THE DAY I WAS PROVEN RIGHT

By Manas Paul

“We need to master the ability to access facts while reserving time and space to do something meaningful with them”- wrote Andrew Sullivan.

I have copied the heading of this article ‘The Day I was Proven Right’ –with a suitable change, of course - from an article by a young girl of our state, Aparna Kar, whose collection of articles -‘The Day I was Proven Wrong’- was published by Tripurainfo.com last year.

(Aparna is now studying in USA and I believe when she would log on tripurainfo she would find it really amazing).

Well! In my previous article, ‘Gen Next : Point counter point’ I entertained an audacious conviction : The new generation boys and girls are surprisingly much ahead of us in terms of their awareness and their easy travel across the wide spectrum of global information. In fine, they are better informed than us.

To drive my point home I invited all to All Tripura Mega Quiz 2008 organized by tripurainfo.com at Agartala Town Hall on June 15.
Quote un-quote, I wrote: You will be surprised at the smart answers they (the youngsters) can provide to the toughest questions (in the Quiz) that might put you simply at a loss’.

Today I write with a satisfied heart that I was indeed proven Right at what I had claimed.
And here are some samples as to how the young participants as well as young audience - some of whom were, in fact, kids – came to rescue me. In fact, they proved my points daringly clear in the third All Tripura Mega Quiz that undoubtedly showcased the Gen Next brilliance.

Sample 1: Name the capital of Burkina Faso?
Now, tell me how many of my friends reading this article really knew that there indeed exists a country in West Africa called ‘Burkina Faso’? Honestly, I did not know and I found many hardcore quizzers of yesteryears sitting on the front rows of the auditorium going silent at the question. I had almost cursed the quizmaster- my friend Abhijit Bhattacharjee -for throwing such a question but to my utter surprise a youngster from the audience jumped with an answer.
“Ouagadougou”- or something sounding very complicated like that.
The hall suddenly turned quiet.
I craned my neck to look at the teenager who was almost lost amongst the crowd in half dark auditorium. Then I returned my eyes to the quizmaster not actually believing that someone could even dare to come out with an answer for such a question. Abhijit also seemed literally baffled by the answer as he stood motionless for a second. Then he roared –‘Right. Come here to collect your prize’.
This was Great. Or as my young friends would say ‘Cool. Really coool”.
Unfortunately I forgot to collect the boy’s name.

Here is Sample 2: (in screening test) Name the English writer of Elizabethan period who is believed to have once served as an ‘intelligence agent’. There were four names – William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, John Lily and John Fletcher. And most of

 the 600 participants could rightly mark the box beside Christopher Marlowe.
Sample 3: ( in screening test) What is Vitruvian Man ? There were four choices – ‘predecessor of humans’, a ‘painting’, ‘code name of an assassin of a USA president’ and a ‘musical note’.
Again most of the participants were found to be aware of Leonardo da Vinci’s immortal depiction of a perfect human body.
I had personally chosen these two questions. And I considered these two were among the eight toughest questions out of total 25 given for screening.
(We had to be little ruthless as we were forced to choose best 16 pairs out of 600 participants).
Sample 4 : What does ‘XP’ means in Windows XP. This time a Class VI student Sagarika Roy outsmarted all in the audience- many of who were undoubtedly experienced computer techies. The answer was, well, ‘Experience’.
Then there was a bubbly kid of Class V with very big and a typical Bengali name ‘Arghyakusum Bhattacharjya’ who took away Rs 2000 in cash answering two separate questions, correctly.
The list could go on and on.
But here is a point which should not be missed: Not all the winners were from elite schools and colleges or from well off families. There were students from Gandhi school and Tulshibati School who answered difficult questions that others including hardcore quizzers and elderly people failed to answer.
Had you been there you might have found many a common-place man who did not exactly fit in our common perception of a quizzer, could proudly walk away with prizes, cash money of Rs 1000 included, easily answering difficult questions.
But the most impressive, besides the three winning pairs from the participants was, of course, young Avinab Majumdar who lifted Rs 10,000 cash prize announced by Pradyut Kishore Dev Barman. He gave the name of the highest scorer of Argentine soccer except Maradona.

