The Girl That Was : Deboleena

Deboleena recently gave me a slamsheet to fill. She's not one for slamsheets, she is one for the blogosphere.

Deboleena. The first time I saw her name was among the topper's list. And that is where Deboleena belonged - among the stars, not for those on the Earth (poor little creatures like me). The next time I noticed her, she was out jutting answers in the JSTSE extra classes (this was the class when I too was feeling like I actually knew things). I don't know when actually we became friends, but I know that we struck it immediately - the Bong Connection actually works, people. I still envy her for all the lovely tiffin boxes that she used to get - non-veg biryanis and all. The guys in the NTSE class started linking us and there was this playful awkwardness from both of us. And then one day, Deboleena came and said "Subhashish, I really like you." I tried to act as if it surprised me, but it really didn't. When your peer group puts that kind of pressure on you, you tend to expect these things. I really don't know if she felt it. I really behaved as if I didn't like her, and maybe this was why she said two minutes later "No, I used to like him." I don't want to think about it anymore and I'm sure neither does she. It was very difficult to being great friends again, but I guess now we are thick as thieves again.

This is one person in the ENTIRE DPS, R K Puram whom I agree is more intelligent than me. She can do great wonders in whatever she does. She is THE person whom I expect to surely get into IIT. I believe in what Deboleena stands for. I believe in the purity of her heart. And I believe that this girl is going to do great wonders in life.

Rating the Contests

Now that my inter-school events are over, this is the time for me to look back and evaluate all the events that I have been to :

(1) The ARTHSHNAMA - Modern School, Barakhamba Road
Strengths - Good refreshments, Well Organised, Reputed judges
Weaknesses - Terrible Quiz, Sketchy judging
Rating - Six on Ten

(2) The ECONOMITE - Modern School, Modern School
Strengths - Good events
Weaknesses - Terrible Quiz, Unfair topics for Ads Act
Rating - Four on Ten

(3) The MATRIX - ECOMMBUZZ SYMPOSIUM - Mount St. Mary's School
Strengths - Very grandly organised
Weaknesses - Very sketchy judging
Rating - Eight on Ten

(4) The COLUMBAN OPEN QUIZ - St. Columba's School
Strengths - A legend continued ...
Weaknesses - The quarters and semis were not balanced
Rating - Seven on Ten

(5) The Fest at DPS, Mathura Road
Strengths - A very big event
Weaknesses - Pathetic Judging
Rating - Three on Ten

(6) CONFLUX - St. Columba's School
Strengths - Good topics for symposium
Weaknesses - Interjectors allowed to sit with teams
Rating - Four on Ten

(7) The HERITAGE INDIA QUIZ - CBSE
Strengths - Good questions, good quizmaster
Weaknesses - Teams that got eliminated in zonals were not that good
Rating - Ten on Ten

(8) SOCIAL SCIENCE QUIZ - Vasant Valley School
Strengths - Amusing prelims
Weaknesses - The only quiz I'm sure was rigged
Rating - Two on Ten

Shubham: The Best There Was, The Best There Is and the Second-Best There Will Ever Be

DPS, R. K. Puram is pejoratively known as a factory. I believe that is because we churn out excellence in such numbers that it is difficult for others to keep track. In other schools, the same guy who goes for a quiz will go for a debate and so on; but in DPS, R. K. Puram, most of those on top are specialized guys. Akshay Kohli can’t do what Shreshth Singhal can and vice-versa. So, it really becomes very difficult to find out one guy and say “Oh, he’s the star of this batch.” But I have an answer. Shubham Prakhar.

When I think of all that could have been, I think of people whose lives were directly affected by Shubham’s ICG triumph. First on the list is, of course, Shubham Prakhar himself. Imagine, Shubham keeps on winning quizzes, but he really would not have come to DPS, R. K. Puram and he would have been quite a different person then. His three years in the hostel is a feat I stand up and solute. I used to be envious of all the attention that got him from the teachers, but I now fully understand and I am quite ashamed of my thoughts earlier.

The next on the list is yours truly. Before Shubham came, I was your regular curriculum-obsessed nerd. I took the Olympiads often but I never got a rank. I took part in debates and all, but I performed miserably. And quizzing was the last thing I did on the face of Earth. I was a typical wannabe. I had the ambition, but it was all a juvenile thing. And then that day – April 2, 2005. Shubham Prakhar entered the class and my juvenile attempts became ambitions. I worked very hard for JSTSE. Though I didn’t qualify (no one till date can explain that), I churned out top-50 ranks in all national Olympiads (school rank 1 or 2 mostly). I was initiated into quizzing (which I really developed in class 11) and I got this very new confidence. Me and Shubham have the most interesting rivalry this school might have ever seen. These complex emotions don’t really come easily.

