The CBSE Heritage India Quiz is the biggest school quiz in India. In its 16th edition in 2016, it featured over 2200 schools from across the country. But only 20 made it to the national semifinals and 4 to the grand finale. The quizzes were hosted by a team of finest Quizmasters in the country, namely Ajay Poonia, Shashank Malik, Saurav Ranjan Datta, Vinay Mudaliar, Avaneendra Bhargava, Naveen Kumar, Chiranjit Gam and Snehaj Srinivas. Watch all the semifinals and the national final here –
Semi Final 1
With 3/5 teams in the first Semifinal having reached this level last year, it was billed as the ‘Group of Death’. New Era, having had somewhat easy outings in their city and regional final, had a tough day surprisingly. With due respect to the other challengers, the 1st SF ended up as a two-horse race, with DAV Bariatu and BVM Thiruvamkulam getting the best out of each other but it was the latter who decided to take the battle head on when they buzzed in on a direct question for New Era and leaped ahead of DAV Bariatu in the 1st question of the final round. And a rather late attempt at identifying Surendranath Bannerjee by Thiruvamkulam meant Bariatu was playing for pride in the final question of the quiz. Well done all the participants, you’ve made everyone around you proud 🙂
Semi Final 2
From being nowhere after the first round to being the winner of the quiz, Sant Kabir Ahmedabad’s performance in the second semi-final was a crash course on experience. A bit of luck did help their cause as they got bonus points for answering a question from their city. But spare a thought for MVM Barsajai who were leading the quiz throughout but had to play for all or nothing in the last question of the quiz (Sant Kabir ran out of fingernails till MVM’s answer was declared incorrect). And also for Bhavan’s Civil Lines Nagpur who gave as many as 14(!!) answers. 14, but could only collect 15 points. Well done all of you, and thanks for the memories 🙂
Semi Final 3
Cambridge Court High School’s victory in the 3rd Semi Final was one of the top-3 all time come from behind victories in recent times in the CBSE Heritage India Quiz (The best being Sunbeam, Varanasi’s in the 2014 National Final).They were 5th after the end of the 2nd round and were sitting pretty at the top after the next two questions. Two other teams – Sant Atulanand and Little Rock – both gave some of the finest answers, but fell agonizingly short with only 5 points separating them from the winners. And would you believe it, Cambridge Court gave only 3 correct answers to qualify for the final!!
Semi Final 4
Sun Valley, Ghaziabad kept nudging BVB, Chevayur from behind throughout the quiz but the semi final is a sprint and so a good start gives a lot of advantage, which BVB knew very well. BVB, Chevayur was in the Semi Final last year as well and they came prepared to handle the pressure of being in the final 20. After a false start, where they collected negatives, they finished within touching distance of the 3-figure mark which they could have ended with had they given their first answer correct. But still they got the highest score across all semi finals.
National Final
A fitting finale to a fantastic season of fabulous quizzing. Bhavans Munshi Vidyashram, Thiruvamkulam emerging victorious in the national final of the 16th annual edition of this quiz. They faced stiff competition from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chevayur and Cambridge Court High School, Jaipur; both of them testing the eventual champion’s abilities to the hilt. But Thiruvamkulam was upto the challenge. It was a challenge they were willing to accept, unwilling to postpone, and one which they intended to win.
The trophy in the last 4 editions has traveled all corners of the nation, starting from the West with J. H. Ambani- Surat (2013), Northbound to Sunbeam Bhagwanpur- Varanasi (2014), then Eastward to DAV Chandrashekharpur- Bhubaneswar (2015) and now to the South to BVM Thiruvamkulam- Kochi (2016). Will the direction remain clockwise or will it change in 2017?