Kannada KBC Blog

Kaun Banega Crorepati has now headed to South India with launch regional versions in Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.  The Kannada version of the show which started two weeks back is being hosted by leading actor from sandalwood Puneet Rajkumar. My initial reaction was not enthusiastic as it would be repeat of the Hindi version. But  to my surprise the game is loaded with lot of questions related to Karnataka and Kannada which has made it very different from the Hindi version.

Along with my blogging buddy Raveesh, I am involved in a dedicated blog for the game show where all the questions are being archived episode wise. Apart from the actual questions, we will posting set of 15 practice questions every week which will be handy reference for people who will be preparing for the game show. Please visit kannadakbc.blogspot.in and provide your valuable feedback.

Also, read my old post Callback from KBC one of my attempt for getting to the hot seat of Hindi version :)

Brand Equity Quiz 2010: Mumbai round

The Mumbai edition of Brand Equity Quiz was conducted at St Andrew Auditorium(Bandra), the same venue  where Landmark quiz was held two weeks back. The winner of quiz was Pradeep Ramanathan’s team from HUL,  co-incidentally he was part of winning team Haseena-ka-Paseena in Landmark quiz also. The major highlight of the quiz was the thrilling last round between HUL and Pramerica(lead by enthusiastic Megashyam). The quizmaster Derek O’Brein made it more exciting with his usual masalas.

Landmark Quiz 2010, Mumbai

The second edition of Landmark Quiz(mumbai) was conducted at St Andrew’s Audi, Bandra. As always it was a good experience, came across many interesting question and got to know about new facts. Since all of my Mumbai friends were busy with other high priority commitments, my plan was just to witness the quiz as a spectator. But at the venue, organizers didn’t allow me inside as the first priority was for participants and mentioned that spectators will be allowed if there are any free seats left before start of the quiz. Therefore, I decided to form a team on-the-spot to avoid taking any chances and end up missing the quiz. At the registration desk I met a group of two, Puneet Jain(alum of IIMC) and Akash Tiwari(alum of NITIE) who were hunting for a third partner. Without any second thoughts I joined them to form a team.

Brand Equity Quiz 2009 finals

[image source]

Rohan Khanna and Sandeepan Chaudhuri of Accenture(Delhi) lived up all the hype and emerged as clear winners of Brand Equity Quiz. The margin of victory was so high that the last buzzer round was played just to decide who is 2nd, 3rd and 4th. The venue of the quiz was Leela Kempinski's Grand Ballroom and the host of the evening was Asia's No.1 quizmaster Derek O'Brien. The evening started with two semi-finals(buzzer round) in which ten regional winners were filtered into four finalists Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore & Chennai.

Overall a decent quiz, but the suspense and intensity as it was in Mumbai regional round was missing due to over domination of Accenture(Delhi) team. IBM(Bangalore) came second in contrast to speculations done by media i.e. it's going to be contest between Mumbai v/s Delhi.

Some Questions: [in a random order, interesting ones]

• Why is the roulette wheel on a casino table is commonly known as "Devil's ring" ? --- sum of all the numbers on it (from 1 to 36) is 666, which is the 'Number of the Beast'.


• Cicardium rhythm stress is commonly known as ? --- Jetlag


• If RoI = return on investment, then what is RoTI ? --- Return on Training Investment


• Which company operates most playgrounds in United States ? --- McDonald's


• What is "Client Golf" ? --- Deliberately losing a golf game against a client for winning a business deal.


• Which five letter proper noun(as a part of username) was banned by yahoo mail for a brief period ? --- Allah


• What's so special about the company which has Australian Stock Exhchange ticker DPL ? -- Daily Planet is one of the first brothels(establishment dedicated to prostitution) to be listed on a stock exchange [read more].


• What are “chicken cutlets.” ? --- It's the common term used for a silicone bra insert that is used to create the illusion of larger breasts.[read more]


• What special thing was done when Pope John Paul II visited Hollywood in 1987 ? ---They removed the one 'L' from the sign to make it HOLYwood.


• What is Fong Kong ? -- Products with fake designer lables.


• This Russian has a European patent for a "Method of playing a lottery game" ? --- Gary Kasparov.


• Why for a brief period in 2003, banks in China quarantined currency notes ? -- SARS outbreak.


