Floyd is the Answer -2

Click Part 1, to see the part 1 of this series and feel really really sorry about the choices you have made in life.


By Gaurav Parab
Harish chose well. Anyone who knows me™ (TM: Gaurav Parab) knows that I adore Wasim Akram. You can convince me about anything if you just say the magic words “Wasim Akram”. My friend once offered to sell me his bike by saying that Wasim Akram never sat on it, and Wasim Akram had never heard about it. I bought it before he could complete the sentence.

“All right, Harish, but I am warning you. I have done some quizzing, but it has been about 10 years since I last participated in a quiz.”

“That is fine. It is not as if it has been ten years or something.”

“Are you an IT manager?”

So we met each other and decided to start our partnership with the Landmark quiz. Like all great partnerships, be it Leonardo and Di Capiro, Sadman and Chemical Ali, or Billa and Runga – Harish and Gaurav complimented each other well.

Harish: Gaurav you look good.

Gaurav: Not as good as you do Harish.

Harish: You compliment me well.

Gaurav: Thank you. You are too kind.

The next Sunday we went to the Nehru* memorial hall. (*The most popular jacket in India, with hundreds of halls, roads, and Universities dedicated to it).

I quickly looked around as we registered our names at the reception. A massive crowd of hundreds of dudes with little stubbles were already there. They all had an expression which said, “I have not shaved because I may know something you don’t.”

Then I looked at Harish for a confidence boost.

“Don’t worry. I don’t have too many facial hair.”

As a stiff breeze hit me, I drew my coat closer to myself and turned up my collar. “All right Harish, but what if one of your friends asks me a question? I should be ok at the quiz, I don’t want to look all stupid in front of your friends.”

“Just say Floyd, if the question is about music.”

“What if it is not about music?”

“Then you just rock your head back, smile and shake your head from side to side. Then you ask a question of your own.”

“Ok.”

“By, the way, do you have a pen? O Brian will say the question only once during the elimination round.”

“Do you have a guitar?” I rocked my head from side to side.

Harish looked at me. “Gaurav, let me give you a little tip.”

“Sure”

“If you want to print your formulas in Microsoft Excel, then you can toggle your views with Tools > Options > View and Check Formula”

"Ok. Thanks.”

Then we entered the hall. As we slowly marched in, Harish turned around and looked into my eyes. It was time for the mentor to give the upstart a confidence booster.

“Unless you are using Excel 2007. Then you click "Show Formulas" in the Formula Auditing group on the Formula tab”

I nervously looked back at Harish. “Ehhh… Harish, any words of advice? ….About the quiz?”

Harish cleared his throat,

“Gaurav, Think of this as war. Imagine that everyone around is an enemy, and you have to take them out by being more alert than everyone else. No one here knows the currency of Poland, but they can blow you apart by working out answers to the most bizarre questions by co-relating things and remembering things no one bothers to remember. You only have to be faster than them to correlate things.”

I imagined myself in my father’s green combat dress, charging towards a smoking enemy bunker, with a loaded encyclopedia slung over my shoulder screaming “Floyd Floyd Floyd”, and Harish following me, screaming into the communication radio “Send us a squadron of pens. We are under attack. Damn you Alistair. Send us pens”

I looked around again. Who are these people, and what drives them? Are they here for the same reason that I am here for? Are they here for the life long pursuit of all brilliant men, the competitive streak that drives us all, one thing that can get any intelligent guy get up early on a Sunday morning.

The possibility that a really nicely looking woman will turn up at the hall, chat with him, ask you for your number.

Then Harish’s friends, probably the best quizzing brains in the world started to arrive.