And then there were a lot more. I myself spread the benefits I received to others. Kritika Bajaj is an example. Whatever I took from Shubham I gave to Kritika. And in this way, Shubham Prakhar is the true Godfather of this batch of DPS, R. K. Puram because his presence created many many new talents. In a way, a lot of us came from Shubham’s ICG win.
Me and Shubham lost the Heritage India Quiz today in the pre-finals. I thought that me and Shubham were the best team possible. Not arrogance, but a reality. We were the only competition that each of us had in history. But we lost. Actually, it was a very good experience for me. All teams in the national pre-finals were so damn good that it was all left to luck. Luck did not favour us today, but let me assure you that a person of Shubham’s brilliance is bigger than such quizzes. When I saw people come up to him and say “Hey, you are Shubham Prakhar, Mr. ICG, right?”, I no more felt jealous. I felt very very happy. My friend, my mentor, my guide Shubham Prakhar deserves all this and much more. Maybe what the Heritage Quiz did was break the ice between Shubham and I. We both had common ambitions and we gave our heart and soul for it. Shubham, let me assure you that our hardwork will never go waste. I felt very depressed after my JSTSE results. But as Tanya had told me then, the results of my hardwork will come. Sometime or the other. And it came next year for me when I qualified NTSE without having studied 25% of what I did for JSTSE. Destiny, my friend. We are destined.

A lot of people do not like Shubham. I believe they’re just plain jealous. You can be Asia’s Child Genius or anything, but you can never be Shubham Prakhar. You can defeat Shubham in a 1001 quizzes, but no one will ever remember you. Even the CBSE woman in the Heritage remembered Shubham by name. This Is what Shubham Prakhar stands for. So, all you whiners, go back and pour your jealousies out. Because Shubham Prakhar is infallible. He’s not King IC and not even close to that. But he’s bigger and better. I have had the privilege of sharing the stage with him several times. Truly, it was a privilege.

I know Shubham better than any of his friends. Because I have been his most spiteful enemy and his thickest of friends. Despite the frost in our relation, he (like a true pro) came to ask me for the Heritage Quiz. And that is why we got the highest marks in any zonal all over India. I believe not in winning, but in making a mark. And that we did.
Cheers!

After the Storm?

I have been online for over 10 hours now and I (obviously) have a splitting headache. I came online to study for the Heritage India quiz, but I haven't really been into it, though. I go to facebook, orkut, wikipedia, yahoo and then again after a half hour I go to facebook, orkut, wikipedia, yahoo. It is almost like an OCD problem. I must add that my preparation for the heritage is coming off just about fine. I wish I had a week now .... but I have half a day left and I am going to pack as much of a punch as I can. I am sorry if I disappoint you, Shubham Prakhar, but I tried as much as I could.

Life has been so dead ever since ECONORM got over. I have been chasing teachers for my foreign applications. I never wanted to go abroad. I just filled the SAT form because everyone did that and after that, I have been getting sucked into the quagmire. St.Stephen's is no more my goal ... it is either Harvard or St.Xavier's. Nevetheless, life has been very very listless of late. And I still repent something about Heritage ... really don't know what.

As I told my good friend yesterday, my life without studies is nothing. Have I been degrading into an aimless person? Maybe. I just don't study. Studies was perhaps the glue that held me together and now it is not there. Maybe that is the problem. Life used to be (ironically) so much fun earlier when I used to study. Now, it is very very dull.

So, I'll pick up the pieces and try to start studying. Classes 9th and 10th exhausted me, it seems. I just cannot do it anymore. But I will try, give it my best. True, everything that I could have worked for is over. But my life isn't. A new set of opportunities will arise. And I will rise with them.