• Why in Oct 2008 a clock at Manhattan ran out of digits ? --- The 'National Debt Clock' ran out of digits because US National Debt debt exceeded $10 trillion for the first time.


• In the world of business, what is ABCD ? --- ABCD (Aaya, Bai, Cook, Driver) is a customer segment.


• One can find free ads of which organization in NCERT Class XI textbooks ? --- Indian Army.


• In early dot-com era five rivals of Microsoft were represented by an acronym NOISE N-Netspace, O-Oracle, I-IBM, S-Sun Microsystems, What is E ? --- Everybody Else.


• Which type of Mangoes are used to make Frooti drink ? --- Totapuri.

Landmark Quiz 2009, Mumbai

The first edition of Landmark Quiz Mumbai was held on May 1st 2009 at St. Andrew's Auditorium - Bandra. The quizmaster of the show was Navin Jayakumar. The quiz started off with preliminary round of 40 questions. For the final round out of 164 teams, eight teams were shortlisted . The winners of the quiz were the team by name -"Swami and friends". Overall the quiz was good but unfortunately there were minor goof ups and also there were some boring moments also.



Some highlights:

• It was first landrmark quiz at Mumbai. The annual city open quiz has been conducted since 1988 in Chennai. From there it was moved to Bangalore, Pune and now to Mumbai.
• Many questions in the quiz were related to Mumbai. There a few questions on common mumbai slangs and one-liners. Some of those questions turned out to be bouncers to us.
• The cut-off score for final round was 32. We were very far from it !
• Navin Jayakumar did the job well. But somehow he could not match the flair of Derek O'Brien. The spontaneous humor, suspense build in the last round, as done by Derek were missing in this quiz.
• The end goof up bit silly. The quizmaster had forgot that he has give trophy to the winners.
• 'Swine flu' was the buzz of the evening. Many teams had name their team based on it. In fact best team name was "Pigs Fly .. Swine Flew".

Winners

Questions:
[ I have noted that most of the questions .. will update here after composing it properly].

Brand Equity Quiz 2009: Mumbai leg

The Mumbai leg of Brand Equity quiz was held at Chavan Center(Nariman Point). The quiz was open only to working professionals in India Inc. So being part of student community(this year) the only option to experience the live quizing as an audience. The quiz master was Derek O'Brein. He kept the audience entertained with his usual spontaneous humour.


The format of quiz was similar to Landmark open quiz which had attended previously. The difference was that questions had something do with business. Overall it was a good quiz and Derek brought the house down many times keeping janta entertained.

Some highlights of the show

• Generosity in giving away audience prizes. Sometimes the entire row used to get hampers.
• Advice to Unilever team as they failed to qualifying for finals by 1 point : For next two years take a transfer to Indore as qualifying would be a cakewalk there.
• When AXIS Bank gave away some clues for a question without answering it, and SUN capitalized on the mistake to extend their lead. Derek said " AXIS bank is making sure that ICICI Bank(who were second) should not win this quiz!".
• The build up of tension and suspense by Derek when there were only two teams in the race. Without even acknowledging whether the answer of ICICI Bank was right or wrong, Derek called upon chief quest and his prize distribution volunteers to give away prizes to ICICI bank. Then he announced the show is still on as the answer of ICICI bank was right.

Some nice questions

• Corrections Corporation of America is the largest operator of _____ in the U.S.A
• You can win an ipod from the website nailthethief.com by throwing rotten eggs on whose face?
• Which district of Uttar Pradesh is nicknamed as Suhag Nagri because it fulfills everything a Suhagin wants?
• In 1983 Korean Airways flight was shot down by USSR for intruding into their airspace. After this incident what did then US president Ronald Reagan ordered the US military to be available for civilian use ?
• What is Poorism?
• What is wife acceptance factor ?

Find all prelims questions at
- The Curious Quizzer - BRAND EQUITY QUIZ -09 MUMBAI EDITION

Landmark Quiz 2007, Bangalore

The fourth edition of Bangalore Landmark Open Quiz took place on Nov 1st at Chowdaiah Memorial Hall. I didn't really bothered to attend last three editions. After reading about this quiz in many blogs, I decided to participate this year with Ski and Shreesh as teammates.



The quiz was hosted by India's renowned quiz-master Derek O'Brien. First there was preliminary round of 40 questions, followed by final round between 8 teams. The questions in prelims were easy generally with many sitters and a few bouncers. The question were from wide range of topics from History, Entertainment to Astrology.

