February 2024 Meet Questions w/o An.pptx

Mixed bag of trivia for quiz enthusiasts from around the globe.

1. February 2024 Meet Ananda Chandra College Quiz Club In Collaboration with IQAC QM- Samik Dasgupta

2. Rules Three-member teams 30 Questions, written round +10 for every correct answer, -5 for every wrong answer. Part Marking available in relevant questions Star-marked questions will be considered for tie-breaker

3. Question 1* X is a Bengali language drama written by Bijon Bhattacharya in 1944 and staged by the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) the same year under the joint direction of Sombhu Mitra and Bijon Bhattacharya, and in 1948, by Bohurupee under the direction of Sombhu Mitra. The play is about the Bengal famine of 1943. X shares its name with a famous building in Calcutta now. Identify X.

4. Question 2 Dadasaheb Phalke is popularly known as the father of Indian cinema. His debut film, Raja Harishchandra, was the first Indian movie released in 1913, and is now known as India's first full-length feature film. When he began his career as a photographer in Baroda, he received immense resistance from the people around him. What the did the people have against him?

5. Question 3 Ashadh Ka Ek Din is a Hindi play by Mohan Rakesh that debuted in 1958 and is considered the first Modern Hindi play. It is a three-act play centered on X’s life, sometime in the 100BCE-400CE period. In the first act, he is leading a peaceful life in a Himalayan village and is romantically involved with his sweetheart, Mallika. However, he is approached to appear at King Chandragupta's court in far-off Ujjayini. Torn between his current idyllic existence and love on one hand, and the desire to achieve greatness on the other, he leaves for Ujjayini in a conflicted state of mind. Identify X. Hint- The picture in the next slide is the illustration of a play by X.

6. Question 4 On the life of which famous actress of the Group theatre movement, is this film based on?

7. Question 5* In the heydays of the Bombay Talkies, the owner Himanshu Rai decided to make a hit film with his wife Devika Rani in the lead, alongside a dashing actor from Lucknow called Najm - Ul -Hassan. Directed by Franz Osten , the movie was a whodunit about a woman (Kamala, played by Devika Rani) who elopes with her childhood friend and lover ( Ratanlal , played by Hasan) on the day of her marriage. The couple escapes the city on a train. While on board, her father catches up with her and demands that she marry the man he had sought for her. A murder follows. As luck would have it, Devika and Najm-ul fell in love and eloped to Calcutta! Himanshu tracked down the couple to the Grand Hotel and Sasadhar Mukherjee persuaded Devika to return to the prosperous world of Bombay Talkies. Hasan stayed back in Calcutta. Now back in Bombay, Himanshu decided to take revenge on his wife by casting a male lead who was the direct anti-thesis of Najm-ul . This was KumudLal , a lab assistant in Bombay Talkies, who wasn’t conventionally good looking, had no clue or ambition about acting. Infact , other members of Bombay Talkies refused to accept this casting. The film did satisfactory business at the box office and over time Kumud Lal became a successful actor. Recently, Amazon Prime made a webseries on this historical incident. Which actors played the roles of Devika Rani, Himanshu Rai and Kumudlal ?

8. Question 6 X is an “alternative” to the mainstream commercial Indian cinema. Inspired by Italian Neorealism, it began just before the French New Wave and Japanese New Wave, and was a precursor to the Indian New Wave of the 1960s. The movement was initially led by Bengali cinema and produced internationally acclaimed filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak , Tapan Sinha and others. It later gained prominence in other film industries of India. It is known for its serious content, realism and naturalism, symbolic elements with a keen eye on the sociopolitical climate of the times, and for the general rejection of inserted song-and-dance routines that are typical of mainstream Indian films. How do we better know X?

9. Question 7 This film was supposed to have launched the Indian New Wave Cinema movement in the 1960s. We celebrated the 100 year birth anniversary of this film’s director last year. What is the director’s name?

10. Question 8 X started his professional career as a civil engineer at Maithon in the Damodar Valley Corporation complex in 1953. He moved to England in 1957 where he worked and studied for two years. In 1963, he visited France to study town planning. After staying in Calcutta for a brief period, he had been to Nigeria in 1964. It was while working there that he wrote quite a few major proscenium plays of his early career which include: Baki Itihas (That Other History, 1965), Tringsha Satabdi (The Third Millennium, 1966), and Pagla Ghoda (The Crazy Horse 1967). He is most famous across India for writing India’s most popular absurd drama, Ebong Indrajit. Identify X.

