I have been an ‘expert’ on Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) for four years now, but I still get super-nervous every time we shoot. The stakes for the bright-eyed, super-smart contestants are so high that their tension becomes contagious—even people like me who have no skin in the game and stand to win not even one rupee, let alone one crore, get all hyped up and thumpy-hearted.
I could always decline the invite and spare myself the stress, but I have a soft spot for quizzing and quizzers. I first came across the word quizzical in some much-thumbed romance novel in my girls’ boarding school library when I was 14. The hero would ‘raise his eyebrows quizzically’ at the heroine or he would ‘shoot her a quizzical glance’. The quizzical glance usually preceded a passionate kiss, which left her ‘quivering’. I decided I liked the word and, as that was the year the inter-college quiz contest Quiz Time started beaming out on Doordarshan National, I developed (along with thousands of other teenage girls too snobbish to admit to finding either Anil Kapoor or Sylvester Stallone attractive) a massive crush on its intelligent, suavely styled host Siddhartha Basu. This swiftly led to more crushes—now on the boys who were contestants on his show!
Right about this time, the American film Revenge of the Nerds released and gave us Generation Xers a word to describe the introverted, mostly male, medical, engineering or history major types who love quizzing. (The film, in its turn, was inspired by a lifestyle magazine article titled ‘Revenge of the Nerds’, which described computer programmers gaining respect in Silicon Valley. And the word ‘nerd’ itself was pulled out of the ether by Dr. Seuss in his book, If I Ran The Zoo.)
The thing is that unlike in the US, nerdiness has always been cool in India—because it is linked to aspirations and upward mobility. Its noble goal is breaking free of poverty. This is why Kota Factory and 12th Fail are loved as much, if not more, than Dangal and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Because intelligence can get us out of our gutters, we respect it by day, even though we swing to moronic item numbers by night.
It is the reason why KBC has done 16 seasons. Besides, it is not just about the money. It is also about knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Becoming smarter. More informed. And, finally, it is also about the sweet thrill of getting an answer right. The dopamine hit that delivers can’t be gotten out of a bottle, or at the end of a vape stick. Because KBC is a clean hit. Without the cut-throaty nastiness of a Roadies or the voyeurism of a Bigg Boss (both of which have done over 20 seasons).
Watching it together is a family ritual. It is cliff-hanger entertainment sure, but it’s also super-sanskaari. In our polluted, troubled world, it is encouraging that KBC continues to run, and run successfully. Another encouraging trend is that children across India, jaded by video games, dating apps and nightclubs, now seem to be hunting for clean, offline ways in which to meet and interact. Karaoke, cooking, travel, pickleball, chess, frisbee—and quizzing. Trivia nights are proliferating in nightclubs across Bengaluru, giving our bright young nerds (who would never stand a chance on, say, a crowded dance floor) a spotlight to shine and socialise under. For older people, quizzing is a sort of cerebral spring-cleaning. It prompts your brain to go rummaging in boxes it hasn’t opened in a long time, and helps long disused neural pathways to light up again. To mangle Olivia Newton-John’s immortal lyrics—‘Let’s get quizzical’.
editor@theweek.in