17th AIMA NMQ – Bengaluru has More Than Just One Kohli

*The title comes from a feedback by one of the participants In its 17th edition, the AIMA National Management Quiz made its annual pilgrimages to Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mumbai and finally, Delhi. After being scheduled in November-December all these years, the quiz was brought forward by a few months and was scheduled in May. To be precise, all Saturdays of May. So, instead of being one of the many corporate quizzes scheduled in the winter, NMQ now officially kick-starts the Indian corporate quizzing season (taking that crown from another quiz that I do in Ranchi in June). Another major change introduced this year was not coupling HRQ alongside NMQ. Rumour has it that Rohan Bopanna and Leander are friends again HR Quiz will be a separate event later this year. Will keep you updated. The regional editions of the quiz followed a consistent pattern. 25 Question prelims followed by a 6 team 4 rounds regional final. From each region/city, 2 teams were selected for the National Final. This is where the similarities end.

Starting with Bengaluru, the 6 teams in the final were Titan Ltd, Reserve Bank of India, RINL, Analytics Quotient, Bengaluru region defending champions and national final runner up TCS and Sab Miller India. Halfway through the quiz, TCS, in a repeat of last year’s Bengaluru final, reached 3 figures while the next best RBI was only at 14. Yes, TCS 105 followed by RBI 14. Safe to say, the other 5 teams were only playing to secure the second berth in the flight to the national final. That’s when Sab Miller decided to up their game and quickly progressed to 55 points few questions from the end, in the process showcasing how well they know their corporate competitors, namely Bira. With their second place almost secure, it was only a small matter of waiting for the clock to run down 90 minutes final round to end. Final Scores- TCS 159, Sab Miller India 55, Titan 10. The NMQ party then shifted to Kolkata. 6 teams in the finals were BPCL, SREI Infrastructure, Capgemini, SAIL, SAIL-DSP and defending Kolkata champions RINL. From the outset, the quiz became a 2 sided affair – Capgemini and SAIL. The quiz was mostly about who goes home with the sound of Kolkata City Champions ringing in their ears. Capgemini and SAIL fought neck and neck till the 3rd round after which Capgemini went full throttle into the final round, joining TCS in the exclusive 3-digit club. RINL, a good team with decent results in their quizzing CV, had an unusually quite day at office. Final scores- Capgemini 130, SAIL 66, SREI Infra 21. The 3rd Saturday of May brought us to Mumbai. Looking at the list of participants, I expected to see a more well balanced quiz. And well balanced it turned out to be. With 6 reputed teams in the finals, RCF, Mumbai defending champions and 2nd runners up – Godrej & Boyce, 2015 Mumbai runners up- Indian Oil, Bhilai Steel Plant, regional finalists from Delhi last year- Reserve Bank of India, and RINL. With the qualifying positions changing hands with almost every question, 4 questions before the end it was a 5-way fight for the one spot available. Godrej & Boyce sitting pretty on top at 75. The other teams lying between 55 – 30. With 2 questions remaining, others bowed out as the teams from quizzing powerhouse RINL (note that Kolkata and Bengaluru also had one RINL team in the final) and RBI remained in contention with 65 and 57, respectively. RBI, a team based out of Mumbai competed in Delhi last year where they finished a joint 3rd but this time they decided to conquer home territory. They went one step closer to their mission when they looked at Maheshwar Peri’s picture and identified him as the gentleman who brought down Arindam Chaudhuri. Now RINL- 65 and RBI- 67. The last question required RINL to buzz in and answer correctly to sideline RBI and qualify. The did step 1 right, buzzed in, but couldn’t identify Zoo jeans as a jeans ripped by animals. Pressure certainly got the better of them as they later toldl me they knew Zoo jeans but somehow it didn’t strike them at the right time. Final scores- G&B 75, RBI 67, RINL 55.

And finally, the last Saturday of May directed us to Delhi where 38 teams turned up for a long quizzing day that started at 930AM. The prelims turned out to be a cakewalk for the qualifying teams as the top-6 had a score between 80% to 60%, a bit too high for my liking. I might have just underestimated the quality in the National Capital. The 6 teams in the final – Times Internet, 2015 Delhi champions – NTPC, 2015 joint 3rd place – Indian Oil, Indian Oil (team 2), HCL and a young Tata Steel team. Indian Oil team 2 made a strong start in the quiz and held on to their place despite some brilliant answers from HCL. Amusingly, Indian Oil then decided to stay put at their score and watch what happens. Other teams pounced on this session of generosity and began hitting the buzzers sometimes mindfully and sometimes not so. Towards the end it became a tussle between Times Internet and HCL, the latter prevailing thanks to some spot on Encyclopedic knowledge about the origin of selfie. Final scores- Indian Oil (team 2) 80, HCL 64, Times Internet 54. This was followed by an immediate switch to the National final. Two winners from each of the four metros coming together to compete in an eight team national final. Runners up last year, TCS was a team on a mission; go one better this time. Nothing about their style of play was Test match like or ODI like, instead it was as Kohli-esque as it could get. Scores halfway- TCS 87, Sab Miller India 35, HCL 21, RBI 20. Third round saw TCS holding fort while others got close to each other. TCS 97, Sab Miller India 41, HCL and Godrej & Boyce 35 each. This is when the audience also joined in enjoying TCS’s complete dominance over the quiz. Being egged on to take high risk high reward difficult questions, TCS obliged but went further ahead with getting them correct. The other teams however had to strategize and calculate their risks well to survive through the various legs of the last round. Special mention for SAIL who answered a 20-pointer brilliantly to survive for a little while longer at the expense of HCL. With TCS assuring itself the national champion title, the fight for the 2nd and 3rd place was an awesome threesome. Sab Miller and SAIL – 41 each and Godrej & Boyce – 35. The ghosts of Chinese Ghost cities ended G&B’s journey and then Harmony of the Seas ending Sab Miller’s voyage (pat on the back for that needless wordplay). Personally, I felt Sab Miller India missed a trick there and instead of opting for a 5 on a tie they opted for a 10, leaving SAIL to only sit through the remaining questions. In fact, SAIL also asked to end the grueling session of quizzing immediately. But the audience and QM would have none of it, just like the whole of India wanted Kohli to reach 1000 runs in the season, the audience wanted TCS to opt for 20s and reach mind-boggling 200 points. Both eventually falling short of their targets is another matter. The champions of 2011, 2012 and 2013 ended their slump in form (purely by their standards) and were crowned champions again in 2016.

National Champion – Tata Consultancy Services – 137 Mr Jayakanthan Mr Himadri Banerjee 1st Runner Up Steel Authority of India Ltd – 41 Mr. Sampad Mishra Mr. Srimant Mallick 2nd Runner Up Sab Miller India – 36 Ms Aditi Nargundkar Mr Sai Ganesh You can check out the questions from the quiz here.