It was about quarter past 11pm when I got the first phone call from Mumbai from a close friend informing me about the attacks at Cafe Leopold, CST Stations and then at the beautiful Taj Mahal and the Oberoi Trident. All this while I was in a state of bliss being in my beutiful homecity of Guwahati amidst family and friends.
I didn't know how to react to the terrible tragedy and thought that being a quizzard and having a blog on quiz how about having some gyaan sharing with the readers of this blog on one of the first innovative counter terrorism measure ever to be adopted that actually worked very effectively.
It was in Greece and was formulated by the women of Greece led by Lysistrata. She got together the women of Sparta, Corinth and Boeotia (all warring Greek provinces)and swore them to withold sex from their husbands who were all at war against one another. The genesis of this amusing counter terrorism measure stems from the fact that till then Greek men used to believe that a Greek women has no self-restraint when it came to matters of sex and wine. The women on the other hand thought that the men were very stupid in their decision of having war all the time. The stand was war is an injustice thrust on women only since a men will never have problem of finding another woman as wife but for women as they grow old it will be very difficult to get a bew husband.
The men attempted to fight this resolve of their women but after about a month of futile attempts the men had to give in to the demands of the women. The men started experiencing physical pain from lack of sex.They quickly settle peace negotiations between the various provinces. Lysistrata declares the sex feud over and allows the women to return home with their husbands.
This entire Greek episode has beeen celebrated in the play Lysistrata by Aristophanes and in quizzing vocabulary is generally referred to as the Lysistrata Phenomenon. I am sure RGV can do up a bit of reading on the same to get further inspired with his next project on terrorism along with his already done groundwork of taking a tour of the Taj.
While such innovative counter terroriam may not play any role in the realm of modern day terrorism or mercinaries but the thought that I am trying to put forth is that our security / intelligence agencies needs to be very innovative in dealing with modern day sophisticated terrorist or mercinary. It is not about pumping in money in beefing up our security systems its about thinking one step ahead of these criminals all the time so that effective counter measures can be implemented swiftly whenever such a situation ever arise.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Why Minds Over Matter ?
This is a question that I have discussed and debated with many of my quizmates and opponents and let me tell you despite it being the adopted motto of our first creation of passion which was Quiz Foundation of Guwahati in 1991, we till that have not been able to come to a conclusion on this subject matter.
To me Minds Over Matter signified the enormous capacity of the human minds to come up with answers to seemingly impossible problems, shall I say queries or quiz questions, by working out an answer.
At QFG, some of the masters of this art form were guys like Senjam, Ranjit and many more. This blog is an attempt to revive the same people who came together one fine sunday afternoon to create one of the finest quizing group of this country and in the process created some of the best quizards that this nation has ever seen but who all remained unsung.
From late 1980s to mid 1990s Guwahati was the place for some great quizing action. Some of the best quiz masters of India like Derek O'Brian, Siddharth Basu and Joy Bhattacharya used to come on a regular basis and conduct quizzes.
Most of these quizzes were big ticket items and the competition was very very fierce. However, over a period of time some of the men stood out from the boys and continued to rule the roost for long periods.
Some of the best groups of that time were Amnesiacs, Excaliber, Unix (later on Soulmates), Commerce College; Law College etc. I may have missed out on many other names but trust me thatz because of amnesia that have set in over a period of time and also for not exercising the grey cells enough in my quest for minds over matter
Some of the names that stood out as brilliant quizzards were Reuben Choudhury, Sushil Dawka, Senjam Raj Selhar, Pritam Saikia, Ranjit Das, Subir Das, Miftauddin, Digambar Patowary, Rakesh Das, Sanjeev Sharma, Sujit Goswami, Niladri Bora, Saponti Baruah, Abhra Das, Gaurav Goswami, Gopu Da and yours truly.
Some of the best quizzes were the Pankaj Sharma Memorial Quiz, The Tea Center Quiz, The North Star Quiz, The Abhiruchi Quiz, The Exploreres Quiz etc etc. Again amnesia at work and I may have missed out on many other names.
As my first ever blog I have sort of taken a nostalgic trip down memory lane. I shall be blogging on lots of other quizing experiences and hopefully should be able to get in touch with all those whom I have met during those glorious quizzing days at least in the virtual world.
I also look forward to getting back to some serious quizzing and hope there is a quizzing club in Mumbai somewhere wherein on a sunday afternoon people who puts their minds over matter, meet up, and over beer, fish and chips also gets a generous dosage of quiz.
To me Minds Over Matter signified the enormous capacity of the human minds to come up with answers to seemingly impossible problems, shall I say queries or quiz questions, by working out an answer.
At QFG, some of the masters of this art form were guys like Senjam, Ranjit and many more. This blog is an attempt to revive the same people who came together one fine sunday afternoon to create one of the finest quizing group of this country and in the process created some of the best quizards that this nation has ever seen but who all remained unsung.
From late 1980s to mid 1990s Guwahati was the place for some great quizing action. Some of the best quiz masters of India like Derek O'Brian, Siddharth Basu and Joy Bhattacharya used to come on a regular basis and conduct quizzes.
Most of these quizzes were big ticket items and the competition was very very fierce. However, over a period of time some of the men stood out from the boys and continued to rule the roost for long periods.
Some of the best groups of that time were Amnesiacs, Excaliber, Unix (later on Soulmates), Commerce College; Law College etc. I may have missed out on many other names but trust me thatz because of amnesia that have set in over a period of time and also for not exercising the grey cells enough in my quest for minds over matter
Some of the names that stood out as brilliant quizzards were Reuben Choudhury, Sushil Dawka, Senjam Raj Selhar, Pritam Saikia, Ranjit Das, Subir Das, Miftauddin, Digambar Patowary, Rakesh Das, Sanjeev Sharma, Sujit Goswami, Niladri Bora, Saponti Baruah, Abhra Das, Gaurav Goswami, Gopu Da and yours truly.
Some of the best quizzes were the Pankaj Sharma Memorial Quiz, The Tea Center Quiz, The North Star Quiz, The Abhiruchi Quiz, The Exploreres Quiz etc etc. Again amnesia at work and I may have missed out on many other names.
As my first ever blog I have sort of taken a nostalgic trip down memory lane. I shall be blogging on lots of other quizing experiences and hopefully should be able to get in touch with all those whom I have met during those glorious quizzing days at least in the virtual world.
I also look forward to getting back to some serious quizzing and hope there is a quizzing club in Mumbai somewhere wherein on a sunday afternoon people who puts their minds over matter, meet up, and over beer, fish and chips also gets a generous dosage of quiz.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)