One of my most cherished moments

Note to the reader: please dont read this if you hate long blogs or personal blogs, you will get bored.

I have had many cherishable moments in my life, the below incident is one of those.

It was a Saturday, me and my friend thamaraimanalan were going to Chetpet to participate in the competitions held by the malayalee club. It was decided that thamarai would participate in the essay and oral competitions and I would take part in the quiz.

We both finished the essay competition, it was 11:30 by the time we finished. We heard an announcement that the quiz had been postponed and it was supposed to be held only in the evening. We looked at each other blankly, We had six hours left, I had not brought my lunch. I told my friend that I would go home and come back in the evening. He was reluctant to let me go as he thought I would not come back. But, I promised to be there on time.

I went home and had my lunch and took a short nap. When I woke up, I saw the time , it was already 5P.M. I wondered whether I should go. I thought it was a waste of attending the competition as there were many quality participants who could win the quiz hands down. However my mind said, “go to the club, you must go”. My gut feeling told me to go and attend the quiz no matter what happened.

I took the bus and reached the club just in time. My friend was relieved to see me. We had to pass in a written test first in order to qualify, We had 14 question out of which we answered just 7 correctly. I told thamarai, “ come on da, lets go I don’t think we will qualify”. To my surprise, we heard the announcement that we were the last time to get qualified. “Co-incidence or destiny”, my mind thought. We went on to the stage , we sat as Team E , the last but not least.

I observed all the participants, they sounded very optimistic and glared at us as if we were people from the stone age. The quiz started. The first three rounds saw all of us going neck to neck. The fourth round did a lot of damage to our morale. It was a picture round, we had to identify the person in the picture. We had a picture clip which had been passed to us by the other teams. I made a desperate attempt to answer the question, that picture had no resemblance to any icon. Out of frustration, I relied, “Is it the father of Bill Gates”. The whole audience along with the other teams burst into laughter.

It was so much that the anchor of the quiz also laughed. I was a little embarrassed, the member of team A( it was a girl, their team was leading in terms of scores) looked at me with a mocking smile and murmured something. I found out that she had said that we guys looked like jokers. I was hell bent on proving that we were smarter.

It was the last round, It was announced that the questions will be tie breaker, 10 point fof correct answers and 10 points minus , if we are wrong”. I looked at the scores
Team A-45, Team B-25, Team C-30, Team D 25, Team E(our team) 15. We were the last.

My friend was moaning, we really spoilt our image da, I don’t think that we will get even the third prize”. I told him to shut up. The questions began , I answered the first one wrongly,(minus 10 points) . My friend was mad. The crowd was happy as we provided entertainment The biggest turning point was that Team A,B ,Dand C answered 2 questions wrongly. So, the scores read Team A-25, Team B & D 5 our team 5. The next question was a multiple choice , I don’t know what happened , but I answered the question within the split of a second. I answered two more questions correctly( I dont know why they asked questions from KBC episodes, I could answer them as I was a KBC fan) ,later we were tied with team A for the top spot.

Our team now had the chances of winning the first prize(how things can change in 3 minutes). It was a tie breaker, 10 for the right answer , minus ten for the wrong answer. Team A was in a position of bother as we had their backs on the wall. The first question was not answered by both teams. The anchor looked at us and said, Looks like youboth wanna play it safe”. We nodded gently. The anchor put forward the last question (what a tie-breaker it was). Team A answered the question. We both sat with bated breath.

The anchor looked at us and said,” it was a great quiz , all teams performed spenlidly, but we have only one winner”. We waited with bated breath, the anchor continued, “ until the fifth round they were trailing, now they have risen like the phoenix, Team E ,Congrats on winning the first prize”. Thamarai was very happy, so was I. The crowd watching the action started cheering loudly and when we stepped down, they congratulated us and they said, “we thought that you were silly guys , but you just proved us wrong in the last round, keep up the good work”. I was astonished at our revival, thamarai turned to me and said, “macha, I thought we will never win ,now we hae won the first prize itself da”. I just pinched myself and said to myself,” thank god for making me participate, if I had stayed at home ,I would have missed this great experience.

Till today, I remember the quiz as it taught me two thing, “always participate no matter what the result maybe”, and “be optimistic”. To the reader , this may sound funny, but to me this is a treasured moment.