Promise of a different quizzing experience

Well-known anchor of television quizzing shows from southern India, G S Pradeep is hosting a show for the children of Indian schools of Qatar at Birla Public School today in the evening.The show titled “Brain Battle,” which consists of a preliminary test featuring 400 children (already held yesterday) and the grand finale, is being held under the aegis of the Association of NSS Engineering College Ex Students (Anecx).The Anecx has more than 300 Qatar-based member engineers from NSS Engineering College, Palakkad in the southern Indian state of Kerala. The alumni forum has students who passed out from the institution in 1968 to those from even the 2017 batch. In the final round of “Brain Battle,” six school teams of three members each would battle out for honours in a five-round contest of more than 90 minutes. Children of Class 7, 8 and 9 will compete. In an interaction with this newspaper yesterday, the ace quizmaster, who is well-known among the quiz buffs of India and Sri Lanka after his successful Grandmaster series in some of the South Indian languages and also in three television channels of Sri Lanka, said he has many surprises for the competitors as well as the audience today. On Sri Lankan television channels Sirasa (in Sinhalese), MTV (English) and Shakti (Tamil), Pradeep’s Grandmaster reverse quiz shows were a rollicking success. In Star Vijay, he hosted the Tamil version of Grandmaster and in Sakshi channel (Telugu) also Pradeep repeated similar successes in recent years. “In the numerous reverse quiz shows that I have hosted in the Indian television channels, most of my viewers have seen me as only answering what competitors have thought in mind; in today’s show, you are sure to see something totally different from the usual quiz shows,” said Pradeep, whose popular reverse quiz Aswamedham is staging a comeback on Kairali Television channel from January 8 onwards. This time, the show is shot wholly outside the barriers of recording studios. “You will find me answering questions of participants at wayside tea stalls, barber shops, eateries and also on streets.”The quizmaster also holds the record for staging the first edition of his reverse quiz Aswamedham uninterrupted for more than seven years between 2002 and 2009, featuring more than 2,000 episodes. “My understanding is more than providing excitement, entertainment and information, every quiz show is also certainly an art by itself, combining many ingredients that are actually contributing to supplement the knowledge bank of every listener or viewer,” said Pradeep, who is doubly sure that his show in Doha would certainly be a “different programme”. “What I would like to tell today is that people are experiencing obstacles in their freedom of expression in many places and hence they should get a chance to express themselves in such gatherings as quiz shows,” said the anchor, referring to a planned special round in today’s competition where the competitors have the freedom to select a topic of their choice (It is named `Your Choice’). There, the contestants need to answer the quiz master’s aces from their favourite topic. Pradeep, who is acknowledged to have a phenomenal memory and remarkably good reading habits, is regarded as perhaps the only quiz host who doesn’t carry even a piece of paper to look at while conducting a show. “The quiz show is being held as part of the 20th anniversary celebrations of our college, which has members as young as 23 years and those in the early 60s,” said forum member Joseph Kalloli. Last year Anecx held a series of competitions for the expatriate groups in the country, including a volleyball tournament.