They all proved my point. They all proved I was right.
But besides the youngsters’ quest for knowledge that strengthened my conviction, I also discovered a pleasant truth on that day: The elders were not to be left behind in their spirit of competition with the junior members sitting next to them. And their list that spread across different strata of society was, believe me, highly impressive.
An elderly lady Krishna Devi was sitting restless in the balcony since the beginning. When the question - who is the author of ‘God Father’, came – she could not help but stand up waving her hands violently to attract the quizmaster –BBC’s Eastern India correspondent Subir Bhaumik. Subirda did not fail to notice her and was magnanimous enough –in his own unique style- to give her the chance. And she answered ‘Mario Puzo’.
“Right”- thundered Subir da and the elderly lady rushed down, almost dancing like a child, to get her prize as all including the VIPs broke into thunderous applause.
Then there was a lady in red sari. I have seen her taking her lunch hurriedly in Town Hall verandah with her daughter from a Tiffin box; it was clear that she had come prepared to stay all through the day in the quiz. I noticed she stood to answer several times during audience rounds but missed the chance. In the afternoon her turn indeed came and she got her prize.
Amitabha Kar, IGP, had already got three prizes but the fourth one he had to share with Arun Pillai- vice president of Universal Empire Group and Director of GENET – the main sponsor of the programme. Pillai had flown down from Delhi to attend the Quiz and from 11 pm he stayed glued in his seat till 9 pm.
Dr Jayanta Roy an eminent doctor gave the name of Rabi Kumar Debbarma, the brave son of Tripura who made supreme sacrifice in Sri Lanka fighting the Tamil Tigers as IPKF soldier. Dr Roy is the father of Sagarika-the girl who did give the answer for Windows XP. While both the father and daughter took away two prizes Dr Roy’s wife and Principal of MBB College Manideepa Roy sat quietly in her seat. Her half smile reflected the quintessence of a proud wife and a proud mother.
Subir da did not give West Tripura District Magistrate Kishore Ambuly a chance to name the two Washington Post reporters who had exposed Watergate scandal. Instead he unknowingly sent the question to his daughter Debanjali who got it right- Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. On dais I heard Debanjali telling the quizmaster even the name of the source called ‘Deep Throat’ – who had confirmed the reporters’ information- as ‘Mark Felt', an associate director in the FBI at that time.
No body could find out who was ‘Deep Throat’ until Mark Felt identified himself in May 2005 in Vanity Fair magazine- almost thirty years after disgraced USA President Richard Nixon said good bye to White House.
In retrospect, besides stunning performance by the participants and the audience as well, I felt the All Tripura Mega Quiz 2008 this time was unique in two aspects.
First, this is for the first time ‘Horbola’ (animal sounds), a not-so-common art, was introduced in a quiz programme.
Dibyajyoti Nath, an engineer by profession performed ‘Horbola’ to create awareness among the children. Horbola, included in the minute to minute schedule to provide a respite in a highly tense environ - turned out to be a great addition, as it not only amused the children but also the entire audience.
Dibyajyoti asked five questions to the children –mostly to identify the animal from the sounds. One small kid ran up to the dais for his prize. When Dibyajyoti asked him the name of the animal, the kid said: ‘I study in nursery’.
But, what is the name of the animal? Repeated Dibyajyoti.
The boy also repeated: ‘I go to school, everyday’.
The audience broke into laughter. Ok !! Give the boy his prize said one of the organizers and the kid was given one. The small boy’s

face brightened up and he did not waste time in the dais. He clutched his prize and rushed back to his siblings. The happiness was simply infectious.The second thing that was remarkable was the three quizmasters’ mesmerizing performance.
I am not sure whether Quiz could be- or whether it had already been- clubbed with performing arts. But anybody who had witnessed Subir Bhaumik, BBC’s Eastern India correspondent, Dr M J Panicker, an eminent eye specialist and Abhijit Bhattacharjee principal of School of Science in action as quizmasters, would certainly agree with me that they virtually lifted the quiz to the level of performing arts.
Gracious, kind-yet-razor sharp and ever ready to enlighten people with interesting tidbits of the questions they had chosen, the trio was extremely professional. The three quizmasters by their sheer personality and wonderful style achieved a rare success: They never allowed the show to go slack and managed to keep the entire auditorium jam packed happily for about 11 hours- 9 .45 am to 9 pm- an impossible task by any standard in Agartala.
In fact, it was a record.
And there was Subhrajit Bhattacharjee, the moderator, who was perhaps at his best in regaling the audience with his beautiful English as well as enviable Bengali.
And how was the audience response?
“I am simply overwhelmed by the quality of our boys and girls. I just can’t believe how they could answer such tough questions. Our boys and girls can match anyone anywhere in the country. It’s amazing”, was the statement of opposition leader Ratan Lal Nath who came in the afternoon and quietly observed the programme till the grand finale.
In his own words the performance in the quiz at all levels left him simply spellbound.
In fact, his response was similar to what Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, Vice Chancellor of Tripura University Prof. Arunaday Saha or Editor of TNT Pradyut Kishore Dev Barman had sought to outline earlier in the morning in their speech : Tripura is on the fast track of change. And this Quiz demonstrates the pace of rapidly expanding social horizon of our state.
Now, take a comment from an outsider.

I have already told how GENET director Arun Pillai from Delhi, himself a quiz buff in his engineering and management days, remained glued to his seat for the entire session.
“How was the quiz ? I asked him. Pillai answered in his typical crisp style : Simply fabulous. Magnificent.
Then there was Chief Executive Officer if Tripura Medical College and a former corporate top gun K Vittal Rao. He had only recently come to Tripura and, perhaps, it was his first exposure to public gathering in the state. He watched the programme with keen interest for two hours and then left the Town Hall. After about one hour he came back , this time with Mrs Vittal Rao. Evidently, the elderly executive did not want to enjoy the programme alone.
Former Principal of MBB College S M Panicker came with his wife and stayed till the end as his son performed on the dais.
Principal Secretary A K Mangotra who stayed away from the front-row was sitting quietly in the midst of the audience enjoying the Quiz incognito until moderator Subhrajit introduced the officer present to the audience.
If the response from the audience was highly encouraging, presence of so many dignitaries –almost all the who’s who in the state- made the organizers proud of doing something meaningful- at least, trying to accomplish in their own small way what one of the boards in the astonishingly decorated dais of the All Tripura Mega Quiz had declared: ‘Profiling the Social Change’.