Curiosity won’t kill the cat

The word ‘quiz’ can set some people’s heart racing, and some, racing out of a room. But, Yooti Bhansali’s Q for Curiosity, a quizzing event that takes place on the first and third Saturday of every month presents quirky themes that are designed to interest rather than intimidate.

Yooti’s latest quiz, which has Books and Buttons for its theme, has a set of informative and interesting questions, just like her previous one, which had Toys and Typography as its theme. One of the quiz questions encouraged participants to name a toy that had the same cultural significance and impact as the third version of Édouard Manet’s painting Olympia. “This particular version depicts the nude woman looking at the viewer. The boldness of the image created quite a stir at the time. Correspondingly, in the 1970’s, Malibu Barbie was the first Barbie to have forward-looking eyes. The previous versions had a coy, sideways glance,” informs Yooti of the event that takes place at PORT, a café in G5A Foundation.

Talking about her quirky themes that have an alliterative resonance, Yooti says, “My themes are arbitrary. It normally has one generic component, and one that is obscure but not something people don’t encounter on a daily basis, like buttons. The point is to make the quiz accessible to all, unlike other quizzing events, where the themes are normally sports or general knowledge. When you play around with the theme, you create interest and curiosity.”

Not only are her themes unique, her approach to the activity too is novel. While other quizzing events are all about cutthroat competition and hefty cash prizes, Yooti’s quizzes are about bonding and conversations. “The event is what the name implies – it’s for curious people. As we make teams of two, you get to meet new people and discuss the questions. Plus, instead of handing out a quiz paper, I ask the questions and this results in conversations. People get so involved that they hardly look at their phones,” laughs the quizmaster. “There is a modest prize at the end, like passes to an event or a brunch, so you aren’t playing for nothing,” adds Yooti revealing that the theme of her next quiz event will be Furniture and Felines.

Since each quiz poses a set of 30 questions, the quizzing enthusiast spends a lot of time researching the topics. “It’s just me following rabbit holes online. I come across a topic and then dig deeper and deeper till I find something interesting and factual. For the previous quiz, I watched an eight-part documentary on toys,” she confesses. Yooti says that she was drawn to quizzes right from school, but got back to it after working for a year with a company that created quizzes.  When asked if the questions for her quizzes are too out-of-box to solve, Yooti says, “It’s okay to not know the answer. In fact more than knowing the answer, it’s working out the answer that is fun.”