Inquizition Prelims

Multiple-Choice Questions

Q1. The first school of economics in the modern world was led by Francois Quesnay, the writer of La Tableau Economique. How was this group of economists better known?
(a) The Laissez-Faire School (c) The French School
(b) The Physiocrats (d) The French Liberals

Q2. Ragnar Frisch was the first winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics. For his study in which field did he win the Nobel Prize?
(a) Microeconomic Models (c) Welfare Economics
(b) Global Currency (d) International Trade

Q3. The UBS is a financial institution belonging to which country?
(a) Sweden (c) Singapore
(b) Switzerland (d) Thailand (Siam)

Q4. India’s nuclear tests in the 1970s led to the formation of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. Which organization was formed due to the oil crisis of the 1970s?
(a) G8/G7 (c) WTO
(b) IMF (d) OPEC

Q5. Which car company manufactured the ‘Beetle’, the Peoples’ car, on orders by Adolf Hitler?
(a) Audi (c) Daimler (of Daimler-Chrysler)
(b) BMW (d) Volkswagen

Q6. The Titanic was the largest ship of its time. Which is currently the largest commercial passenger ship in the world?
(a) Queen Elizabeth (c) Queen Mary
(b) King James (d) King George

Q7. Which building houses the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE)?
(a) Firoze Jeejabhoy Towers (c) Naoroji House
(b) Mahindra House (d) J.D. Dalal Complex

Q8. WIPRO, one of India’s largest IT companies is also an FMCG player. With what business did WIPRO begin?
(a) Soaps and detergents (c) Vegetable Oils
(b) Fruit Juices (d) Hotels and Restaurants

Q9. The winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics teaches at which famous university?
(a) Harvard University (c)London School of Economics
(b) Columbia University (d) University of Pennsylvania

Q10. Karl Marx was expelled from Germany for his communist viewpoint. In which country did Karl Marx find shelter and write his Das Capital?
(a) United States of America (c) France
(b) Sweden (d) England

Q11. The rupee is the currency of India and Pakistan among several other South Asian countries. Of which country is the Rupiah the currency?
(a) Maldives (c) Indonesia
(b) Malaysia (d) East Timor

Q12. The world’s largest company, Exxon-Mobil was formed by the merger of Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp., both petrochem majors. Their common ancestor, The Standard Oil Company, was owned by the richest man of all times. Identify him.
(a) John D Rockfeller (c) William Douglas
(b) William Disraeli (d) John Stuart Mill

Q13. Who was the person with highest visibility, in terms of minutes, in television advertisements, as confirmed by a recent report?
(a) Shah Rukh Khan (c) Amitabh Bachhan
(b) Kareena Kapoor (d) Saif Ali Khan

Q14. With regard to Hollywood, which is the highest grossing film of all times (adjusted for inflation)?
(a) Gone with the Wind (c) Jurassic Park I
(b) The Godfather I (d) Ben Hur

Q15. With regard to which car did Henry Ford say “People can buy any colour as they wish to, as long as it is black” ?
(a) Ford Mustang Mach III (c) Ford Ikon
(b) Ford Indigo (d) Ford Model – T

Q16. Which of the following was not a part of the four pillars of Wall Street?
(a) Lehmann Brothers (c) Bank of America
(b) Morgan Stanley (d) Merrill Lynch

Q17. The first stocks in the world were issued for which company?
(a) The British East India Co. (c) The Dutch East India Co.
(b) The French East India Co. (d) The Portuguese East India Co.

Q18. Which is the only car to have briefly replaced a Maruti Suzuki car as the largest selling car in India ever since the Maruti 800 was introduced?
(a) Hyundai Santro (c) Tata Indica
(b) Daewoo Matiz (d) Chevrolet Spark

Q19. Who presented the first Budget of Independent India?
(a) Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru (c) Morarji Desai
(b) Shanmughan Chetty (d) Sardar Vallabhai Patel

Q20. To overcome the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced which policy?
(a) Fair Deal (c) New Deal
(b) Best Deal (d) Money Deal

Q21. In 1988, Ajjay B. joined his family business, the Amritsar Transport Corporation. Alongside ATC, his family ran another business, which was doing abysmally. Ajjay’s father gave him Rs.40 lakhs to turnaround the business, which he managed to do in two year’s time. To expand his business, he formed a JV with an Australian company. What was the name of the JV (give the full name)?

Q22. What connects the following CEOs – Time Taft of Pizza Inn, Eric Schmidt of Google and Steve Jobs of Apple?

