As the popular quiz show hosted by the bookstore completes a quarter century run on August 15, its quizmaster Dr Navin Jayakumar tells us why teams keep coming back to press the buzzer

On a grand piano sit two books — Charles Allen’s Coromandel, a treatise on the Indian South, and Robert Woollcombe’s Campaigns of Wavell that studies the exemplary soldier that the Viceroy was during the War years. They are a reflection of the omnivorous reading that ophthalmologist and quizmaster Dr Navin Jayakumar has cultivated over time, mirrored in the questions he asks. But, the event that probably has Navin look at life through a quiz-tinted lens is the Landmark Quiz that turns 25 this year. Hosted by Chennai’s famous bookstore Landmark, the quiz held on Independence Day draws nearly 1,500 gladiators of general knowledge who battle for top honours.

How did the quiz — one that has no daunting black chair or spotlight on the participants but resembles a friendly information mela — come to be? “The Quiz Foundation of India was founded in 1987, the same year as Landmark. For the first anniversary of QFI we were casting around for a sponsor for a quiz. My friend, publisher Gautam Padmanabhan, introduced us to Hemu Subramaniam of Landmark. Then, there was a gap and in 1994, Hemu said let’s pick a date that will allow everyone to participate. We chose August 15 and that’s how the Landmark Quiz was born. In Chennai, it has taken on a life of its own; now everyone knows what the afternoon of August 15 is meant for,” says Navin, who has been its quizmaster except for two breaks in between when “good friend Derek O’Brien filled in”.

Looking back

As a child studying in La Martinere, Calcutta, Navin listened to Ameen Sayani’s rich baritone on radio open up the world through the Bournvita Quiz, pored over maps of countries that have long disappeared and learnt by rote that staple of the quiz world — the names of capitals. “The love of quizzing comes from reading and being curious. When eager parents ask how to get their children interested, I mention veteran Neil O’Brien’s three Rs of quizzing —read, record and recall,” says Navin, whose first brush with quizzing had him name Lata Mangeshkar as the Nightingale of India (it’s poet Sarojini Naidu). “In my second year at Madras Medical College, I was asked to set questions for an intercollegiate quiz. That was my first time as quizmaster. And, then the level of quizzing at CMC Vellore blew me away. Where do you find the information?” he says, looking back at a time when the rabbit hole of the Internet was non-existent and one had to spend hours in dark libraries reading. “The trick is that it’s a sport. Not a test of GK or IQ. A little bit of useful information but lots of useless but interesting information. And, like all sport, it requires practice.”

Taking centrestage

It’s this opportunity to display memory and the ability to recall facts when the clock is ticking that is the enduring appeal of the Landmark Quiz. “Earlier there was just one quiz in the afternoon, but with nearly 600 teams (comprising three members each) we bifurcated it into the school quiz in the morning and the open quiz in the afternoon. Then, it was held across many Indian cities with the national finals in Chennai, but now it’s just here. The remarkable thing is there are people like Vinod Ganesh who’ve grown with the quiz — he participated as a student, professional and has even been quizmaster for the Chennai leg.”

How do you make the quiz accessible and put disparate teams on an equal footing? “The average Joe in the audience should understand the question and be stimulated to think. There are 15-20 hardcore teams, and every year it’s one of these that wins. But the others have a whale of a time and keep returning. That, to me, is a miracle and it attests Chennai’s interest in knowledge-based activities. It’s humbling,” Navin says.

What participants say

Says sports journalist and quizmaster VV Ramanan who has participated in the quiz since its inception, won the nationals, been named quizzer of the year, been part of teams such as Mama, Machchan, Mapillai — a crowd favourite — and wears trademark dark glasses on stage: “The quiz is audience friendly. I have been conducting the Young World Quiz and I find many of the school quizzers whom I terrorised have now become my opponents.”

Navin says preparing the question bank is virtually a one-man show, sometimes with old questions in new forms encouraging lateral thinking. “I avoid the favourite subject trap by dividing the 85 questions into history, geography, science, sport, literature, arts, culture and entertainment with an Indian quotient.”

Writer and journalist Samanth Subramanian, who was in Class X when he first participated, says, “For something like a quiz to even turn into a spectator event is unheard of, but the Landmark Quiz has achieved that. It has a gentleness of tone, a lot of wit, and an unhurried manner of proceeding — all thanks to Navin, of course.” Samanth’s team QED has won the quiz at least six times, some of it involving “the highest joy of quizzing: guesswork. It has come to feel like a rich Madras tradition”.

Put on your thinking caps The tallest flagstaff in India, it flies at a 46-metre height and was built by the East India Company when it occupied a location first in 1639. Where in Chennai would you find this flag? - Fort St George

The Kalashnikov is the world’s most produced assault rifle. In which year was its most famous version adopted and standardised? - 1947. That’s why it is known as the AK-47

What optical device was nearsighted model Grace Robin the first to show off in 1930? Contact lenses

The Landmark Quiz will be held on August 15 at Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall, Harrington Road, Chetpet. For details and registration, www.landmarkquiz.in