Quiz by Ranga

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The quiz was titled Pilgrimage in Full Bloom and was held on Nov 27th. Funda.

Thanksgiving Day.

It is the day on which the Pilgrim Fathers landed in the New World (to be read as USA) sailing aboard the ship "Mayflower".
A stable manager, in Cambridge, England, used to rent out horses to undergraduate students. After students began requesting for particular horses again and again, he realized certain horses were being overworked. He decided to go in for a rotation system placing the well-rested horses near the stable door, and refused to let any horse except in its proper turn. Who was he?

Hobson from which we get the phrase Hobson's Choice.
Connect the 2 visuals to Iron Maiden's "Trooper" (I played the audio clip for this).

Charge of the Light Brigade.

The song Trooper is about the charge. Look up the lyrics. The 2 visuals show the balaclava and the cardigan (yes! Laetitia Casta would look much better without than with) - 2 words the charge gave to the English language.
This document has been traditionally associated with Saemund the Wise. It was presumed lost until 1643 when the then Bishop of Skalhot discovered a manuscript dating back to atleast the 13th century. Many of the verses within the book were written in Ijoahatr, a traditional form of alliterative verse. It currently resides at the Royal Library of Copenhagen and is contained within the Codec Regius. What it its?

Elder Adda, the inspiration behind the Lord of the Rings.
Freya, Tyr, Odin, ____. Complete.

Thor.

Names of the days are afte these gods.
Freya - Friday, Tyr - Tuesday, Odin - Wednesday, Thor - Thursday.
In stock market lingo, the Dollar and Pound combo were called Cable. Why?

The first stock transactions between USA and Britain happened over the trans-Atlantic cable.
Aaron is to cast lots over the two ____, one lot for the Lord and one lot for azazel. Aaron must then present the ____ which has been designated by lot for the Lord, and he is to make it a sin offering, but the ____ which has been designated by lot for the azazel is to be stood alive before the Lord to make atonement on it by sending away to azazel into the wilderness”.
- Leviticus 16:8-10
Funda.

The blank is goat. Azazel was misinterpreted to refer to Satan. Hence one of the goats was inferred to be a sacrificial offering. Hence we get the word "scapegoat".
One evening in 1980, Toru Iwatani wanted a pizza. So what happened?

The shape of the pizza gave him the idea for the design of Pacman.
In 1961, two Bell Labs chaps Link Rice and Jack Soderberg toured the USA talking to junta who were thinking about telephone access to computers. They asked about possible applications, and came up with some choices for a certain design feature that would only be used to access data. Then the 101 ESS was developed which was the first stored program controlled switching system (basically the 1st PBX). One of the 1st installations was at Mayo Clinic for which a chap called Don Macpherson was chosen. He contributed to the design feature in a unique way (visual connect q10 in ppt). What?

He started the use of # and called it "octathorpe". Octa because there were 8 vertices to the symbol and thorpe because he was an ardent member of the society of people campaigning for the return of the Olympic medals of Jim Thorpe (shown in the visual).
There was once an asura who suddenly got it into his mind that since he was the strongest being in the universe he deserved the most beautiful woman existing. So he goes to Shiva and demands Parvati's possession. This was utter stupidity. Shiva, the clever chap that he is, merely projected back at the asura a crystallization of his own insatiable desires. This new entity was far worse than anything the asura had imagined himself to be and had a devouring flame about it that kept thirsting for more. The asura got psyched and ran. The new demon chased him with the intent of eating him up, in the process devouring everything it came into contact with. Soon the asura repented his action and ran back to Shiva and seeked pardon. Shiva pardoned him but then this demon was still on his quest. So Shiva suggested to it that since there should be no more destruction, the best course of action was to... eat itself! It began to chomp away, beginning with his toes and working upward grimly. But it had to content itself at some point. Now, this is the legend according to many about the origin of what?

The drishtimukha (hung outside new houses to ward off the evil eye). The apparition couldnt eat beyond his neck and is therefore left with just the face. This face is representative of what would happen if a person has an excessive obsession for a thing.
Ashok Jain was the CEO of this company. One day, he was in Juhu beach and waiting in a queue for buying ice cream when the little girl in front of him asked the vendor “____ Ice Cream”. This inspired him to do what?

The girl asked for Cadbury's Icecream referring to the chocolate flavour. Being the CEO, he decided to start an icecream division in Cadbury's and that's how Dollops brand came about.
According to tradition, Hindu women are not supposed to keep their hair open. Why?

Representative of having being molested. Practice is supposed to have started with the Draupadi-Dushashana episode.
Legend has it that Day, a hard-driving, enthusiastic gambler and a lusty womanizer, didnt have much luck with the rather independent headman of a village, a Catholic whose name translates to “Favourite of the Mother” whose banana grove was the chosen site for his construction. It was then that Day's aide Thimmanna stepped in and promised to get a factory named after the headman if he would agree to the grove takeover. The headman agreed but Day didnt have money to pursue his dream. So he took the help of the Damarla brothers, the local nayaks of the Rajah of _____ and they wanted the settlement named after their father. Finally, the village was called _____, a factory construction possibly called _____, and its settlement called ______. What?

