Interrobang India Quiz 2018 Prelims (with answers)

INDIA
QUIZ
‽ N T E R R O B A N G 2 0 1 8
Researched and conducted by Lokesh Kaza
21st January 2018

PRESENTED BY
Experience Partner
Associate Sponsors

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• Balaji Subramanian
• Vishnu Sumanth
• Major Chandrakant Nair
• Rumaiza Fathima
• Abid Abdulla
• Rushabh Menon
• TPS Harsha
• Manav Kapur
• Anjaneya Das

FEST ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Content Team
• Abhishek Babbar
• Anirudh Singh
• Anubhav Sachdeva
• Jayavardhan Josyula
• Samiha Gopal
• Siddarth Rajeevan
Organising Team
• Akash Prasad
• Aparajita Kaul
• Nipuna Varman
• Sachit Kapoor
• Yash Bhagwat

PRELIMS
• 30 questions, 35 points in all
• Questions 26-30 are two-pointers
• Questions 11-20 are * marked and will be used to break
ties, if any.
• Sudden death to follow if tie still persists
• No negative marking, feel free to guess!
• Switch off all electronic devices
• Top 9 teams into the finals

1.
• A 1994 Hollywood film released to to both critical and
commercial failure in the US but was tremendously popular in
South Asia. In India, the movie was played at the largest
theater in Calcutta for over a year. Recalling a trip to Calcutta,
Roger Ebert says, "I asked if Star Wars had been their most
successful American film. No, I was told, it was
____________".
• It was remade twice, once in Telugu and once in Malayalam.
This is a short sequence from the Telugu remake.
• Which Hollywood film was this?

2.
Which region/place of historic
importance in India, literally means
'forest of magnolia trees'?

3.
• The Petits Pâtés de Pézenas is a late 18th century
French recipe from Pezenas in France. An individual
had moved there from India in 1768 and his kitchens
introduced the sweet pastry, which was a refined
version of the keema naan in India.
• It is made in the shape of a cotton reel and is usually
filled with minced mutton, after which it is served with
pickles.
• Who was the person?

4.
• Punnathur Kotta is a fort and former palace in South India
which housed the local rulers once upon a time. It is a 10-
acre compound and includes a house built in the traditional
style, with a central courtyard.
• In 1975, the place was purchased by a famous entity located
nearby. Since then, the compound has been used for a wholly
different purpose with the house also being converted into a
training school, of sorts.
• What is the compound now used for, which has faced
repeated criticism in the past?
• Which entity is being spoken about?

ELEPHANTS OF THE
GURUVAYOOR TEMPLE ARE
HOUSED HERE

5.
•What is this, which has been lying
dilapidated since 2008?
•Which town in West Bengal would you
find it in?

6.
• The Bada Imambara in Lucknow was built by Asaf-ud-
Daula in 1784 and is one of the city’s most
recognizable entities. The complex contains a
fascinating building with several interconnected
passageways and doors. There are about a thousand
such passageways and most of them lead to other
passages, thus making it very easy to get lost.
• What name has been given to this building, which
literally means ‘labyrinth’ and has the same title as a
Bollywood film from 2007?

7.
• Robert Dicke was lecturing in Princeton in the 1960s and spoke
about how general relativity predicted the complete collapse of
certain stars, thereby creating an environment where gravity was so
strong that no matter and not even light could escape. Dicke
compared this environment to something rather infamous from India,
and a shortened form of the term used was later picked up by other
scientists.
• Dicke’s children recollect today that whenever any item was lost at
their home, their father would shout out, “Ah, it must have been
sucked into the _____ ____ __ ________.”
• What term was thus coined, which is today extremely popular in
scientific lexicon?

8.
• This village is located in the Unnao District of Uttar Pradesh and
residents say that it gets its name from the individual who died
there. According to Munna Lal Pandey, a former Pradhan of the
village, the 19th century British Gazetteer also spoke of a stone
statue of the individual which lay there.
• After his death near the bank of a lake while filling water, a
prophecy was pronounced which would go on to be true some
time later.
• Which individual from the world of Indian mythology supposedly
died at this spot, leading to the name of this village?