11. Question 9 Two famous personalities help connect the establishment on the right, with the pinned location on the left. Who are they?

12. Question 10* This is a form of art - a painting of a group of people arranged in an interesting way, called ‘tableau’ art form. The term was first used in the eighteenth century by French philosopher Denis Diderot to describe paintings with this type of composition. During our life in the Pandemic COVID-19, few doctors at a hospital in Paris performed an activity (see pic) inspired by something. What was its source of inspiration?

13. Question 11 Mt. Krakatoa is a volcanic mountain between the islands of the Indonesian province. On the late morning of 27 th August, 1883, it was erupted. The eruption was one of the deadliest  and most destructive volcanic events in recorded history. This eruption affected a certain iconic creativity (in 1893) after ten years of this destructive incident.  Filmmaker Chris Columbus once said about a particular scene of his film (released in 1990) that was not actually in the script. One of the main protagonist did an instant expression and finally that was kept in the movie poster. Later most of the audience claimed that the specific scene was inspired by the early mentioned certain creativity . But according to filmmaker the fact is completely false. Certain creativity? Instant expression ?

14. Question 12 X (born 27 July 1967) is an Indian actor, director, screenwriter, social activist, and athlete. X is the President of Indian Rugby Football Union. He has appeared in Bengali films such as Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, Kalpurush , Anuranan , Antaheen , Laptop and The Japanese Wife. He has also appeared in Hindi films such as Pyaar Ke Side Effects, Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam, Jhankaar Beats, Kucch Luv Jaisaa , Dil Dhadakne Do, Chameli, Shaurya and Bulbul. In 1998, X was part of the first Indian national rugby team to play in an international event, the Asian Rugby Football Union Championship. He has played both scrum-half and right-winger positions. Identify X.

15. Question 13 This was a true story about the kidnapping and murder of just 20 month old Charles Augustus  Lindburgh Jr., from the nursery of his home near Hopewell, New Jersey at 9.00 pm. on 1 st March, 1932. This news made international headlines. As the case was still alive in popular imagination in 1934, it was made into a novel. This novel achieved international fame. In 2017, the novel has been adapted a mystery film distributed by 20th Century Fox. Give me the name of the novel.

16. Question 14* When Japanese national team coach Hajime Moriyasu would scribble in a notebook during a World Cup match, speculation as to the contents ignited a firestorm on social media. The notebook Moriyasu used is apparently a product of Kokuyo , an Osaka-based company with a 117-year history. Following this, a representative of Kokuyo Co. thanked Coach Moriyasu for guiding the Japanese football team. However, online forums were rife with speculation of what the coach was writing there. One meme that attracted a lot of attention reflected a popular conjecture attaching the coach’s action to a famous piece of popular culture. Give me what was alluded to in the meme.

17. Question 15 The band X germinated in Punjab college, where the leads first met. X’s second album was titled Boondh and the third one was Pyaas . Y was formed in 1998 when the singer left the previous band, named after the item alchemists wanted to create, to form his own. Other members of Y were Debasish Roy, Kishore Goswami, Tirthankar Bannerjee etc. ID X Y.

18. Question 16 In the original version of Sholay(1975), it is shown the Thakur killing Gabbar by kicking him into a nail stuck on the same pillars that Gabbar had tied him to when he chopped his hands off. After he kills Gabbar, he falls down with a vacant look and Veeru slowly walks up to him and drapes his shawl on him. The music reaches a melodramatic crescendo as Veeru and Thakur hug each other and cry. However, because of X, the ending had to be changed- when Thakur Baldev Singh is about to kill Gabbar, the police arrive, reminding him that punishing criminals is the responsibility of the law, and as a former police officer he should respect this authority. After a moment's hesitation, Thakur hands over Gabber to the police, thereby reinstating the sovereign authority of the law and preventing a climax which would have depicted an act of personal revenge as redemptive justice. What was X that compelled Ramesh Sippy to change the ending?

19. Question 17 Devashis Bhattacharya is an alumnus of the National Institute of Design. He is famous for X, which made its debut on April 1 st , 1976. Although he had made Y, keeping in mind the ”Yin and Yang symbol”, his teacher famously noted, “I don’t think it was meant to be an eye, it just happens to look like one”. Identify X.

