Time: 2:00Pm
Location: Bharatiya Vidhya Bhavan
Condition: Nervous
Daman and me were sitting about 10 rows from the stage towards the right chewing gum in tension. The gum soon lost its taste and found its way to the bottom of the chairs. We had finished our prelims about an hour ago and much to our dismay, we found that some of our answers were wrong after discussing with friends. After a quick(and rather lame) lunch, we were back in the auditorium eagerly awaiting the announcement of the six teams which had qualified. They were playing some really gay songs like “Hit me baby One more time’ but they also had one or two good ones like “We will rock you”(’Queen’ version - Viva Freddie Mercury). Well, they did prove to be amusing but after a while the tension almost took over, a fat guy from another school was dancing wildly to the songs and it proved to be a hilarious break.
The curtains opened slowly and smoke erupted from between them. The crowd screamed loudly. The PickBrain Giri Balasubramanium stepped out from the smoke. He then gave a list of the prizes which the teams that went on stage would receive. Another load roar erupted from the crowd. After that, he read out the answers of the questions in the prelims, Daman & I counted the number of answers we had gotten right. Well, 15/20 wasnt that bad, we thought and crossed our fingers.
The moment of truth arrived, he was about to announcethe 6 teams out of 430 teams which would make it one stage. The crowd showed no sign of stopping the shouting. And then suddenly, he announced…….. “The 1st team is Daman Patel and Kishor Krishnamoorthi from The Hyderabad Public School”. Our joys knew no bounds as we literally ran to the stage. We could hear our friends cheering in the background. We were congrulated by the PickBrain himself and after a quick brief introduction, the other finalists were called on stage who I could’nt care less about. We were about to face gruelling rounds of quizzing…we made ourselves familiar with the surroundings, a mic, a buzzer, sheets of paper and a bottle of water. We had done it bit still more was there in store for us.
A great round of applause and then the quizzing started, we missed the first answer but made up in a pass question. At the end of the first round, we were in 2nd place. Then the 2nd, 3rd and 4th round passed quickly winning accolades from PickBrain that we were very bright and smart kids. We were still tied for the 2nd place at the end of the 4th round. the 5th one was a buzzed round. In between the rounds, several audiance prizes were given out. One of our schoolmates won a prize too.
The moment had finally arrived, where winners would be decided and our fate in the quiz too. I got an answer which everyone didnt get so I took my time and pressed the buzzer leisurely……….and in another question, Daman was waiting for the Quizmaster to finish his question to shout “Jeeves” the answer to that question but those damned DAV guys hit the buzzed before he finished his question and got the point. Argh! We were in 3rd plave now but those stupid Army School guys got a negative marking and now we were tied for 2nd place….which meant….a tie breaker….
We had a second of eye contact with those guys….as the quizmaster read out the question…….both of us just held our breath, we could see that even they didnt know the answer…..by some act of reflex or stupidity I pressed the buzzer and blurted out ‘Intel’ into the mic and I instantly knew it was the wrong answer. If only I had kept my big mouth shut…. I could see the Army School guys punching the air in joy…..the final scores came up on the screen, and were just 1 fuckin’ point less tha Army School…Soon after we received our goodie bags…the Secretary for Information Technology, Mrs.Ratna came on stage and gave a short speech and best of all, at the end of her speech, she mentioned that right from the start, she had favoured ‘The Hyderabad Public School’ and had wanted them to win but she hadnt lost hope anyway… w00t! That really made my day….We might not have won iPods or Laptops but we had just won the appreciation of the guest of honor, which in my opnion was higher than anything else.
We walked out of the auditorium receiving ‘Congratualtions’ from all sides. Grinning broadly, we stepped into the car and sped away…….the last time we would ever be attending the TCS IT Quiz…………
Some news,
Dropkick the faint - Amazing Flash Game.
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Font Tester
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. Just hope we do well later. I gotta pratice drums for tomorrow.
.Played lots of San Andreas….its a great stress buster….god bless Rockstar Games.. 