We made many silly mistakes in the prelims. Initially we thought that we might miss cut off by a few points because of the mistakes. Later seeing the teams in the hall(many Pantas wearing IIMB T-shirt, jackets), we realized that we have very slim chances of qualifying and have to become audience in the final round. Since it was a open quiz there were many teams with members of different age group. These kind of team have more chances of qualifying as their range of knowledge will be vast. One of such team was 'WWW' with Mother, Son & Niece as members.

As expected we were way below cut off 28. Highest score was 32 by QED (last year's champions). Incidentally five out of eight finalist had scored 28. 'WWW' also qualified with 28 points.

Final round had many tough questions and needed lot of work out for answering. There neck to neck fight between QED and WWW. In the end QED emerged winners by answering handsomely final 3 rounds. The Cinderella slippers - squirrel feather was a superb answer under pressure.

Winners- QED

The Quizzer of the Year award went to captain of 'WWW', Sushila Kamath. I guess she might be a school teacher. One has to appreciate her enthusiasm. The confidence in which she answered the reason for increase in pencil sales was simply amazing.

Quizzer of the year

To conclude, this was my first experience of a open quiz, looking forward to attend more such quizzes in future. It's was a free entertainment and Derek O'Brien brought the house down with his spontaneity and one liners. On the stage, he tried to pull legs of team 'Thigh in the air' also nicknamed 'Crows' on the spot. Ultimately, the same team made a stunning comeback to finish 3rdended and also won the prize of most popular team.

Ski was not very enthusiastic to attend this quiz as he had better business to do in Mysore, but today morning he messaged me "Man thanks for talking me to the quiz. It was really worth it :)"

Please find the questions of the quiz below. Some questions I have just mentioned keywords, not phrased because I don't know the complete question. Please let me know in case you know the same.

QUESTIONS

Prelims:

1. Ivan Nigli, MLA of Karnataka is elected from which constituency ? NOMINATED, REPRESENTS ANGLO INDIAN COMMUNITY
2. Pascal Cotte's 240 megapixel camera revealed facial hairs on the face of which women? - MONA LISA.
3. Fictional school.
4. Max Yung Sur
5. 1803 - Luke Howard - Curl of hair - locks of hair - Whats is the term used for curls of hair
6. which country in the world is largest producer of fashion diamonds , less than half a caret? INDIA
7. He rejected names Vasudeva and Jehangir for his screen name? DILIP KUMAR
8. Under the name congressmen - Rajiv Gandhi - The Great Suicide? who said he was did not much about the assassination? - PV NARASIMHA RAO
9. Olympic : Honey, Seawater, Olive oil, Clothes - athletes in ancient Greek wore which one of these apart from sand on their body in Olympics? - OLIVE OIL
10. Library book - within my power - Hogwarts
11. Visual Clip - Egyptian god - RAMSEY
12. Cylindrical Caps which chefs wear - TOQUE
13. Common between Nafisa Ali, Milind Soman - SWIMMING
14. Visual Clip - Citation by President - BHARAT RATNA
15. Visual Clip - Director - ANURAG KASHYAP
16. Soups - Mohingar and Khow suey - which neighbouring country ? BURMA
17. Married most times ? - Larry King, Salman rushdie, henry VII, Oprah Winfrey - LARRY KING.
18. Who sent Tagore on his 81st birth day this note - "FOUR SOCK NOT, MAY YOU FINISH FIVE "? MAHATMA GANDHI
19. Which Akbar's Court Navratna was mudered by Bir Singh Deo on the orders of prince Salim: ABUL FAZAL
20. Dance form - embracing couple - polite society - WALTZ
21. Which Indian state capital means "land which never floods" in Marathi.? PANAJI
22. Hulidan, Dsaudan, Pidan are forms of chinese? EGGS
23. Which Asian was officiating as match referee most number of times ? RANJAN MADHUGALE
24. 1950 Angela Dhinlay - actress - uncredited : Marlyn Manroe
25. Floating Pontoon Bridge in India - HOWRAH BRIDGE
26. Connect i> aviator ... ii> Edible chinnesse goosberry - KIWI
27. 3 songs: common - DEV ANAND.
28. 3 songs one was of celine dione: common - CANADA.
29. Audio from movie "Hum lajawab hai", identify male voices - SRK and Aryan
30.
31. Playright - published - posthumously - SIR WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
32. Confluence of Tropic of Cancer and Longitude - UJJAIN
33. which famous book closes with a line " ... " ? TALE OF TWO CITIES
34. Gnagflow Trazom - 250th birth anniversary.
35. something something. MLA from Edlabad 4 times - PRATIBHA PATIL
36. Geta Kinni ... socks
37. Sir Winston Churchill said "Uneducated person Should read a book of ......" ? - QUOTES
38. Star - Center of all planets, who is a son of Manu- DHRUV
39. what are bloks ? - BLOG on BOOKS
40. On which country's flag Golden Eagle is present? - EGYPT

