Quizzing the quiz master

Parnab Mukherjee on how to ace a quiz, his new show Beat The Genius and more

The veteran of campus quizzing and public speaking, Parnab Mukherjee, and host Maniesh Paul are all set to come up with their new interactive quiz show Beat The Genius on Flipkart Video on November 10. It will have a new mind-boggling episode each day on the Flipkart app, says Parnab.

How did you start your journey as a quiz master?

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My journey of quizzing has been running in parallel with my journey of public speaking and theatrics. When you are publicly speaking, quizzing gives you the necessary input to give information along with your speaking prowess. At the same time, when you are quizzing, you need to also be confident about making a wild guess, which may or may not work out. But, there is always sheer joy in getting something right which you have guessed, while you were trying to work out the nuts and bolts of the right answer. I think I developed an interest fairly early in my life, in class 5.

How can someone become a quiz master?

I would like to distinguish two things, all quiz hosts are not quizmasters and all quizmasters cannot be categorised as quiz hosts. What we see on OTT and TV quizzing is a quiz host whose questions are being researched by a very good research team and that person has tremendous presentation skills which is why the person is hosting it on a video or a live platform.

Then there is the quiz master who researches his own questions, to him the questions are not about the right answer written on the cue-card, but about explaining the wrong answer. When the quizmaster explains to the participant how close he was to the right answer, that becomes far more amazing than just saying ‘right’ or ‘bingo’. Today, buzzer and negative points become more important than how much you can recall in the given time.

You have conducted almost 1,200 quizzes, any good/bad memories?

I consciously make my quizzes skewed towards the Indian sub-continent, South Asia, and Asia. I do ask quite a few questions on Europe and America, but the fact that we know a lot about London and little about Katmandu is an endemic issue. I have had very bright participants decoding the answers beautifully and they have taught me much more than what I am capable of teaching.

How can one ace a quiz?

Quizzing I would say is more of intuition but sometimes books like the BBC Mastermind which was one of the greatest quiz shows on BBC or one of the very early quiz books of India by Partha Basu – Quiz Mountain are good reads. But these books are by honorable writers and can be considered as exceptions because they are information nuggets which translates quizzing. It is not like a typical quizzing book where you are just mugging up questions and answers.

Your thoughts on the changing scenario of quizzes from physical to digital.

I think what the pandemic has done is that it has opened more avenues and ‘Beat the Genius’ is a testimony of how we must reinvent the format of quizzing. Yes, the quizzing formats are evolving, and you are interacting and participating from the comfort of your house and simultaneously getting a sense of a live competition. It a functional format which is less than 15 minutes and not taxing. I think Flipkart Video and Beat the Genius has captured the format beautifully and I am proud of being a part of a very path breaking genre.

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