SWEET MEMORIES OF MY 2ND HOME- DELHI

Now you people must be wondering why i have written delhi as my second home as you all know that i come from kolkata. So let me come to the point quickly as i always like to talk straight. When it comes to delhi i always feel excited about it as it gave me my most joyful moment in my life till date , winning the STAR CRICKET CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD CRICKET QUIZ SHOW last month. But I am no stranger to the quizzes organised by ESPN STAR SPORTS . What I achieved last month is the ultimate but there is more into it. My first visit to Delhi was during my ESPN SCHOOL QUIZ days and it was just like love at first sight probably it has something to do with the youthful excitement that one feels while going outside his native place alone. I felt really enthusiastic about the whole experience. I can still remember the bundle of happiness in my heart when i first met Harsha Bhogle who was my childhood hero as i always wanted to be a great cricket commentator like him. I must also mention the name of Joy Bhattacharya most of you know him as the CEO of Kolkata Knight Riders but for me he is someone with a great depth of knowledge about sports. I represented MADHYAMGRAM HIGH SCHOOL as u all know that my school won the prestigious SUBRATA CUP FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT 7 TIMES. But sadly we lost in the 1st round to Tashi Namgyal,Gangtok. But I can still remember the fight we showed in the last round to score maximum 60 points. It was a tremendous experience that i had at such a young age just like all the other participants. I must mention the name of my partner Subhabrata Mukherjee who was equally supportive & brilliant. Also our games teacher Sujit Halder without whome it would not have been possible to participate as our idiot principal created lots of problems. Sadly our principal cheated us by taking the trophy nd 3000 bucks that we won from that quiz.

Last year again i went to CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD. We defeated Anna University and H R COLLEGE,Mumbai in the quarter final. It was the 1st time that i crossed the 1st round hurdle and got a good reward of 10000 bucks for winning that. But my most memorable moment came in the semis. Till date i just can not forget it. It was the mother of all close finishes with all 3 teams had their chances of winning it before the last question. We were tied with BMS COLLEGE,BANGALORE with 38 points while MNIT,JAIPUR was on 36 .MNIT missed their direct and BMS also missed the carry over. I was not sure about the answer but still went with my answer "David Boon". When Harsha said that SCOTTISH CHURCH COLLEGE through to the finals i was jubillant but suddenly the other two teams made an objection about that as there was some mistake about some statistics in that question and they were justified by objecting it as i would have also done the same thing. So they changed the question and again MNIT missed but this time BMS was quick on the buzzer to win it. What was even more frustrating that i knew the answer.But this is what sports is all about, sometime luck can go to ur way while sometimes they dont but nonetheless that incident taught me a lot.

                                          This year my fortune changed totally.It was my childhood dream to be in the national finals of ESPN QUIZ for atleast once. I was not aware of the fact that it would happen and happen in the way it did. There are some memories that ar truely unforgettable this years victory will certainly be top of that list. 1st round we had a good competition in form of NIT,TRICHY & CHAITANYA BHARATI,HYDERABAD. But i should specially take the name of SRIKRISHNA SRIRAM FROM NIT,TRICHY who is a gem of a quizzer. On that day we were in fantastic form and my partner suvajit sur was brilliant to say the least. We came through that round without sweating much.But our semifinal was a group of death cosisting of IIT,DELHI(RUNNERS OF 2007) & SYMBIOSIS , PUNE.I was not confident to win that semi to be honest but we had another flawless day where we could not have done anything wrong. It was a one sided affair to say the least but i still find myself lucky that our opponents were having a rare off day. Then came the D-day, the finals which were a best of 3 affair which i suppose is the best  format for final as it gives you the liberty of having a bad round of quizzing.

   1st final was a nail biter in true sense of the term.But we lost it in the final question which was our direct ,we missed it and jadavpur university was to quick to pounch on it. SARBAJIT & ROBIN were excellent that day and that thoroughly deserved to win that final. Then came the 2nd final which is till date my best ever performence in my quizzing career. There are some days where you feel that everything is happening with 100% efficiency for you and it was just like that for me on that day. We had to make a tremendous comeback to win it from a totally loosing position.Some people ask me how i get those fighting qualities when the chips are down as i dont believe in god. But i must say that i get those inspirations from real life incidents for example anil kumble coming into the antigua ground with a broken jaw just for the sake of the country. BMS,BANGALORE was shocked to lose that final as nobody including them thought that we could win it after the 1st round. Then came the last final where we knew a win would seal it or a 2nd place finish would be good enough if BMS,BANGALORE win that final. But if we finish 3rd then it would bring lots of equation like BMS have to win it by a margin of less than 20.I must say that i was nervous and that brought some poor performences from us on that day. It went too close for our comfort but thankfully BMS won it by a margin of 19 points. So we became the NATIONAL CHAMPION by a overall margin of just a solitary point.I cant explain those feelings in words.But i could feel the pain BMS had as i had suffered the same fate previous year to them, this year it became reverse.

   THIS IS MY FIRST BLOG I HOPE  YOU WILL ENJOY. PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR COMMENTS TO RECTIFY THE MISTAKES THAT I MADE IN MY 1ST BLOG.