9.
• Ranjana Sonawane, a resident of Tembhli, a remote village in
north Maharashra, about 470km from Pune, briefly became
famous for something before receding into the shadows. Says
Ranjana "There is no banking and no insurance here. In 2010,
netas and other villagers, clicked photos and went away . Nobody
has even bothered to ask us what happened after that brief
moment of fame. My electricity meter was taken away and the
bank account remains empty . I have not got a single subsidy
deposited in my account to date. This government has taken away
our roji-roti (work) with the demonetisation move."
• What was Ranjana Sonawane "brief" moment of fame?

FIRST INDIAN TO GET AADHAR/UNIQUE IDENTITY
NUMBER

10.
• The market for these has been growing at a rate of close to 28
per cent over the past few years. Around 65-75 per cent demand
comes from North India. Upcoming new technologies are major
growth drivers in this sector and cost effective technologies which
aim to reduce the cost of the product are being scrutinized by
companies.
• Tourism and healthcare and other institutions such as embassies,
hospitals, corporate offices, government buildings, schools and
colleges, etc., are the major demand generators for this product.
• What product is this, which usually sees a peak in sales during
the months of October and November?

11.
• “As any boxer will tell you, it causes loss of perspective of
judgment and distances. For example, when trying to light a
cigarette I found I was missing the end of it by a quarter of an inch.
I was also liable to pour water from a jug straight on to the table,
instead of into a tumbler as I intended.”
• “Mind you, I still find it difficult to drive at night because the
headlights bother me. For this reason I have stopped driving
altogether in England. In India, the worst thing is overtaking when
another car is approaching from the other side of the road -- I find
it difficult to judge precisely how far away the other car is.”
• These are excerpts from a 1969 autobiography. Who is the
author?

12.
• The process of nasogastric intubation involves an external
umbilical cord, also called a Ryles tube. To activate the
process, a gravity based system is employed and the tube
is often connected to an electronic pump which can control
and measure intake. As the procedure is uncomfortable, a
gel is often used to lubricate the tube, to ease up entry and
exit. A prolonged period of this process leads to internal
organs and bones becoming weak.
• Often in the news until a couple of years ago, in what
context was this process seen from 2000 onwards?

13.
• Gotipua is a traditional dance form which has been performed
in Odisha for centuries by young boys. The dance is
executed by a group of boys who perform acrobatic figures
inspired by the life of Radha and Krishna.
• What scene from Indian mythology is being showcased in this
picture?

KRISHNA OPENING
BAKASURA’S MOUTH

14.
• Emanuele Scanziani is an Italian artist and illustrator who joined
his family enterprise at the age of 16 and helped them to produce
greeting cards, children's books, etc. He was dissatisfied with the
business and decided to test his creative side elsewhere. He
moved away from Italy and wrote a few picture-books, the
illustrations of which depicted his new surroundings.
• These are illustrations from one of his fantasy picture books
called ‘The Treasure of The Flame-Island’, which portrays a kid’s
fascination with a particular building.
• Where did Scanziani move to? (or)
• Which building is depicted in this particular book?

15.
• According to Time magazine, this museum in New Delhi is among
the “10 museums around the world that are anything but
mundane”. It was established in 1992 and has exhibits from 50
countries, arranged sequentially in three sections of “Ancient,
Medieval and Modern”.
• The museum's exhibits bring out the development of the related
technology from human history pertaining to social habits,
etiquettes and the legal framework in different periods.
• What is this museum dedicated to, which saw Akshay Kumar
visiting it last year?

16.
• While it is disputed, some historians say that Mughal emperor
Shah Jahan wanted to build a black replica of the Taj Mahal on the
other side of Yamuna to house his tomb but his dream remained
unfulfilled.
• In 2015, during celebrations commemorating the 350th year of the
Taj Mahal, an individual decided to complete the emperor’s wish
and set up a Black Taj. While his output was temporary and
took only around 22 hours to make, it was acclaimed by visitors,
who were able to see two Taj Mahals.
• Who was this person?

