I call it an experience: Ramu

"My confidence was moulded when I studied at the Magic Academy" Ramu Bhattathiri, winner of The Hindu Young World Quiz writes


The day is October the 26th of 2009.It was the day slated for the prestigious Trivandrum leg of The Hindu Young World Quiz 2009. The venue was Tagore Theatre. The first level to cross for me and my teammmate, Nicole Noyal Thomas, was the inquisitive and intriguing preliminary round to select the best six of the region. As 25 questions came to us in quick succession, we stood firm and gave the answers, based on what we knew the best. We were strong believers of the fact that, we should never give up until and unless we are forced to. The discussion of the answers to the prelims made us more and more confident and almost made us sure that we were among those 6 best teams of this region. A long wait and then it was time, as the Quiz Master, Mr.V.V.Ramanan, called upon the best six in ascending order of their points in the preliminary round of selections. Then he called, as the third best scorers in the prelims, from St.Thomas Central School, Nicole Noyal Thomas and Ramu N.Bhattathiri. We sat on the fourth table and were praying and praying to God.

The final began. In the first round, we disappointed. We had a big zero on our score sheets. Second round passed and we were off the mark, with 5 points. But the next round, the Audio-Visual round proved to be immensely crucial for us. After the round, we were leading and that too with 95 points. A single round gave us 90 points. The rounds continued. When the last round began, we were at 115 points. The team following us had 98 points. This was really the test for our grey cells. That turned out to be the buzzer round, which had seven questions. In that round all the teams had 35 points to win and 35 points to lose.+5 points for a correct answer and -5 for a wrong one. The first two questions were answered by the teams placed fourth and fifth. The third question was wrongly answered by the 2nd placed team. That meant negative 5 points for them. They then had 93 and we had 115 points. At that moment, we sensed that there was never any other chance for them to cross our points, even if they answered correctly all the remaining questions. So we thought, why should we go for the buzzer and dig holes for ourselves. We kept calm and cool, and rested in first position.

Winners, Nicole Noyel Thomas (right) and Ramu Bhattathiri with celebrity guest, M. Jayachandran.

The most important thing that I had on stage for the finals was confidence. My confidence was moulded when I studied at the Magic Academy. The classes at the Academy for building confidence helped me immensely and taught me how to remain calm and cool in times of apprehension and pressure. So, the victory that Nicole and I got has a huge part played well by the Academy for boosting up my confidence.