The festival of Knowledge: The Mega Quiz through the lens of a first-time visitor

Sagarneel Sinha

November 29, 2024   

Keeping alive the tradition of encouraging knowledge among the students and the society, this year too, the TripuraInfo Mega Quiz Event, the state's biggest quiz event, was held in the Hall no 1 of the Rabindra Bhawan in the capital city of Agartala. This was the 19th Mega Quiz Event of TripuraInfo. The first event was held in the year 2006 and since then, it has been holding this event annually.

Being a contributor of articles to TripuraInfo, I was invited to attend the event several times in the past by Jayanta sir (Jayanta Debnath, Editor and Managing Director of TripuraInfo) but due to some problems, I was unable to attend the event then. So, this time when once again he invited me, I made up my mind to witness the state's biggest quiz event. I reached Agartala by Saturday evening.  Then my uncle, who was accompanying me along with my aunt, and I had a pleasant meeting with him in the Rabindra Bhawan, where preparations were in full swing. This was the first time that I met him. He introduced me to the two people neighbouring him as a good writer for TripuraInfo. His praises were heart-warming for me.

As it happened, my uncle and I reached the Rabindra Bhawan Hall 1 on Sunday around 9:30 am, where we again met with Jayanta sir, who asked us to sit, if possible, in the front rows. Initially, sitting in the middle rows, we later shifted to the front rows. The programme started around 11:00 am. Subrajit Bhattacharya, one of the state's renowned anchors, and engineer (ETDC) Subhasish Kar anchored the programme in a very enthusiastic way. The quiz was conducted by three quizmasters — Abhijit Bhattacharya, Principal of the School of Science, Nandu Kumar Panikar, an accomplished officer of the Planning Department, Government of Tripura and Madhuja Debnath, a 12-year-old student of Class VII of Auxilium Girls’ School.

The screening test of participants took place around noon. There were 800 participants divided into 400 teams, each team consisting of two members. This shows the massive popularity of the mega quiz event among the public. Obviously, selecting only 16 teams for the semifinal wasn't an easy task — but that challenging task was done by the evaluators invited by TripuraInfo.

The evaluation took time. During that period, there were many questions for the audience. While the audience round was going on, former chief minister of the state Manik Sarkar, who is one of the longest-serving chief ministers of any Indian state, reached the hall. Since the start of the mega quiz event in 2006, he has been a regular attendant to this annual event — in fact, being the chief minister of the state, he was the chief guest for many years. Apart from congratulating TripuraInfo for organising such a big event since 2006, he took this opportunity to urge the students and youth to look beyond winning exciting prizes and to learn about current affairs to know about the problems of the country and the world. He also stressed that only finding problems isn't enough — it is time to look for solutions too. He highlighted that the happiness of winning a prize is temporary; students and youth have to look for permanent happiness by trying to get into the depths of the problems and seek solutions. Manik Sarkar didn't miss a massive event like this to deliver such a powerful message to the students and youth about the importance of the society. This is an undeniable fact that this was the most inspiring speech of the day.

Later around 2 pm, the state chief minister Manik Saha, the chief guest of the event, reached the hall. He praised the TripuraInfo Mega Quiz Event by saying that in the city, the quiz has become synonymous with TripuraInfo. That chief minister himself has been an admirer of the annual mega event was known from his statement that he was supposed to attend an event in Delhi but that got postponed due to an urgency and as a result, he got the opportunity to be present in the event. Such is the popularity of the event that even the chief minister of the state considered that attending TripuraInfo's Mega Quiz Event was an opportunity for him. Saha keenly watched the program for about an hour. In his speech, he urged everyone present there to remain updated in this era of social media. He also particularly praised the little quizmaster, Madhuja Debnath (Mahi), for her speaking skills. The chief minister was right. The little girl Mahi as the quizmaster was the star of attraction of the day. Such a  mature performance really

astounded me. Her question on Schrödinger’s cat — a topic of quantum physics — deserves applause.

The chief minister also participated in the event by asking a question on the number of UNESCO Heritage Sites in the Northeast. The winner of this question was presented with a mobile phone by the chief minister himself. His participation only sent a positive message showing the importance of such quiz events, which need to be always encouraged by the society. While Saha was on the stage, the chief editor of TripuraInfo Sekhar Dutta, a veteran journalist and a well-known political commentator of the state, threw a question to the audience to tell the ordinal number of Manik Saha in the list of chief ministers since the state got full-statehood. The answer to this question from the audience is that Dr. Manik Saha is the 10th Chief Minister after the elevation of Tripura to full state.