Finals:

Round-1
1. Before stamps how were postage rate determined ? CANDLING METHOD - If the candle light passes through the envelop it costs less otherwise more
2. Film with 9 scientific errors ....
3. Describe "Muffin Top" ? Protuding Roll of Fat when one wears low jeans.
4. Rome Gladiator how did they ordered death ? Thumbs Up
5. Which cricket played only 2 matches in 1983 Cricket world cup and both of them(only) India lost -> Dilip Vengsarkar.
6. Acoording 2005-06 census which country has maximum number of Tigers - USA
7. Oswald Maleno - short 12 minute film - screened Dec 1986 -> Rabindranath Tagore
8. What are Arasuram, Gandharva, .... -> 8 types of Marriages

Round -2: Picture &Audio
1. Pic+Audio, Douglas Adams
2. Ping Pong - Enrique Iglecias song is called "ping pong"
3. Visual : Zidane + Mira Nair and a lady next to her -> directing Little Zezu (nick name of Zenidiane Zidane)
4. Connection: Rand Currency, Person Ayn Rand
5. Visual: Mali Timbaktu
6. Stamp - Paquebot -> Sent by ship
7. visual: two guys in front of Taj Mahal; Darryl Harper and Simon Taufel
8. Visual: Title of the book - Jungle book.

Round-3
1. Purpose of Trackgandhi dot com ? To tracks Indian Currency Notes.
2. Jarasana v/s Krishna ? why ? - Kamsa's wives approached Jarasandha
3. Only film raj kapoor and dilip kumar acted together ? Andaaz
4. Thomas Alva Edison, Louis Armstrong, Lyla Ritchie ? Hello
5. What do you mean by Medial Capitals ?
6. Which is the most Commenest bird in the world ? Chicken
7. what's common between La paz, Bolivia. ---, Nepal, Salado Chile Ragon, Angel falls (venenzuala) -> All are highest in respective categories.
8. Brown Bear hiebernates for 6 months in natural conditions, but in captivity does not hiebernate ? -> Because of scarcity of food during winter/

Round-4
1. Audio of Queen, Elton John ... Connect -> John Lenon
2. Shakil O Neil
3. A Qawali song- was part of cassette of which movie - Sholey
4.
5. Audio : Two Songs - 'Neel Gagan Se Chale Dharati ka Pyaar Dhale' & '-" : SAME RAGA
6. Audio of Chameli ki Shadi, Saawariya .. connect - Anil Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor

Buzzer Round +7, -5
1. Where do you find ..... ? Jantar Mantar
2. Lawyer Defended who defended Bal Gangadhar Tilak in 1916 - Md. Ali Jinnah
3. types of Stamps - fiscal, commemorative, ....
4. Middle East city 3 hill ranges and lava -> Medina
5. T20 batsman time limit to come to crease - 90 seconds
6. Since 1731, 51 men and 1 woman have crossed this ? - Door of 10 Downing Street.
7. Something related to Helen Keller ...
8. why there was 700 percent rise pencil sales in England 2005-2006?? For solving Sudoku

Visual Round
1. What does Maiya Maiya mean in Arabic (song from GURU, Malika Sherawat)-> water
2. Visual -> Dancers doing some weird dance : Choreographing Penguin dance sequence in happy feet.
3. Flags; Army Silk, Navy Woolen,
4. 2 words, 10th anniversary, one is blamestorming . which is the other one ? muggle
5. Video Clip from film Zanzeer picturised on some actors(not the leads). Who is the actor ? Gulshan Bawra.
6. which famous fictional accessory was made out of squirrel fur ? Cinderella's slippers

Last Round-2teams
1. which book has 5894 hymns, always placed on cushion ... -> Guru Granth Sahib
2. Who was musician at India's first Independence Day ceremony at Lal Quila -. Ustab Bismillah Khan
3. Indian 2 rupee coin is of shape hendecagon - how many sides does it have? 11 sides
4. In which country couples are wished by prime minister for 50th anniversary and by Queen for 60th anniversary -> Australia.