Q23. An Indian product, whose, SI prefix meaning 109, a term coined by physist Richard Feynman. Name it.
Q24. Name of which business legend name means, “prosperous rice field” in the local language?
Q25. Who is the world’s first Chief Happiness Officer?
Q26. Ashok Todi, father-in-law of the hapless Rizwanur Rehman, owns this brand worth Rs.200 crore. Interestingly, Bengalis had voluntarily chosen to shun the product after Rizwanur’s death. Name the brand.
Q27. Which country’s central bank has misspelt the word “bank” on its new notes as “bankh”?
Q28. Who said this – “the five most dangerous words in business may be – everyone else is doing it”?
Q29. By what name is “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” now know?
Q30. X ($ infinite, 1600 plus yrs), Richie Rich ( $ 24.7 billion 12 yrs), Oliver Warbucks (10 billion, 57 yrs), Scrooge McDuck ($ 8.2 billion, 67 yrs), Thurston Howell III (8 billion, 45 yrs) are the five richest fictional characters of all time. Identify X.
Q31. Who is the lady who left her property of 5000 crore to her C.A?
Q32. There are many companies which love to hate Microsoft. The principal enemies of Microsoft are commonly referred to as NOISE (netscape, oracle, IBM, Sun Microsystems and E). What does E stand for?
Q33. What is the name of Walt Disney’s first animation film for the Indian market?
Q34. Name the first Indian woman to graduate from Harvard and the company headed by her.
Q35. What does “R” in Maruti Suzuki’s small car Wagon R stand for?
Q36. Which industrial house has pledged to maintain the Taj Mahal?
Q37. Who is the lifelong chairman of the institute on rural management, Anand?
Q38. Which famous economist who has produced pioneering studies on gender inequality, has always taken care to write “her” rather than “him” while referring to an abstract person?
Q39. Which was the first Indian company to ring the NASDAQ opening bell from India by a remote control?
Q40. What do you mean by ‘banglored’?

Scores of Top 6 teams:
19 - New Era Public Schools
18 - DPS, Vasant Kunj
17 - St.Columba's School
10.5 - DPS, NOIDA
10.5 - DPS, R K Puram
10 - Modern School, Barakhamba Road

The Solutions to the Inquizition Prelims

Multiple-Choice Questions
Ans1. (b) The Physiocrats
Ans2. (a) Microeconomic Models
Ans3. (b) Switzerland
Ans4. (a) G8
Ans5. (d) Volkswagen
Ans6. (c) Queen Mary
Ans7. (a) Firoze Jeejabhoy Towers
Ans8. (c) Vegetable Oils
Ans9. (b) Columbia University
Ans10. (d) England
Ans11. (c) Indonesia
Ans12. (a) John D Rockfeller
Ans13. (d) Saif Ali Khan
Ans14. (a) Gone With the Wind
Ans15. (d) Ford Model - T
Ans16. (c) Bank of America
Ans17. (c) The Dutch East India Co.
Ans18. (a) Hyundai Santro
Ans19. (b) Shanmughan Chetty
Ans20. (c) New Deal

Ans21. Priya Village Roadshow (PVR)
Ans22. Annual salaries of $1
Ans23. Nano
Ans24. Akio Morita
Ans25. Ronald McDonald
Ans26. Lux Cozi
Ans27. Kazakhastan
Ans28. Warren Buffet
Ans29. Yahoo
Ans30. Santa Claus
Ans31. Priyamvada Birla
Ans32. Everyone Else
Ans33. Roadside Romeo
Ans34. Naina Lal Kidwai of HSBC
Ans35. Recreation
Ans36. The Tatas
Ans37. Verghese Kurein
Ans38. Amartya Sen
Ans39. Infosys
Ans40. When a person loses his job when his job is outsourced

Why I HATE Kritika Bajaj and she hates me

I don't really think that this is as important as it was earlier. But since I said I'm going to clarify, so be it.

The background is like this : Since my bro had joined DPS, RKP in XI and he always said that it didn't help him a bit (except for the tag of a Dipsite), I decided that when the new batch of class XI students come in, I am going to show one of the students all that DPS, RKP has to offer. None of the newcomers of my section were interested.

But great things are pre-destined. When we were sitting in the quizzing SUPW, Rita Khanna divided the kids into groups of 3. And me and Kritika were the only ones left at the end. Since she was a girl, I told her "Alright, I'll make the quiz on sports and you do it on the other topic." But she went like "No, no. I'll do sports." That is Kritika for you. Absolutely stubborn. When the next tuesday came, she said "My throat is bad; you ask my questions." Typical Kritika. And one of her questions was wrong - her "legendary" experience with wrong questions had begun. But I still hadn't thought that this girl was the one I was going to help.

