A list of puzzling questions
Editor’s note: Every week, 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. 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:)
The answers to the previous week’s quiz are at the bottom—as are the winners for the month of May.
One: Identify the object that has replaced the torch in Lady Liberty's hand in this clever print advertisement placed in a US newspaper recently.
Two: Connect the following elements to arrive at an empowering story recently depicted on celluloid.
(a) Man with ‘wings of fire’.
(b) A company working towards creating job opportunities for millions of people with special needs.
(c) One of the top business schools in the world.
Three: What one-word suffix links the three images, with the last phrase being the talk of the town this week?
About last week’s quiz…
Here are the answers to the third edition of the splainer quiz:
One: Which two-word phrase connects a recent groundbreaking achievement of an Indian with the motorsport depicted below?
Answer: Grand Prix
Grand Prix means “grand prize” in French.
Payal Kapadia’s film ‘All We Imagine as Light’ made history for Indian cinema by winning the Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. FTII alumnus Payal gained international acclaim with her documentary ‘A Night of Knowing Nothing’, which won the Golden Eye award at Cannes in 2021. Even if you are not a Formula 1 fan, you might know that each race in the world’s most prestigious motor racing competition is known as a Grand Prix. The 2024 season will set a record with 24 Grand Prix events. Here is the calendar.
Two: Think laterally to find a furry connection among the elements below:
(a) Probable cause of a recent mid-flight incident
(b) Screengrab from an OTT series set in Punjab
(c) Nope, this is not a JCB
Answer: CAT
The three elements are Clear Air Turbulence (CAT), the 2022 Netflix series ‘CAT’, and the construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. also known as CAT.
According to some experts, the Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight SQ321 encountered clear air turbulence (CAT), en route to Singapore from London last week. It happens in jet streams, where layers of air at different speeds and temperatures cause friction and disturbances. The Netflix series ‘CAT’ (2022) centres around police informer Gurnaam Singh (played by Randeep Hooda). It takes its name from the Punjab Police’s practice of using informants, known as 'Cats,' to infiltrate militant networks and combat terrorism. In March 1905, while testing a track-type tractor, photographer Charlie Clements noticed its tracks undulating like a caterpillar and exclaimed it looked like a "Caterpillar." The name was registered in 1910, and after Benjamin Holt merged with CL Best in 1925, they formed what is now known as Caterpillar Inc., popularly CAT. FYI: We have a Big Story on how CAT is going to be extremely frequent thanks to global warming—which will affect almost every aspect of air travel.
Three: How does this sartorial choice by a supermodel express solidarity with her heritage? (No points for recognizing her, alas!)
Answer: Keffiyeh Dress
This is Bella Hadid proudly flaunting her Palestinian roots dressed in a red and white vintage dress made of keffiyehs while walking the streets of Cannes in search of ice cream. As a half-Palestinian, (her Instagram bio reads “Palestinian and Dutch”), she wrote a powerful post breaking her silence on the Israel-Palestine war last year. The keffiyeh is a traditional Arab headdress made of cotton with woven patterns. It became a symbol of Palestinian nationalism in the 1960s, especially due to leaders like Yasser Arafat.
And the super quizzers for May are…
How we picked winners: This month, we moved to our new system which involves a lucky draw among those with the most correct answers—involving two dogs—none of whom proved to be a gentleman. We have results and a vid of the (fairly) chaotic judging ceremony below. TBH, we’ll be drawing from a box next time to preserve our sanity:)
Here is the leaderboard at the end of May. Congratulations to the lucky three for acing the splainer quiz! We will be emailing you soon with details of your prize—a quarterly splainer sub!
