Smartacus Senior: The Return of Dr. Navin Jayakumar to Offline Quizzing 

In Chennai, from 1994 to 2019, Independence Day was synonymous with Landmark Quiz and its superstar Quizmaster, Dr. Navin Jayakumar. Thousands of people would participate in Preliminary Round of Landmark quiz, and a majority of them would stay back for the Finale to witness the magic of creative quizzing crafted by none other than the superstar himself. 

In a tête-à-tête with Aishwarya Bhargav, Dr. Navin Jayakumar talks about his journey as a quizmaster and Smartacus Senior, the open quiz for adults that will be hosted on August 14, from 2PM at the Chinmaya Heritage Centre, Chennai. You can register for the quiz here.  

'Dr. Navin Jayakumar' is a household name across India. Many of today's prolific quizmasters are your protégés. Tell us about your journey as a quizmaster. 
Generally, quizzers become quizmasters. But, I started as a quizmaster when I was studying in Madras Medical College. My senior asked me to prepare questions for a quiz and present it to the participants. This was my very first quiz as quizmaster. Later, I conducted the quiz at the Madras Book Fair, which was noticed by the famed historian S. Muthiah. He asked me to compere the Madras Quiz commemorating 350 years of the founding of Madras (now Chennai). This was the first quiz I was paid for! 

Independence Day in Chennai, particularly among Gen Y, was associated with the Landmark Quiz. People used to queue up on Cathedral Road to get a seat in the auditorium. The foyer and parking lot would teem with people hoping to get a seat in the auditorium. How did this happen? 
In 1987, I started a quiz group in Chennai called ‘Quiz Foundation’. Around the same time, Hemu Ramaiah started the Landmark Bookstore in Chennai. In 1948, we wanted to celebrate the first anniversary of Quiz Foundation. It was decided that we would conduct a quiz commemorating the first anniversary of Landmark and Quiz Foundation. Interestingly, this was not conducted on Independence Day but sometime in November. In 1994, we decided to conduct a quiz every year and selected August 15 to be the date.  

In 2009, when the national anthem played at the start of the event, audience were sure that at least one question would be based on the anthem (and rightly so). The excitement was evident when the question came up. How do you keep the audience glued to their seats? 
The packed auditorium with me coming on stage and asking people to rise for the national anthem became a ritual. I didn’t realise it, but Samanth Subramaniam, an avid quizzer, told me that Landmark Quiz was a part of the school and college lives of several students. There was an edition when 900+ teams participated and only 8 teams made it to the Finale. The remaining 892+ teams sat and watched the finale, and many came back the next year. The key to this lies in giving the audience something to look forward to. Be it an interesting question or an interesting answer, we need to strike a chord with the audience and keep them in mind when setting a question. That’s the secret of Landmark’s success! 

How does it feel to be back on stage after a 3-year-long break from offline quizzing? 
You have to ask me how I feel after the quiz is over, but anticipating it is one of my biggest thrills. Currently, I am preparing the questions and the slides. It is like mixing the paints, scrubbing the canvas and so on. The quiz is the painting that people interact with. When I present the questions on stage, the questions come to life and magic happens. The quiz comes to life when it is running, and I look forward to that!  

What was your favourite quiz moment? 
I was once conducting a quiz in Bengaluru and asked a question about an initiative on CPR (Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation). Humming the song ‘Another one bites the dust’ by Queen helps the CPR responder get the chest compressions correct as the beats in the song are similar to that of the human heart. As the song was playing, I remembered that the person who started this CPR initiative in Bengaluru, was Dr. Murali, and recalled that I knew a Dr. Murali who was an avid quizzer. After confirming with another participant that the person who helmed the initiative and the quizzer were one and the very same person, I announced it to the audience. To my surprise, Dr. Murali was seated in the audience! 

You've often mentioned that your style of presenting questions has changed drastically over decades. Could you tell us a bit about how and why it changed? 
In the 1980s and 1990s, in the very first editions of Landmark Quiz, I had to rely on newspapers and books. We didn’t have many pictures either. If we needed to present a visual question, we would have to take a photograph from a book after masking certain areas. That was difficult! The questions then were very short as I could only quiz the audience based on the information I had at hand.  

Nowadays, that isn’t the case. I can access information about anything within minutes at my fingertips. I can view videos, see pictures and prepare questions more easily. Therefore, the format of questions has also evolved with time. 

The likes and interests of the audience have changed over time. What are some of the expectations the audience of today have, which were not common in the yesteryears? 
One has to keep up with the times. The quizzers of today have anime, video, e-sports and other areas of interest. I need to prepare questions to cater to multiple generations of quizzers, including my contemporaries. Also, while some questions are timeless, others become dated and change with time. I need to ensure that the questions are relevant, updates and interesting for the audience of today. 

Often the process of making a quiz (including the compilation and presentation) is tougher than participating in one. How do you prepare for a quiz? 
I generally make a list of eight topics: History, Geography, Science, Sports, Literature, Arts and Entertainment, Culture and, Lifestyle, and ensure that there is an even distribution of questions among these eight topics. I also build in multiple clues into the question to help participants deduce the answer. I am a curious cat which goes and digs into things to extract facts and build questions for my audience. 

What tip or advice would you give for budding quizzers participating in Smartacus Senior? 
Quoting legendary quizmaster Neil O’Brien, I suggest that quizzers adopt the 3R’s: Read, Record and Recall to hone their quizzing skills. You might read something today, but unless you cement it into your long-term memory by recording it in a notebook or on an app, and recalling it before a quiz, the information you read will not come in handy, unless you have a very strong memory.