That moment came when the previous ECONOX came to me with a quiz and asked me who I wanted as a partner. They asked me "Do you know Kritika or Aditi?" But I was so exhilirated that I said no. While they were going, I told them "There is a Kritika in XI Q". Imagine, Aditi could well have been in Kritika's place today. But as I said before, these things are pre-destined. You get rewards for what you did before. So, me and Kritika went to ECONOMITE and we really performed beyond everyone's expectation. We came third and there was no prize for third. Another great of streaks had begun - our streak of coming third in quizzes that had no third prizes. After this, I decided that Kritika will be the one who would go with me to my ultimate fantasy - The Columban Open Quiz (the year before this, I had gone with ICG Shubham Prakhar and still not qualified. I wanted to go to the quarterfinals - me and Kritika decided that quarterfinals was our goal).

Next up was I guess the Japan Quiz. We missed qualification by a mark because of me. The MOD quiz was great. We came third in the prelims and somewhere lost the script in the finals. Ankita had joined out team by now. But we still needed a fourth person. But as soon as we came to Class XII, our luck dried up. We started losing (maybe it was because of the BAD eco quizzes). So, our team for eco quizzes dissolved and Kritika tried another unsuccessful pairing with Pranay. But we were still a Columban team. And we went to St.Columba's. And when we came second in the prelims to qualify for the quarterfinals, I had tears in my eyes. God knows how that moment is still one of the best of my life. I had redeemed the quizzer within me.

Kritika always blamed herself for being of no help in Columban. But maybe if ECONOMITE and the MOD quiz would not have happened, Columban might never have. I owe that to you, dumbo. Me and Kritika have a mentor-student and a mutual counsellor mix of relations. I guess she respects me (hope so, actually) and I am proud of her success in eco quizzes. I like people who grab opportunities and turn them into successes. Quizzing is much more difficult than the science talent searches that I topped my school in before that. And Kritika did that. We share a very deep bond and that is true. But maybe the world has become perverted to see everying in a bf-gf light. It doesn't really matter to me what people think. If its about being there for each other in crisis, we are there for each other. She still keeps on fighting with other school's kids in quizzes. I HATE that. And I HATE a lot of other things about her. She's not my perfect woman. Bipasha Basu is.

Coming Up : Kritika and I

A lot of people of late have been talking about Kritika and I. They ask me "Do you have a crush on Kritika or vice-versa?" They have talked behind our backs - "is there something between the two?"

Since it is very important to quash all these rumours, but I also belive in not writing more than one post per day, this should be the topic of my next post.

But just to give you guys a preview, there is nothing really going on between the two of us. We HATE each other. We keep on screaming at each other all the time on the phone. I tell her "why are you irritating me today?" and she goes like "Tu pagal hai kya? Tera dimaag kharab hai kya?"

Behind The Scenes at ECONORM 08

The ECONORM 08 was finally held on 10th Nov 08. Must say, the first half an hour was the worst period of my time. Sanskriti School was the first to arrive dot at 8:15 and we still were far from ready. By the time we wrapped up registration, two judges had still not arrived and when I reached up, i saw that they had begun the programme and I am like, "OMG, it has started!!"

I actually took the easier way out. I retreated from the AVH (left it to Nivedita) and sneaked into the Blossoms' Basement for the Inquizition and Brainstorming. These two events went off really well, but it was far from perfect. Brainstorming first. I really didn't spend much time here either. My trusted lieutenant, Sneha Chakravarthy, quite ably handled the entire event.

Meanwhile, I was with the quiz guys. After all, I am supposed to be a quizzing guy, ain't I? Anyways, in any eco quiz, 2-3 schools are always ahead of the pack. It was the same case here. New Era Public School topped the prelims with 19 points (out of 40), DPS, Vasant Kunj was second with 18 and St.Columba's third with 18. The problem was with the fourth team. DPS, R K Puram and DPS, NOIDA were tied at 10.5 and had the same scores in the tie-breaker criterion too. Initially, out of the 4 who were checking the papers, 3 were in favour of qualifying our own team. But the one gaddar, Kritika Bajaj, got three more people who favoured DPS, NOIDA and turned us into a minority. Actually, the DPS, NOIDA guys were amateur quizzers and Kritika really didn't want them to go disappointed. Thankfully, our own guys were gracious enough to understand.