20. Question 18 X (1 July 1968 – 9 January 2024) was an Indian classical musician in the Hindustani tradition. He belonged to the Rampur- Sahaswan gharana, and was the great-grandson of gharana founder Inayat Hussain Khan. He was married to Soma Khan. In a story told in several versions, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi once remarked that X was the "assurance for the future of Indian vocal music". He was awarded the Padma Shri, as well as the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2006. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award, in 2022 by the Indian Government in the field of Art. Identify X

21. Question 19 This Award is the oldest and the highest Indian literary award presented annually to an author for their "outstanding contribution towards literature". Instituted in 1961, the award is bestowed only on Indian writers writing in Indian languages included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India and English, with no posthumous conferral. From 1965 till 1981, the award was given to the authors for their "most outstanding work" and consisted of a citation plaque, a cash prize and a bronze replica of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge and wisdom. The first recipient of the award was the Malayalam writer G. Sankara Kurup who received the award in 1965 for his collection of poems, Odakkuzhal (The Bamboo Flute), published in 1950. What is the name of this award and who won it for his contributions to Urdu literature this year?

22. Question 20* The word X comes from a hindi word for "slap" suggesting the traditional method of forming X. In February, 1857 unusual distribution of thousands of Xs in the villages of North India came into attention. It was suspected that Xs contained secret notes carrying messages from the native emperors but investigators couldn’t prove anything due to lack of evidence. ID X.

23. Question 21 Out of his utter disgust and hatred towards casteism and brahminism , Meghnath Saha became Meghnad Saha. X too did a similar thing but in his own style. He blended two consonants in his first name to eliminate the names of deities and later did the opposite in his last name to renounce his caste. None of these changes were official though and all variations of his name are found. Who is X and what specific changes did he make?

24. Question 22 Five Bharat Ratnas will be awarded in 2024, the highest since their inception in 1954. Four recipients are politicians: PV Narasimha Rao, Chaudhary Charan Singh, Karpoori Thakur and LK Advani. Who was MS Swaminathan, the fifth awardee?

25. Question 23 After India’s 106-run win over England, Jasprit Bumrah shared that he learnt  the art of bowling ____  from watching Waqar Younus, Wasim Akram and Zaheer Khan. What delivery, where the ball lands at the batter’s feet?

26. Question 24 Winners of the 2024 Paris Olympics will be taking home a piece of French history.  What will make their medals special?

27. Question 25 The ASI has found that “there existed a Hindu temple prior to the construction” of the Gyanvapi Mosque. Among findings were inscriptions in Devanagari, Telugu, Kannada and ____. Which script, an ancestor to Malayalam? ____ meant ‘knot’, aka the binding of palm leaves for books.

28. Question 26* Moti Mahal and Daryaganj are tussling over butter chicken, each claiming to be the inventor. Moti Mahal insists their forefather KL Gujral created the [BLANK] — a gravy with tomatoes, butter, cream, and some spices — which gives both butter chicken and another northern dish its taste. What?

29. Question 27* India is the ‘Internet shutdown capital’ of the world, with orders citing reasons like protests, elections and school exams. This affected 59 million people in 2023 at a cost of $585.4 million. Which region faced the longest shutdown? Their localised blackouts lasted from May to December.

30. Question 28 The Ram Mandir’s consecration is the talk of the town, as is the ' Annaporani ' fiasco. You might know that many versions of the Ramayana exist across Asia, with varying authorship and cultural tweaks. Valmiki’s Sanskrit version (credited to Narada) is the oldest, but who wrote the famed ‘people’s version’ in Awadhi?

31. Question 29 ‘Doctor, Lawyer, Teacher, Plumber, Astronaut’. Whose Instagram bio is this? Their presence in an ad for sexual wellness brand ‘Bold Care’ has fans cackling. Parodying Hindi soaps, the ad also stars Ranveer Singh. He was born as Steven Wolfe. By what name do we know him better?

32. Question 30 On 16.2.24, Ayhika Mukherjee and Sreeja Akula beat the World No 1 and 2 (both from China) in championship singles matches of which sport? “It’s the greatest day for Indian ____,” beamed national champ Kamlesh Mehta. Fill in the blank