Being true Indians, this time we went out purely to question. To question a clan so used to being questioned over centuries that they actually enjoyed it. And they had a hunch they would and hence, flew us halfway across the country for it!! Pune was the stop for the weekend of 19th and 20th May, 2012, with a diversified audience to please. On one hand we had civil service officers, who knew a lot and IT company honchos, who were a Google lot! The start was a bit rough, getting administrators, of networks or otherwise, on the same page but the QM stepped into the shoes immediately, with his fib(bing)-onacci and the 25 questions of the prelims. 14 teams took part in the preliminary in the race to the top 6 to go through the finals of Corpguru. The event being sponsored by Floressence Perfumes, it created a sweet smell of victory for the 6 finalists namely, Sungard, Indian Civil Services, Cognizant, Atos, Oracle and Infosys. Having Dr. Baldev Chaddha doing his trademark hand movements to Nathuram Godse filing his innocence, accepting Gandhi as an engineer to an army general as an actor, transcending through tradition, be it Brahmins or Kiwis or reminiscencing through middle school science with Angelina Jolie and Anil Kapoor, the preliminary round was a mixed bag of one word yet to follow: EXCITEMENT! Over the last 2 Sundays, India has been waking up to India’s Oprah aka Aamir Khan. Who were we to be left behind? Sunday morning, at precisely 11am, pops up the 1st question of the finals, in Infinite Bounce, Q. Complete the following lines from the Mundaka Upanishad: _______ ______ nānṛtaṁ satyena panthā vitato devayānaḥ | yenākramantyṛṣayo hyāptakāmā yatra tat satyasya paramaṁ nidhānam || Infosys came back into the competition with a bang and a brilliant answer: Q. These postcards were introduced by Deptt. Of Post due to the popularity of Surabhi, which received (at times) over a million responses to its quiz questions. However, due to the popularity of other mediums like SMS, e-mail it was discontinued in 2006. What was the self-explanatory name of these postcards? 
Infinite Bounce, set the mood for the “make or break” round for the quiz, Tic Tac Toe. Indian Civil services, not being able to recollect from their Mughal emperors fell through whereas, Cognizant, being very cognizant of the ladies in the film circuit cracked a +20 and shot ahead, maintaining the lead throughout. The consequent round of ITUS, Iski Topi Uske Sar or the round of splitting points with another team through thoughtful and selective passing of questions saw a lot of business opportunities and corporate rivalries crop up. Atos took to business development with Infosys with identifying the Gurkha Guards Memorial in London. Infosys, being very excited on the prospective tie-up, went at it and abruptly ended any possibility of closure with an incorrect answer. With their declined reputation in the circuit, the next question was befittingly passed to Cognizant. As the round progressed, Sungard empathised with Infosys, giving them a shot at redemption with the last question of ITUS: The simple algorithm for what reads as follows:- Continue traveling in the same direction while there are remaining requests in that same direction. If there are no further requests in that direction, then stop and become idle, or change direction if there are requests in the opposite direction. Infosys leveraged their business domain along with their expertise and got it right to come back in an arms’ distance of Cognizant in “What’s Your Take” with the scores standing at: Sunguard- 17, Indian Civil Services- 6, Cognizant- 43, Atos- 19, Oracle- 11 and Infosys- 30 With 3 teams to be eliminated after 1 leg of questions, this round sure did bring out the Gandhi in everyone with its “Do or Die” spirit vis-à-vis the 15 pointer! Cognizant, channelizing on their lady luck from Tic Tac Toe played it safe with 4 whereas all others had no option but to take the plunge with a 15 pointer. Infosys almost made it had it not been for their mix-up between the Black lady and the Bachchan lady with the following question, which took away 8 from them: About whom did Gulzar say – “Baad muddat ke phir mili ho tum, Ye jo thodi si bhar gayi ho tum, Ye vajan tumpe accha lagta hai.” Indian Civil Services made the most of this loss with cracking Bahadur Shah Zafar as the writer of ‘Na Kisee Ki Aankh Ka Noor hoon’ But it just was not enough. ICS fought valiantly but in vain. It became a game for pride thereon but played sportingly nonetheless. Inspite of not being able to overtake Cognizant, Infosys took the plunge with a 15 pointer. They paid for not knowing the Vijay’s of tadalafil online Indian cricket. Their screwing up shall be the focus of my next blog. Cognizant ended up with brilliant daredevilry, going for 15 to appease the cheering crowd. And they ended in style with Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas as their final answer. The crowd cheered in Marathi as they took a bow to the standing ovations. In all, a Sunday well sweated out. The audience was happy with the perfume bottles and the teams, with the content. Inspite of the repeated technical glitches and not one IT company honcho willing to help, it was, as Sqd. Ldr Rakesh Sharma said from space, Saare Jahaan Se Acha. Final Scores- Cognizant- 70, Infosys- 44, Civil Service- 51