But then "the controversy" happened. Modern School, Barakhamba Road came up to Kritika and claimed to have scored 11 and went on the accuse Kritika of taking out her personal grudges against them (these Modern, Bk. Rd. guys beat her in 2-3 quizzes that, in my very unbiased opinion, were a blot on the tradition of quizzing). Kritika, being the naive person that she is, entertained them by telling them where they went wrong. Those guys had written Birla instead of Priyamvada Birla and Recreated instead of Recreation (in Wagon R). We didn't give our own team a point for a mistake of $1, so why should we have given them points for 3 wrong alphabets? However, my co-president, Nivedita Singh, thought that bad blood won't really be good and we decided to hold a 5-question tie-breaker between Modern School, Barakhamba Road and DPS, NOIDA. And surprise, surprise!! Modern, Barakhamba Road scored 0 while DPS, NOIDA scored 2. You see, we don't need to take out our "personal grudges". Because we are very sure of who we are and what we want. We know that in a proper quiz (and not a joke of a quiz), we can beat any other team hands down. However, till the day the standard of eco quizzing rises, we'll be accused of "personal grudges". But we really don't blame the Modern, BK guys. When we had a problem with their quiz at ARTHNAMA and Kritika had gone ballistic, I had made Kritika apoligize because I wanted us to lose gracefully. but this chapter was closed, and closed definitely.

So, the final four teams took to the stage and we threw a lot of questions at them (you can contact me if you want the quiz questions, since many people actually want them). There was a problem in between, when New Era Public School claimed to have 5 more points than the scoreboard showed them to have. I told them to wait until the end of the quiz to clear all doubts. Well handled, I must say. Anyhow, the New Era Public school topped the finals too with I think 105-110 points. St.Columba's was second with 90 and DPS, Vasant Kunj was third with 70, I guess. The DPS, Vasant Kunj guy was supposed to be a big-shot quizzer and he was being too active on stage (interfering, I may add). He was laughed at by the audience a few times, but I felt sorry for having abetted that. I must apologise. I should not have been that rude.

The quiz was really the most acclaimed part of the ECONORM 08. The New Era and St.Columba's guy really praised it and so did Mr.Head Boy, Shubham Prakhar.

Now, once upon a time, another head boy, lets call him Mr.AJ, had told a lot of people that I would be a bad ECONOX President. Mr.AJ, as I told Nivedita Singh, it is not always about the brain and how well you plan and execute. Somewhere down the line, passion comes in. This is what I had and I had lots of it. And the success of the ECONORM proves it.

The Story Thus Far

Greetings ....

So, i must confess my inadequate skills at writing blogs and must apologize for it. But then, who cares? I don't.

To begin with, it feels nice to be THE Eco guy in school. Alright, it is common knowledge that no guy (maybe with the exception of Dibyojyoti Mainak) comes close to me as far as any kind of stature is concerned. There is a lot of power as the ECONOX President (maybe less only to the EXUN President) and since I know I'm the best guy in Eco, I really have no probs in sending myself for inter-schools.

Now what makes me really believe in myself is the fact that I am very comfortable in public speaking. Gone are the days when I would shiver on stage and then mess up my speech trying to cover it up. Now, I just go on the stage and have a ball. I love public speaking and I am so damn sure that had I really come of age maybe three years ago, I would have been on top of the debating circuit. But then, never mind. I'll manage with being the best symposium speaker as of now.

Quizzing ... hehehe. I took up quizzing because I had to prove things to my very dear friend, Shubham Prakhar. I would say that I've done well for myself considering that I have been quizzing only for three years now. Maybe if I had got more time to invest in building up a team, things may have been different. I must thank Shubham for sending me for all those quizzes that he sent me for. Maybe he wasn't really being magnanimous, just professional, when he did so. But I am like a hungry wolf; I leap at every opportunity that comes my way.

As for the curriculum, I must confess that I study, maybe 30% of what I used to do in Classes VIII and IX. But I still score higher than most people in class. I really can't help that I score. Don't think of me as a bookworm because of that. Please, I am anything but that. The point is, I LOATHE the CBSE exam system. Its a pointless system. Had talent really mattered, me and Shubham would have been topping nationally, no doubt. We're as good as they come.

Anyways, a lot of exciting things are coming. (1) A symposium at St. Columba's. I am looking forward to this one. I'm sure the competition will be tough . (2) A symposium at DPS Mathura Road. Half my team will be going to Sanskriti the same day. So, my cheering squad will be depleted. (3) The Heritage India Quiz. This is what I am looking forward to the most. After all, I love history.