to be played on you."

Scoring: +6/-4+5/-3+4/-2+3/-1+2/ 0

Long Visual # 1

Written by Devaki Nandan Khatri, this novel is often credited with being the first work of prose in the modern Hindi language. The story is a romance set in the backdrop of magic and fantasy. The extremely popular novel has many sequels, prominent being a 7-book series dealing with the adventure of the protagonists’ children in another fantasy world. The story is now being made into a major motion picture produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and the male lead is to be played by Abhishek Bachhan.

What is the Novel called?

The name of this place is derived from the local word for the Butea Frondosa flower, sometimes referred to in English (among other names) as the Bastard Teak. It lies on the Bhagirathi river about 50 km north of the city of Krishnanagar. In 1998 the Khaitan group, which has a factory here, tried to change the name of the place to Khaitan Nagar, but were forced to back down in the face of protests from the local people and the media.

‘In 1995, we were a bunch of gangly 18-year-olds, wondering what the hell we were doing climbing up Sinhgad fort on a miserable, rainy day, when I first met X. He was an ikki, a first termer, bone-weary, but always gung-ho. When we made it to the top, the first stop was for a fill of water. Soggy, bushed and thirsty, we ran to the natural spring that has been feeding soldiers since the days of Chhatrapati Shivaji. X was the first to reach and started drawing water from the well. We lined up with our canteens, but a tourist first held out her water bottle. X filled it. Then, another. X filled that too. Within seconds, there was a long line of tourists waiting for water. Without a word - and with a smile to us - he dutifully doled out his generosity. He never got to us. He himself never got a sip. The order came to move on.’

A batchmate talking about X. Id.

X was a Suryavanshi Kshatriya king, born during the last stages of Dwapar Yuga. It is said that Mahalakshmi appeared to him. She asked him to establish a new kingdom and take up the Vaishya tradition of business. The new kingdom was named Y and is situated near present day Hisar in Haryana. He also fathered 18 sons, the kin of which form a prominent business community in the country. Name X and the community.

A product of St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, X served as Secretary of the Indian Football Association for a couple of years. In later life, he moved to the USA and became a silent movie actor under the screen name ________ Trevor in movies like Beau Geste (1926), Dancing Mothers(1926) and Tonight at Twelve (1929). He also appeared in several Broadway shows. Name the chap, whose greatest claim to fame is neither acting nor football.

ARA General Belgrano HMS Conqueror

PNS Hangor?

X was a revolutionary in the Indian Independence Movement. Born to ________ Guravayya and Mahalakshmamma in Madras on March 16, 1901, he participated in the Salt Satyagraha in 1930 and took an active part in the Quit India Movement in 1942 and was jailed along with the Mahatma. In response to the call given by Gandhiji to serve the villagers, he enrolled in the Gandhi Ashram near Komaravolu village in Krishna district and spread the Gandhian philosophy. He died on 16 December, 1951.

However, he is famous in Indian history for a very specific reason. What?

Dadasaheb Phalke’s debut film, Raja Harishchandra was India’s first full length motion picture. To make the picture, he desperately needed money and none of his friends were willing to fund this venture. The only exception was Yeshwant Nadkarni, who, convinced of his sincerity, only asked for a proof that Dadasaheb could produce a short film centred around a theme instead of a topical ‘short’.

The proof that Phalke produced was sufficient to convince Nankarni. However, with time, the proof has achieved its own claim to fame. What was the proof and why is it now famous?

Of the many satires that populated Indian television in the 90s, few were as popular as X. Putting the principal actors (who were Producer and Director, as well as husband and wife) in different scenarios, the show exposed the dark underbelly of corruption in India. The series had a very popular title track, featuring the shows cast and crew in a band. Unfortunately only 10 episodes of the series were shot; reruns however can still be found on many channels. Id X?

Scoring: +8/-4+6/-3+4/-2+2/-1+1/ 0

Long Visual # 2