S E Q C

The Sunday evening quiz club, SEQC for short and pronounced ‘sexy’ to exhibit a streak of naughtiness, meets every first Sunday evening, and invites anyone ‘who has nothing better to do on a Sunday evening’, to join. My younger son, who has some interest in quizzes, came to know about it and decided to attend. We, the other three members of the family who had nothing better to do on a Sunday evening, decided to tag on.

We reached the location, the meeting hall of the Corporation of the city of Panaji, and found an informal gathering of about thirty people huddled in groups around the oval meeting table. There was a quiz master with a laptop in front and a screen behind him. All four of us were invited to join any one of the groups, ‘teams’ rather, and the program went on. There were six rounds of verbal and visual questions with a break after three rounds. A side table contained tea, snacks and lemonade and I enjoyed the ‘break’ as much as the quiz.

At the end of the activities the next date was announced and those present were requested to contribute whatever they felt right, by putting the desired amount into a cardboard box kept for the purpose. It was to be used for next month’s refreshments.

I have attended three meetings till date and have considered the evenings well spent. And I feel that the SEQC is the only good thing that the corporation’s meeting table is being used for.

Yesterday was the finals of the SEQC ‘Mastermind’ contest and it was arranged on the lawns of the Goa international centre. Apart from the finals of ‘Mastermind,’ there was another round of quiz for everyone where I drew a blank once again, maintaining the tradition which is developing. It was another nice and lively evening, made livelier by the chief guest Sri Victor Rangel Ribeiro’s witty remarks and comments. Sri Ribeiro is a well known author, editor, music critic and member of the American Mensa. When asked to ‘say a few words’ he said “may be later” and added “you may accept those as my few words and be done with it”.

Sri Vidhyadhar Gadgil, a journalist, emerged the winner and it was nice to know that I have something in common with the winner of ‘Mastermind’. Nothing in common as far as general knowledge or IQ are concerned but a taste for PGW. Yes, if I ever happen to be lucky enough to be asked to associate a word with the letters PGW, I can also hit the buzzer for once, say ‘Jeeves’, ‘Wooster’ or ‘Empress of Blandings’, and win a point!