Callback from KBC !!!

The entry mechanism for Kaun Banega Crorepati(KBC) is to register the answer for question of the day and expect a callback. But getting a callback from them is next to impossible. I too had same opinion until this happened.

Feb 13th 2007, 4.47 pm. Incoming call from number +91 22 44344942.
I attended the call, heard a female’s (say ‘K’) voice

K: Is number se KBC ko phone aya tha ?
Me: Jee Haa
K: Is number ko phir se dohrah sakte hein
Me: 98XXXXXXXX
K: Do you want to continue conversation in Hindi or English
Me: English
K: Please note that to be a KBC contestant you should be good in conversational Hindi
Me: okay
K: Are you free to attend KBC shoot on March 6th in Mumbai, at our expenses.
Me: Yes
[then she asked me abt details such as date of birth, residential address, back phone number]

K: Let me repeat the entry question for which you had registered the answer. Keep in mind that you have only ten seconds to answer this question. You are not supposed to repeat the question or the options, otherwise the call will be disconnected. Are you ready?
Me: Yes
K: Which animal form did Vishnu took for Kurma Avatara? options are Boar, Fish, Tortoise, ***.
Me: Tortoise
K: Tortoise is the right answer. Now I will ask you another question. Right answer will take you to next round. Ready ?
Me: Yes
K: Which of these is a serial telecasted on Star Plus? Options are Gulab, Kesar, Jal, ***
Me: Kesar
K: Your answer is Kesar. If your answer is right, we will call you back within 3 days.
[call ended, call duration 00:07:14 ]

'Kesar' was just an intelligent guess as many serial in Star Plus start with ‘K’. In fact it is right the answer and I was expecting call for next round.

Fast Forward.

16th Feb 2007, 3:31 pm. Incoming call from number +91 22 44344953.
Again a female’s (say ‘K1’) voice

K1: Is number se KBC ko phone aya tha.
Me: Jee Haa
K1: Is number ko phir se dohrah sakte hein
Me: 98XXXXXXXX
K1: Do you want to continue conversation in Hindi or English?
Me: English
K1: For this round I will be asking you four questions. First three with four options and the last with no options. You will have 10 seconds each to answer first three questions and 15 seconds for the last. Are you ready ?
Me: Yes

K1: First question. Former Karnataka chief minister S M Krishna is Governor of which state? Options are Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra, Rajasthan, Haryana.
Me: Maharastra.
K1: Your answer is Maharastra. Ready for next question?
Me: Yes

K1: Second question. In which year did India host the Asian games for second time? Options are 1952, 1982, 1990, 1974.
Me: 1982
K1: '1982' is your answer. Ready for next question?
Me: Yes

K1: Third question. Which of these mean Pure in hindi? Options are Sujeet, Navneet, Puneet, Vineet.
Me: Puneet [answered by elimination method]
K1: Your answer is Puneet. Your next questions will have no options. Keep in mind that you have to answer this question with units, otherwise the answer will be invalid. If answer is in distance then it has to be number followed by metres or kms. Are you ready?
Me: Yes

K1: How many years ago Reserve Bank of India was established ?
[ whoosh ... bouncer ... after thinking for a few seconds, I made an intelligent guess ]
Me: 75 years
K1: Your answer is 75 years. If your all answers are right then we will call you back within three days.
[call ended, call duration 00:04:24]

After the call I had a look at RBI page in wikipedia and found it is established on April 1st 1935. So the right answer is 72 years !!!. For me it is so near and yet so far, but I was bit optimistic that I might get a call again because many people cannot answer this RBI question with accuracy. Now more than 3 days are over, so I am assuming that I am not selected for the next round.

After all these stuffs, I have realized that the route to Fastest Finger First is not so easy as there are many hurdles on the way. I have shared this because you should be mentally prepared in case you get a callback from KBC.