17.
• According to the Jahangir Nama, the emperor was impressed
by the performance of certain performers from Bengal. Their
leader Krishna Chandra Dev was presented an entire village
called Sutigram near Dhaka and the Dev family became the
landlords of the village. Being landlords they were called ____ ,
a term that became their family name. Currently, the eighth
generation of this family still continues the tradition of
entertainment.
• Fill in the blank.

18.
• Writing for Conde Nast Traveller, Ajay Awtaney describes a recent revival as “a
smooth experience” overall. In keeping with the famous tradition, Awtaney only
had to pay INR 1 (with no extra taxes) for the privilege. Although the experience
only lasted 30 minutes, he was in for several surprises:
• a. His payment was fully refunded in the form of a hard-boiled candy and a
water bottle.
• b. While the price of INR 1 had earlier resulted in long lines, he could only
have about seventeen people standing in line with him this time.
• c. The washroom was not suited for regular use, and is reserved only for
unavoidable situations
• d. At the end of the experience, he was stranded in an area called Ozar,
15km away from Nashik with no cabs or public transport.
• What did Awtaney buy?

19.
• In 1884, the Assamese Railways and Trading Company
recruited a team of Italian engineers for its railway
construction project in Assam. The company went on to give
a name for its settlement in Makum, where the work was
being carried out. The suggestion for this name could have
possibly come from engineer Roberto Paganini, and his
patriotic fervour.
• In 1890, something from the culinary world was also given the
same name (for similar patriotic reasons).
• What name was thus given to what is today a census town at
the same location?

20.
• While choosing the artwork for their debut album, this British band
were up against a deadline when they resorted to googling for
inspiration. However, their search term yielded different results with
satellite images coming up instead.
• The band decided to go ahead with one such image with Gus Unger-
Hamilton, their keyboardist stating,, “The image is quite psychedelic,
which is a term we definitely don’t mind having applied to our songs.
Also, the abstract and indeterminate nature of the image – most people
can’t figure out what it is – somehow fits with the hard-to-pin-down
aspect of our music and its genre (or lack of).”
• Which band is this? What apt image did they end up using, which was
a visual pun on the band’s name?

21.
• Born with the surname ‘Sharma’, he was inspired by Gandhi’s
leadership and once decided to organize a dinner for the upper
caste residents of his town with food cooked by Dalits. When the
upper caste leaders failed to show up to the dinner, he went back to
his house to find that his family was threatened with
excommunication unless he complied with a few demands, such as
taking a dip in the river Ganga.
• After he refused to do so, he was barred from entering his home’s
dining room and his utensils were separated. Angry at the attempts
to exclude him, he decided to “outcaste the entire caste system” by
rejecting his ‘Sharma’ surname, as most Indian surnames reflect the
caste of a family. He then adopted a new surname, which literally
means ‘seeker of truth’. Who is this person?

22.
• The unbreakable rule is that the cashew apple is
always picked from the ground by cazkars, traditional
cashew pickers, and never plucked. Several careful
procedures follow such as stomping of the fruit and
heating the liquid in earthen pots.
• What is being manufactured, which also has a GI tag
to its name?

23.
• This jacket roughly weighs around 5-6 kgs and helps in
offering stability. Close to a decade ago, an Indian individual
got it specially designed. Holes were punctured inside the
jacket to provide stability for the elbow.
• In addition, these flat bottomed shoes were provided rubber
soles from Ferrari tyres and it took 20 days to customize them
to perfection, with one shoe 1 mm higher than the other.
• These were a couple of crucial accessories used by which
person?

