Bizarre - The ultimate quiz-a-thon

The last event at Vista 2008 was Bizarre - the open B-quiz. Attracting participation from over 400 teams, the quiz was hosted by Barry O'Brien in his own inimitable entertaining style.

The teams that got to the dais included those that called themselves

• The Usual Suspects
• I^3
• Swami & Friends
• Name 2 Complicated 2 Explain
• Tsunami mein Gourami
  
• TM (Barry was not ready to call this team by their full name which, as a participant spelt, sounds very similar to Terry Mecki ;) )

The quiz lasted a good 1.5 hours and was filled with all the usual masala stuff you find in quizzes. But what was quite new was the amount of audience interaction that Barry ensured. There were liberal doses of rounds for the audience while the teams on stage sat and stared agape. And would you believe it if we told you one of them was a round of songs?! And he didn't part with the t-shirts and caps unless people sang the songs.

Among the interesting rounds for the teams were one in which medleys of Ad videos were played and the teams had to identify both. Another was one in which pictures of businessmen and showbiz-men were morphed together and the identification parade was conducted. And then there was the sequential clues round, but the difference was that as the teams exhausted clues, their positive points reduced, but the negatives for incorrect answers increased!

Eventually the team that took the trophy home was Teri M**ki :)

Behind the scenes

Well, they say that a war is as good as the army fighting it. In true style Trojan analogy, if VISTA is the war, then these are the warriors.

The team (from left to right, starting bottom row):

Aayush (the F&O wizard who can dazzle you in his sleep with his adroit Fin skills)

Arun (the Carnatic singer’s knack for ideating would make people wonder if Edison invented the bulb to be perpetually lit over his cranium)

Debarun (the silent killer who would amaze you with his style of simplifying complexity)

Murugesh (his logo designs are being put alongside MF Hussain’s paintings)

Sethi(the Happydent smile is the power-horse or rather the mai-baap of all the events)

KC (his lively temper will strike you out, he is a one man army who dabbles with both events and sponsorship)

Raghavan (FII has neither voice, nor sight without him giving us the means)

PDM (the enthusiastic kid who can work as hard as he can booze or dance or sleep)

Sathya (his breakneck speed would put Schumacher to shame)

Nachiket (the diminutive fellow says less with words, and more with work, looks surely deceive)

Das (the master of all trades, it is not debatable that all girls in IIMB claim to “know” this debator)

Sagar (the guy who all girls in IIMB actually know)

Sudhakar (the infra GOD who gives FII the means of subsistence & existence..and yeah…)

Nitin (our very own Daddu whose convincing skills are as amazing as the accent he uses it in)

Sahni (all Wall Street honchos know this guy by know, including Mike Bloomberg)

Oleti (the ‘jackass’ of all trades)

Monomita (the grand old lady of Events)

Sarab (the funda goddess has only 2 hobbies – getting sponsorship with a 100% conversion rate and kicking people’s posteriors with her pointed footwear)

Nikita (sponsors can’t say no to her charming demeanor and excellent speaking skills)

Manaw (the FII president leads by example, be it working or boozing)

Santa (publicity becomes a cake walk when you have a public personality like Santa in your ranks)

Yadav (a master of many games – on and off field, this guy can amaze you with his eye for detail)

Vishwa (apart from his characteristic lungi, this amazing dancer & publicity champion also dabbles as the official photographer for FII)

Gazal (the creative brain of FII, whose dexterity in posters qualifies her for the Designers’ hall of fame)

Prahalad (the giant kid who can dig out coast to coast contacts in a flash)

Anshuman (witty writer and speaker, poster gawd, and a harsh taskmaster when it comes to Publicity work)

Pushan (the “chacha” of sponsorship is an epitome of operational efficiency, ask the FMCG giants about it)

Rads (the publicity goddess whose energy levels and knack for eyeing audience response can stun any & every one)

DD (the sponsorship generation machine, whose composed and simple style can disarm all and sundry)

CB (FII’s khajaanchi who has an omnipresent smile and ravishing ideas apart from the FII coffers, at his disposal)

Swati Aggarwal(the new found “voice” of FII, no event is complete unless she has delivered the vote of thanks)

Anshema (the glib talker whose splendid ideas for social entrepreneurship are sure to dazzle Vista this time round)

Swati Verma (the desi firang whose smile is as effective as her ability to convince)

Missing from the pic: Gautam (the quiz wizard whose online aemons gave IIMB junta the demons, you can catch him in the pic in the post below this one)

Team VISTA 2008 prides itself in having some of the most talented and hard-working souls inhabiting the planet. The sheer variety of individuals constituting FII makes it a motley group that epitomizes unity in diversity.