Mahabharata, what is not in it, is nowhere!

Quiz

Sidharth Basu, the person synonym with “Quizzing” in India, famous for his Quiz time series in 1980s and later Mastermind India series in late 1990s to early 2000s.

It was reported in national dailies that the sales of various books on General Knowledge went up. The whole India was keen on answering Basu’s questions.

Even before Basu’s Quiz Time, in 1970s there was another Quiz show “The Cadbury Bournvita Quiz Contest. It was started as a live Quiz show in various cities across India; it later became a radio show hosted by Amin Sayani and then, a television show hosted by Derek O'Brien. Then there were G.S.Pradeep’s reverse quiz’ Aswamedham’ on Kairali TV, DD Podhigai the Tamil channel’s Live Sports Quiz Programme conducted by Dr.Sumanth C.Raman.

In Mahabharata there is an interesting Quiz. Pandavas were on their 13th year in forest. One day Nakul was asked to go and fetch some water. He went and found a pond and was about to fetch some water, a yaksha’s voice was heard warning him not to do so. Nakul ignored the voice but before he could drink the water he fell down motionless. Same fate happened to Sahadev, Arjun and Bhim. At last Yudhishthira went and found all his four brothers dead near a pond. He also tried to take water but again Yaksha asked him to stop and said if he could answer all the questions correctly he could get back his brothers. Yudhishthira agreed and answered all the questions correctly. Yaksha was Yama, Yudhishthira’s father. Thus Yama became the first quiz master and his son Yudhishthira the sole participant and winner also. His prize was his four brothers’ lives.

(To be continued...)