A Visit to Kolkata Part II
This is the continuation of my older post ‘A Visit to Kolkata Part I’ In this one, I’ll tell you about the studio where the quiz was shot.
The Studio
All of us were excited when we were taken to the studio.... but the excitement was mixed with some grumpiness too- we had to wake up at four o’clock, leave at five and had to look forward to an hour’s journey in a cramped Innova. And to top it all- when I was in the bathroom in the middle of brushing my teeth, the electricity went off… it didn’t come back till five- when we were about to exit the room, the lights came on- just our luck.
The two schools we were to compete against were in an equally grumpy frame of mind. They too had faced the power-cut. So we were driven to the studio where we were made to wait in a very unimpressive room while the person who was managing our batch told us the rules. It was then that I realized that we would have to wear make-up. MAKE-UP!! The make-up man came in a bit late and then we took turns as he put on some powder onto our faces and applied some lip gloss or something. It tasted of strawberries.
Then, we were taken to the set. The first thing which struck me was the number of lights on the set. I counted 89 lights and 3 lasers in all (and believe me- I had plenty of time between the takesand retakes). We were made to stand and give our introductions and just for the TV, the quiz masters- Derek O’Brien and Soumya Tandon explained the rules again. And then, the quiz began…
In my opinion, the first team from Jaipur got easy questions. We too got pretty easy questions but not as easy as the guys from Jaipur. I could have answered all of them and got 500/500.
Here is the link to the YouTube upload of the quiz-
Anyway, let me tell you about after the quiz. We had breakfast and I was amazed to see that the cameraman was ironing some clothes. On looking more carefully, I saw that everyone was doing something or the other- the cameraman was ironing, the person who was setting the microphones was cooking, the person who was on the ceiling adjusting the lights was making tea and so on. All of them were chatting happily in Bangla…. The studio itself was some kind of ecosystem. Nobody had just one job. Everybody was perpetually and happily busy. I really loved the place.
After we had eaten, we were loaded into our cramped Innova and driven away.
The next day was our flight back to Pune. We were on the same flight as the guys from Bishops… they too had lost in the first round itself.
To say the truth, I am a bit disappointed but I do have another chance. I am hoping that I can do better next time- mostly for the trophy of course but also because then I can be in Kolkata for more time- all the more time to eat sweets!
And I do have a tip for air hostesses- please let sleeping boys lie. Especially when they have woken up at four in the morning and have had little sleep the day before. And when all you are going to give them is cardboard to eat. I had just gone to sleep when I was woken up to eat what looked like some roti and was that paneer?.
I am really surprised that my teacher and quiz partner liked the food. I just ate the fruits and the piece of bread. I was lucky that I had a Snickers in my pocket… my backpack had to be checked in because there were rasogullas in them. I had thought that I wouldn’t eat breakfast at the hotel five in the morning but I was glad that I had.
We also got a HUGE Cadburys hamper- with an absolutely enormous box of Bournvita. And some chocolates too.
Looking back, I think that the trip was a SUCCESS!








