I have Started It, So i shall finish it. Review on Mastermind India

I am sitting in a black seat, the room is darkened, the spotlight is on me. You own the stage, and the settings around you are minimal. The music plays in the background, and the host’s voice asks

“Your Name?”,

“Ratnakar Sadasyula”.

“Your profession”,

“Software Engineer”,

“Your topic”,

“Wildlife Sanctuaries of India”.

The host announces the rules, and then says “Ratnakar, your time starts now, are you ready”. Yes I say tentatively. And for the next 15 minutes I am bombarded with questions at a rapid fire pace. It is a straight forward battle of wits between me and the host. A kind of Mexican shoot out, to see who blinks first.

The show is of course Mastermind India and the host was the inimitableSiddarth Basu. Ok and the excerpt above is not a figment of my imagination. I did take part in Mastermind India, in 2001, and I was there on the show that was telecast all over in March 2002. That was a show which bought me some kind of recognition too, in the quizzing and non quizzing circles also. At quiz shows, some one would walk up to me and say “Hey I saw you on Mastermind India 2001, is it the same you”, and I had to say yes, I was the same Ratnakar, not his doppelganger. For me the best part was in 2003, when my HR manager came up to me when I was having breakfast, and said “Ratnakar, I saw you on Mastermind India”. I often assumed that Mastermind India was watched only by die hard quizzers, but the audience included people who were not exactly of quizzing background.

Mastermind India is not like KBC, there are no life lines, no audience polls, no phone a friend, no 50:50. The atmosphere is dark and somber, and forget about a crore, you do not really get anything out of it, except a memento saying you had been there. And whileSiddarth Basu was one of my idol, who motivated me towards quizzing with his wonderful show Quiz Time, there is no occasion here to go all mush mush. It is straightforward, no nonsense and to the point. It is quizzing’s equivalent of a Mexican stand off, where each person waits for the other to blink first. Yet for die hard quizzers, it is the equivalent of a Nobel Prize or Oscar.

You want to know what real pressure is, yes I will tell you. Its sitting in a chair, alone, and facing a rapid fire barrage of questions. You have to fight the time, and the nerve wracking tension. You don’t have a second chance, each mistake you make is like a shot in your foot, it reduces the chances of you making to the next round. It is not meant for weak hearted people, you have to be mentally tough, and handle the pressure and tension. KBC may have the money and glam, but Mastermind India tests you to the full.

Mastermind India was the offshoot of the widely popular BBC TV show, hosted by Magnus Magnasson. I had watched the original show on BBC in the early days of Cable TV, when our senses were not yet assaulted with saas- bahu, reality shows and Idols. I just loved the two phrases “Your time starts now” and “I have started it, so I shall finish it”. There are two rounds to it, the subject round and the general round. The subject round is where you choose the subject of your choice. And that makes an interesting mix, when I was shooting in 2001, there was an IIM Professor who studied in Wharton and his topic was on “The Reagan Years in American Politics”, my friend a naval architect whose topic was “ Gods of Rig Vedic Mythology”, * another person working in the Vishakapatnam Steel Plant, whose topic was “Revolutionary Freedom Fighters in India”. Mingling with these people from varied backgrounds was great fun, as often we would have long winded discussions late into the night on everything from politics to hottest babes to sports to movies. I guess it was my quizzing background, that makes me an expert at blabbering on every topic under the sun.

The key is your choice of subject, and that is where I lost out. All my favorite topics like Presidents of the US, Capitals of the World, World Cup Soccer, World War II, Oscar Awards, Wimbledon, Indian Freedom Movement had been taken. So I had no choice but to pick up something very vague like “Wildlife Sanctuaries of India” and that is where I lost. Because in my round, I scored the highest in General Round, but lowest in the Subject Round. Again the topic should be as specific as possible, a subject like Science Fiction Movies is too generic, but say if you pick up something like “Dystopian Science Fiction movies in the 1980’s”, you have a better chance.

Even now I am still actively involved in Quizzing and I contribute regularly to Quiz groups like Quiznet, QFI and Quizkrieg. I had also conducted Open Quizzes for forums like K Circle( Hyderabad), QFI( Chennai), KQA( Bangalore). My movie quizzes are quite popular with many in the Quizzing circle. Whenever I attend a quiz, and I am introduced to another quizzer, the response is invariably “Ratnakar, are you the guy, who keeps posting all those movie Quizzes on Quiznet, you know I really love them”. And all I manage is a sheepish grin and say thanks.

Well I really am not too comfortable blowing my own trumpet, but for an average Joe like me, appearing in Mastermind India and meeting in person with Siddarth Basu is something I rate as an achievement. And that is something I can tell my kids of proudly when they grow up.