A list of puzzling questions
Editor’s note: Every Tuesday, we feature three questions from our quiz master Shantanu Sharma—who is a researcher-writer and has a side hustle as a professional quiz guru. He’d love to hear from you—so send your feedback/suggestions or just say ‘hi’ over at sharmashantanu312@gmail.com or @shantorasbox on Twitter.
How this works: Every correct answer is worth 10 points. If a question has multiple parts, each is worth 5 points. You have until Friday 12 pm to send in your answers to talktous@splainer.in or via DMs on Insta or Twitter. The correct answers will be published every Tuesday—as will the monthly leaderboard. The grand prize for the winner at the end of the month: a quarterly subscription for anyone of your choice—including the option of adding three months to your sub. That’s Rs 899 in value—so it’s pretty darn good:) Rule to note: this is all about who sends in the correct answers first.
The answers: to the previous week’s quiz are at the bottom.
One: The trophy in the photo below is awarded to the top recipient in the world of entertainment at a popular event—in a city that suffers no shortage of water. Its better-known counterpart is held at a Mediterranean resort. Name the second, counterpart award.
Two: The image below was a simple out-of-office message sent by the founders of a company—to mark their absence because they’d be off attending an annual festival. The tradition has since morphed into a daily visual celebration of icons, milestones, historical events, and culture. Each image is picked by a team that receives around 7,000 submissions each year. And most of us cannot but see them every day.
Three: This man (in the photo below) played a pivotal role in negotiating an end to a war. When named for a prestigious award for his efforts, he declined because he objected to the man who was named as the winner along with him. Who was this objectionable person?
About last week’s quiz…
Here are the answers to the third edition of the splainer quiz:
One: Which two productions from the same network drew inspiration from the work of the two author-journalists shown below. The title names of the productions are nearly a decade apart. If you get one, you can’t miss the other. (5 points each)
Answer: ‘Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story’ and ‘Scam 2003: The Telgi Story’.
SonyLIV’s Scam 1992 is inspired from the events mentioned in the book ‘The Scam: Who Won, Who Lost, Who Got Away’, written by Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu. Scam 2003 is based on ‘Telgi: Ek Reporter Ki Diary’ by Sanjay Singh.
Two: ‘Good Ol’’ & ‘Lost and Found’ were two of the rejected names for this product that does not merely quench thirst but also evokes childhood nostalgia—monsoon memories of those pre-internet days.
Answer: Paper Boat
Hector Beverages Pvt. Ltd, the company that makes traditional drinks under the brand finalised on the name Paper Boat, in collaboration with strategic design and brand consultancy Elephant Design. Mixing nostalgia with innovative packaging, the founders started with two flavours—Jaljeera and Aam Panna. They offer a range of flavours and snack items today.
Three: Think laterally and connect these three very different images to arrive at one of the most beloved literary figures of our time.
A popular arcade game:
The object that triggered the space race between the US and USSR:
A 20th century author whose surreal work combined absurdism, fantasy and realism.
Answer: Haruki Murakami
The subjects in the three images are part of Murakam’s novel titles—‘Pinball, 1973’ (1980), ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’ (1999) and ‘Kafka on the Shore’ (2002). No cats were harmed in the making of this question!
And the winners are…
Here are the top five scorers for the first week of December. Congratulations!
