Bizzathalon- the flagship quizzing festival of Backwaters '11 conducted in association with Atharva- The Quizzing Club of IIM Kozhikode promises to be the Mecca of all quizzers with a three way (or in Latin trivia) tie this year.
Keeping in line with the theme of Backwaters – People| Planet | Profit we have
Ballpark Figures – Sports and Entertainment Quiz by Thejaswi Udupa (0900 hrs, 20th Nov)
Whole Earth Catalog – General Quiz by Arul Mani (1600 hrs, 20th Nov)
PAT comes the answer – Biz Quiz by Rajiv D’Silva (1300 hrs, 20th Nov)
All three quizzes will be open quizzes with a maximum of three members per team.
Quizmaster Profiles
Thejaswi Udupa – QuizMaster: Ballpark Figures (SPENT Quiz)
An alumnus of IIM-Bangalore, Thejaswi Udupa works as a Product Manager at Yahoo!, currently handling Yahoo! Cricket. He has been an active quizzer for the better part of a decade now. He has won mainstream big-money quizzes like BT Acumen, Tata Crucible, etc; but takes greater pride in his performance at open quizzes across the country. As a quizmaster, he has done quizzes for the Ministry of Science (Karnataka Govt), colleges like IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-M, BITS, NLS, IIM-K and of course IIM-B apart from numerous open, college and corporate quizzes on behalf of the KQA. He has also been part of the question setting committee for Mahaquizzer, the annual nationwide solo quizzing championship.
Rajiv D’Silva – QuizMaster: PAT Comes The Answer (Biz Quiz)
Rajiv D’Silva is a quizzing late-bloomer, having taken to it only in his late 20’s. Having then found the going surprisingly easy, he has gone on to win numerous quizzes across the country, including being the National Winner of the Tata Crucible Quiz in 2010. He has also ended up with more silver medals at Tata Crucible and the Brand Equity Quiz than he cares to remember.In 2008, he co-founded Goa’s Sunday Evening Quiz Club and watched it grow like a doting father before eventually realising, too late, that he had created a monster. He nevertheless still watches over it carefully, lest it turn around and bite him.About him as a quizmaster, this much can be said - no one has, while sitting through a quiz he has conducted, fallen asleep, run out screaming, or felt a strong urge to say it with tomatoes. But he knows there's always a first time.
Arul Mani – QuizMaster: Whole Earth Catalog (General Quiz)
Arul Mani teaches English literature at St. Joseph's Arts and Science College, Bangalore and is Vice President of the Karnataka Quiz Association (KQA). He was a semifinalist in the inaugural 1998 edition of Mastermind India. He won the All-India title in the World Quizzing Championships of 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011 and the Maha quizzer title for 2008 and 2011. He has also figured in the list of the top 20 quizzers in the world announced by the International Quizzing Association on several occasions.. He now conducts more than 50 quizzes every year for KQA and travels all over India to anchor collegiate and corporate quiz events. He has written long-running quiz columns in the past for The Asian Age, Midday Mumbai, Deccan Chronicle and India Today. He has also been on the research team for the television shows Mastermind India and University Challenge.