The Catholic was called Madha Rasa. The rajah ruled over neigbouring Arcot (I think). The nayak's father was a short chappie and was hence informally called Chinna Nayak. Coupling all of this, we get the names as Madarasa and Chinnapatnam, and thus ultimately Madras and Chennai.
MIRC Electronics was started in 1981 in Bombay by G.L.Mirchandani and V.J.Mansukhani. Its branch was set up in a locality near New Delhi in 1975 as a sister concern of Monica Electronics Ltd, which manufactured electronic watches and push-button dialers. Capitalizing on the Asian Games in 1982, MIRC started ...

The company was based in Okhla near Delhi. Okhla's name was actually New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA). So, the product was named ONIDA - its anagram.
According to one theory, the origin of this practice was to do with the power that Goddess Lakshmi favourable bestows. Since the practice was observed in not just the Hindu communities, a 2nd theory was then proposed. This was based on the observation that warriors in ancient Greece wore just one sandal, mainly for kicking purposes. What practice?

Entering a household left feet first.
X, a man of humble origin and very little English, was Congress CM in this state when Rajiv Gandhi 1st visited this capital, which was before his primeministership. To give Rajiv an impressive welcome, he brought a crowd of enthu supporters to the airport. Meanwhile, Rajiv, being an avid pilot, was in the co-pilot's seat. He was shocked to see airport safety codes violated by his own supporters who were jumping up and down with garlands and turmeric right on the tarmac. As he disembarked, he gave X such a thrashing that X was humiliated and started crying. The media of course captured this to good effect and plastered it all over the front page. Y, a passive spectator to the comedy, decided to cash in on this and started his campaign to “Restore ____ Pride”. His first argument was “The leader of 6 million ppl was publicly humiliated by a man whose sole claim to fame is that he is born to a certain woman and has managed to learn to fly a plane!” So well timed was his attack that within 3 months, his party became the 1st to defeat the Congress in the elections to the State assembly. Who was he?

N T Rama Rao.
The Maharajah of Kashmir imposed a ban on Europeans buying land in his kingdom. So what resulted?

Boat houses on the Dal Lake.
It is to the flow and ebb that ____ owes its name; for the stone was originally erected on the coast, a little less than 3 miles west of the mouth of the river Sarsuti, east of the golden fortress Baroi, which was traditionally associated with Lord Krishna. Each time when the moon rises and sets, the water of the ocean rises in the flood and covers the place. When the moon reaches the meridian of the noon and midnight, the water recedes in the ebb, and the place becomes visible again. Which place?

Somnath Temple (of Mahmud of Ghazni fame),
This word comes from the sanskrit word “kund” meaning a large bowl-shaped vessel, either countersunk or above the ground, as a permanent fixture or in a mobile form. “Kund” could be used to store water and grain, or as a havan kund, to contain a ritual fire. Another theory states that the word is derived from colloquial Pushtu or Persian, from “tata” meaning hot and “andar” meaning inside. What?

The word is Tandoor.
This was originally awarded to people of a proven calibre in a particular field. It was later revived in the 19th century at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University from where it spread to the US and UK. Thanks to the University of St. Andrews this was replaced by its counterpart. What?

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
X was a popular form of religious and spiritual education in the olden days where legends and myths were propagated to the massed. The layout of the church was such that the church hall was rather long but had narrower width. As a result, X was forced into a particular form from which we get a modern-day word. What?

X was story-telling and one popular method was to paint the stories on the walls of the church. Because of the layout of the church, people had to walk the entire length to read the story. So painters started painting sections of stories one on top of the other so that people could stay at one position and read the entire story going up. This gave rise to the "Nth height level of a structure" connotation for the word "story" which was then corrupted to "storey". (This could be the reason why Michealangelo's painting is on the ceiling of Sistine Chapel).
About 2 hrs north of Tokyo in the city of Nikko there is this Toushouguu Shrine. The shrine was built for Tokugawa Ieyasu after his death. It contains the tomb of Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate that lasted for over 250 years until 1867. The shrine is very famous for its colorful and brightly decorated buildings which are quite a-typical for Shinto shrines. On the outer side of the shrine, one would find this (refer visual). What?

They are popularly known by the moniker Gandhi's Three Monkeys. See Image
One sense of this word meant a sideshow performer who bites the heads off chickens or snakes. But the original word is a variant of a term of Low German/Dutch origin that dates in English to 1511. It is used by Shakespeare as well.
“Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd. And made the most notorious gecke and gull. That ere inuention plaid on?”
- Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

The word is Geek.

Quizclub

2004

Quiz by Ranga