24.
• Writing for E-pao, a Manipur-based media outlet, Ranjan Yumnam tears
into a 2005 production for its depiction of the Northeast as “a lawless
warzone at best, and a vassal state at worst”. He wasn’t alone –
agitation from the Bodo community led to the film being banned in
Assam.
• "The fact that the film shows Bodo militants in Manipur [rather than
Assam] reflects how poorly it was researched," said Pramilla Rani
Brahma, a Bodo legislator. "It makes Bodo militants look like some sort
of barbarians. The film is not only slanderous but shows the entire
community in very bad taste, as if we are all bloodthirsty monsters,"
Rabiram Narzary, a senior leader of the All Bodo Students' Union, told a
news agency.
• Which movie, the title of which uses a system developed to minimise

25.
• From 1923 onwards, this individual served on the board of the
Tata Iron and Steel Company with distinction for 28 years. He
had become the Director when he was 65, an age when most
of the company directors would retire.
• JRD Tata had such high regards for him that he initially refused
to accept his resignation, tendered at the ripe old age of 94.
The two also exchanged as many as 90 letters which have
been kept in TISCO archives.
• Who was this person, pictured here in a rare photograph
without his trademark accessory?

26.
• Nikhil Dhurandhar is a professor of Nutritional Sciences at Texas Tech
University. He came into the limelight a couple of years ago, after the
results of a successful protocol which he had asked one of his patients
to follow. This client had to put on (and subsequently lose) multiple kilos
of fat, but also simultaneously gain muscle.
• Speaking of this experience, Dhurandhar says, “In 2015, I met someone
who would prove to be one of my most challenging patients ever. So I
put him on a very specific, highly calibrated protein-powered diet. He is
an extraordinarily disciplined and capable individual who, with his
sustained efforts, reached the desired goal of having only 10 per cent
body fat.”
a) Who was this individual?
b) For what reason was this drastic transformation needed?

27.• "Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day
• Patrolling the gardens to keep assassins away,
• He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
• Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
• And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
• But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
• Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
• And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
• But in seven weeks it was done."
• This is a 1966 poem by WH Auden.
a) What is the title of the poem?
b) Who is the unnamed protagonist in the poem?

28. A)
• As the story goes, Sati sacrificed her life & set her body ablaze
after Raja Daksh Prajapati tried to humiliate Lord Shiva. Shiva then
took her burning body to the Himalayas. On seeing the unending
sorrow of Lord Shiva, Vishnu sends a divine chakra to cut the body
into 51 parts which fall on earth, which are called "Ekannya
Shaktipeeth". Lord Shiva established these wherever Sati's body
had fallen.
• a) The place where Sati's earring fell takes its name from it and is
considered to be one of the holiest of its kind in the country, and
attracts an almost morbid sort of tourism. Which place is this?

28. B)
• Sati's left shoulder fell in a geographical region today
lying somewhere in Bihar, but having an illustrious
mythological past. Its name deriving from the
colloquial word for soil, all its rulers shared the same
title referring to the mode of conception of the founder
of the kingdom. Which region was this?

MANIKARNIKA GHAT IN
VARANASI;
MITHILA

29. A)
• The Sidi Saiyyed Mosque built in 1572 AD, is one of the
most famous mosques in this Indian city. It is entirely
arcuated and is famous for beautifully carved ten stone
latticework windows (jalis) on the side and rear arches.
The rear wall is filled with square stone pierced panels
in geometrical designs.
• Which institution's (X) logo did it inspire?

29. B)
• Depicted here is the logo of the
Metro service of a city, where a
sister institution of X resides today.
• Looking at the logo, identify what
monument in the city is depicted
on it.

30.
• This was a 1991 Bollywood film starring Sunny Deol. Deol plays the
character of the titular character, who loses his family and starts working for a
local goon named Bapji.
• Bapji (with Deol’s character by his side) openly declares to everyone that he
is so indestructible that nobody can kill him. He also goes on to state that no
man or animal can kill him, nor can anyone get him with a weapon or any
other device, and that he cannot die either in the day or night. Rifts escalate
between Deol’s character and Bapji leading to Deol being stabbed by Bapji
and left inside something.
• The climax of the movie involves Deol’s character breaking out from wherever
he is contained, and taking the tale to its conclusion.
• A) What is the name of Deol’s character, also the name of the film?
• B) What does he break out of in the end?

Interrobang India Quiz 2018 Prelims (with answers)

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