Khud hee rakh le

I have been a very sinful person all my jeevan . Starting with the age of three when I burnt my sister's barbie doll's hair to just fifteen minutes ago when I picked up a coin from a blind beggar's bowl , I have done enough wrong to justify a fully furnished apartment in jahannum. So I do a good deed now and use this blog to let people know about an event a friend of mine is involved with . Pad lo and if you are interested in quizzing , dive in .

Armageddon 2006

Sinister shadows shroud the World,

Death-knell signal doom,

No magic shall shield thee,

Sheer knowledge be thy saviour.

Let the war begin...

Introduced in the year 2001, ARMAGEDDON is a Business Quiz organised by the BMS students of Mulund College of Commerce, Mumbai.

Armageddon-2005 witnessed a congregation of the best business quizzing brains from across the country. The onstage finale saw Amit Pandeya (QuestaSoft) and Kiran K (Qualteam) vanquishing the likes of Mitesh Agarwal and Ajay Kasargod (Sun Microsystems / WYSE Technologies), Rohan Khanna and Gajendra Kothari (Accenture / UTI AMC), Gururaj and Vijay (JWT / JP Morgan), G Sreekanth and Sabyasachi (TCS) and Arvind Khusape and Aniruddh (SBI / SIES) to clinch the coveted title.

The torchbearers of hardcore biz quizzing are back with Armageddon 2006, and promise to unleash a whole new world of knowledge excellence.

The quiz will comprise of a Written Elims from which the Top 6 teams will go through to the Finals.

Following are the details:

Date & Time:10th September at 12 noon

Team Members:Two per team(A Team can comprise of participants from two different institutions / organisations)

Entry Fee:Free for students and Rs. 150 per team for corporates

Venue:Mulund College of CommerceSarojini Naidu Road,Mulund (W), Bombay - 400080

Prizes: First - Rs. 25000 Second - Rs. 15000 Third - Rs. 10000

Spykar gift vouchers worth Rs. 5000 to all teams in the finals.

For further details:

Samruddhi - 09833524561

armareturns@gmail.com or dhanu80@rediffmail.com

Here are a few questions from Armageddon-2005

1. It was unveiled on Oct 12, 1988 in a packed Davis Symphony Hall in San Francisco, by demonstrating its ability to run four stopwatches at once and give a synthetic rendition of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech. What?

2. Edward Bellamy, a lawyer and author, in his utopian book "Looking Backward: 2000-1887" described a society where transactions would essentially be conducted between the consumer and the Government and every citizen would have a share of the annual product of the nation. What term did he coin as a result?

3. Its roots can be traced back to 1979 when William Bernbach got the inspiration from banks who were offering toasters and electric blankets to their best customers and to new customers for opening accounts. It was launched on May 1, 1981 under the name 'AAdvantage'. What?

4. Introduced in the 1870s, there are currently four in number and are operated simultaneously. Measuring 18 inches in diameter, they were manufactured by the G S Edwards Company of Connecticut. In the late 1980s, it was decided to refurbish them and add another one as a back-up. However, it was discovered that such of its kind were no longer being made by any company. Hence, G S Edwards Co. agreed to make a special replica and brought employees out of retirement to handle the job. While this was being done, an older one was discovered, which was polished and is now used as a spare one. What am I referring to?

5. A short film titled 'True', directed by Charles Stone III featured his childhood friends Fred Thomas, Paul Williams and Scott Brooks who would sit around using the catch-phrase ‘_______’. It caught the attention of copywriter Vinny Warren who signed Stone to direct television commercials for a brand based on the film. Identify the brand / catch-phrase.

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Since the time I have landed in Kerala , some exciting changes have come upon me . Like I have become a couple of shades darker . Though I would like to express that I think it's more of a mexican salma hayek-ish tan for which firangs lie naked in the sun all day , a more casual observer may think I have been eating coal pieces as dessert .And another thing which startles me is that so many people call me 'sir' at work . I mean , you give a double breasted reid and taylor suit to an ugandan tribal who has always been in his natural state and he roasts and chews up the suit because he is just not used to being covered . On similar lines , when a guy whose last encounter with any kind of 'izzat' belongs to the stone age is suddenly pushed into a life where 42 year old men address him as 'sir' , it leaves him feeling strange .

And tussi believe nahi karoge , my parents have been approached with the first formal proper 'rishta' of my life ( Mar jaawa khatta kha kar . sharma gaya main hai hai ). Though at my age , most police forces around the world will arrest me for child marriage , I have been given ten days to think if I can actually think about marriage yet . So jaago bharat ki naariyo and tell me you have always wanted to be my dulhan , before I become 'paraya dhan' forever.

And as a part of work , train travelling is becoming a hugely regular part of my life . I have got so used to it that yesterday I woke up groggily at my hotel room and straightaway sleepwalked to the window to see which station it was . But with all the revenues I am single handedly generating for the Indian Railways , I think I deserve a superfast express or atleast some railway platform named after me . Kitna heartwarming lagega just to hear the voice boom on the central announcement speakers "Bilaspur se Purulia jaane wali gaadi number teen teen do ek , ab se kuch hee der mein hitler ki aatma memorial platform par aayegi."

But though I started off thinking all this train travelling is the worst thing to happen to me since the time gave a class presentation with my fly open , I am beginning to find it interesting . Now I am not the kind of guy who will sit mum through a four hour journey and keep staring out of the window with a grim expression like he is up for a vasectomy surgery right after he gets off the train. I get on the train , find my seat , push in the bag , sink down my seat , kick off my shoes , pull out a pack of spanish tomato lays from my bag , tear it open , offer the chips to the guy next to me and say "Hi". So unless the guy on the next seat is a real serious and grim guy who speaks as much as a wooden door does , I end up knowing a lot ranging from how his dad met his mom to why his second girlfriend left him . Like I have managed to exchange telephone numbers with a lady doctor , a civil engineer settled in dubai , a school principal and an 'export-import' guy , all people I met in trains over the last month . ( The last guy would only say "export-import' when I asked what he did . I am not sure , but the movies taught me all 'export -import' guys are smugglers . I think he had brown sugar pouches in his bag ).

Anyway , I think I will go find dinner now . I know I have this thing to say "will find dinner" instead of a more humane "will have dinner" . I said the same thing to one of my friends recently and she said "That sounds so much like animal planet.They always say that when the jackal family ventures out to 'find dinner' after dark". And another thing which bothers me when I am moving towards closing down a post is the paanch dollar and teen paisa question - post ka title kya doon ? I guess it's all the more tough for me because what I write is as far from logical sequence as you are from dating sonia gandhi . It's so much easier to put down a title for something coherent ( Like "tears of blood" or "shards of my heart" for a poem about lost love or something ) . Anyway , I guess I will just let you do the honors this time . Assi jaa rahe hain. find dinner karne.