The anchors and the quizmasters did a great job of keeping the show going in a very productive way and also making it interesting. Three of the winners, if I am not wrong, among the audience were asked to sing a song while collecting their prizes. One of the winners when asked to sing a song sang the famous Hindi song from the 80's — “Tujhse Naraz Nahin Zindagi”. These were some light moments that added some musical notes to the event.

Then Manas Paul, a very well-known veteran journalist of the state,  came with a presentation to give some interesting information. In the presentation, he shared the legend of a Greek author named Aeschylus whose bald head was mistaken by an eagle as a shining rock and as a result dropped a tortoise on his head resulting in the death of the author — a rare incident of death of a person in the world’s history caused by a tortoise falling on head.  He also shared with the audience the portrait of an Indian queen on a Swiss watch that remained an amazing mystery for many years. The queen in the portrait was none other than Kanchan Prabha Devi, who actually was the last monarch of the princely state of Tripura. This presentation by him really enriched the Mega Quiz Event.

The part of the event that I really loved and found very interesting was the semifinal round — conducted by both Panicker and Abhijeet sir . Sixteen teams were selected for the semi-final round. The teams were bombarded with 10 questions and they were given only one minute to answer all of these. Most of the questions asked were basic ones — capitals and currencies of countries, present governors and chief ministers of states, location of some Indian airports, sites, including the Grishneshwar Temple, name of sports associated with the  cups mentioned etc. We human beings often know many things but we also sometimes struggle to remember them at the right time. That's why this semi-final round was interesting for me as it tested the ability of the memory of the participants within a few seconds and also their presence of mind.

A total of six teams were needed to be selected for the final round but there were more than six teams — so a tiebreaker was used. Unfortunately, by then it was already 4:15-4:20 pm and I was getting late as my train was scheduled at 6 pm. I was also feeling hungry and went to have my lunch arranged by TripuraInfo after informing Jayanta sir that I had to leave the event. After having my lunch, I met with Sekhar sir and introduced myself. He immediately recognised me and enquired about my present work. It was a pleasing moment for me as he was really gracious. Later, he told me to visit TripuraInfo’s city office whenever I visit Agartala next time.

As I was short of time, I was unable to watch the final round. Later I came to know that Chirag Majumder and Dikshit Biswas clinched the top spot while Parthapratim Bhattacharjee and Pritam Ghosh came second. The third spot was secured by Sakhyar Dutta Majumder and Anirban Kar. Many many congratulations to them and also to all the participants who participated as teams. More than victory, what matters is the desire and courage to participate in a big festival of knowledge like the TripuraInfo Mega Quiz Event. These things need to be appreciated. I also came to know through reports about the presence of the food as well as the transport minister of the state Sushanta Choudhary. Many other dignitaries made the Mega Event more enlightening.

India is a living civilisation whose history dates back at least 6000 years. It has a rich history where knowledge has always been given the utmost importance. We find these from the events of Shastarths (debates) that took place in ancient India (like in the court of King Janak of Mithila). The Upanishads mention the importance of acquiring self-knowledge through consciousness (Chetana). Indian history mentions great writers and philosophers, including women. These great writers not only wrote poems and narrated past events but also about astronomy, mathematics, politics, economics, medicine, surgery, dance etc.

But in the course of time, our obsession to only know about the Western world ignoring our own great culture and personalities — many of whom predate their Western counterparts — have been a serious cause of worry. It was little-bit dissatisfying for me as there were mostly no questions related to our ancient Indian knowledge (The Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayan, Mahabharat, the Puranas, other ancient texts and folklore). As I wasn't present in the final round, I am not aware if there were any questions related to the topics that I mentioned. Obviously, during the semi-final round, a question was asked about the author of Panchatantra, an Indian text that shows the level of intelligence to teach the students real knowledge of life through the characters of animals and birds.

Nevertheless, in today's era, where acquiring knowledge is limited to only scoring mark in exams, having degrees and getting a job, TripuraInfo’s 19th Mega Quiz Event needs to be appreciated. It is no less than a big achievement to continue the event annually for 19 years. For this, the team of TripuraInfo deserves a big applause. Particularly the Managing Director of TripuraInfo, Jayanta sir and his team who has been working tirelessly to maintain the quality of journalism in the state. The presence of many high-profile dignitaries at the event only proves that this tireless work of TripuraInfo mega quiz in the field of journalism as the leading light has been recognised. Along with team info, the chief editor of TripuraInfo, Sekhar sir, also deserves special applause. This event will always be a memorable one for me and I wish all the best to the team of TripuraInfo to continue its journey as the leading light of journalism as well as spreading knowledge in the state. 

(Bio: Sagarneel Sinha is a political commentator and columnist. He currently writes a weekly column called “Northeast Notes” for ABP Live. X: @SagarneelSinha)

   (Tripurainfo)