Manjith K

At School:

Manjith, started off as a GK enthusiast mugging up capitals and currencies for scholarship exams at school. Regularly lost at school internals of the Maggi quiz (whose prizes included packs of noodles among other things :)) during his primary education at Presentation School. He later went on to represent Chinmaya Vidyalaya in the highly competitive Calicut quizzing scene. Bhavans(Roshith-Vijay), Silver Hills (Abid-Sankar/Shobith), KV(Atul-Rajath), St. Josephs(VR,Subin,Ravi) ruled the roost and the quizzers of that era frequently met each other at the Calicut Central Library. The Leo club’s school quiz conducted by Vinod was a sort of starting point in the major league. Lost the quiz handsomely, answering just 3-4 questions in the finals. The quiz was won by Praveen V R who teamed up with a "short guy" called Ravi Ananthan. Also met a spectacled guy named Atul V Nath who answered most questions on sports. The three years at high school were spent on quizzes, debates, extempores and even story writing contests (!). In quizzing, to borrow an expression from Arul Mani, “..the team was serially raped” by several others.

At Devagiri:

As a Pre Degree student at Devagiri College, found himself sharing a bench with Ravi. English lectures were spent on quiz series. VR chipped in from the neighboring bench, on the rare occasions he attended the class :D.
Attending a “UN Day” quiz, done by Anjay M A and Rajmohan for the Lions’ club, triggered a huge change in his concept of quizzing. Got chucked out in the prelims. But the tryst with trivia gave a new impetus to preparations. Topped the college team selections in second year of PDC and went on to become the last winner of Calicut university Inter-zone quiz for the Pre-Degree category (+2 replaced PDC that year). Qualified for Ragam finals in the company of Praveen VR, that year (a first year attempt had ended with a prelims score of 4 :( ).

At REC Calicut and beyond:

At REC Calicut, Manjith teamed up with VR and won “Ragam” in his first year, edging past IIMK and Suraj-Dantes, the then, college team. The team did not attend any inter-collegiate quizzes for a year. They made a good entry in an Abraham Joseph quiz at College of Engineering, Munnar.

At Munnar, the newcomers were invited to attend a quiz at CUSAT the next day, where they finished second on tie-breaks to Lloyd’s team. The event was conducted by Devadas Krishnan and was a huge confidence booster for the duo. They came back to CUSAT, a week later to win against Lloyd-Anand in the Talentime quiz by Anil Raghavan. The three quizzes in a week’s span gave them the much needed start in the Kerala quizzing scene.

A trip to RVCE Bangalore’s quizfest and IIT Madras Saarang inspired all the NITCians to start a quiz club called “Enquire”. The very next year, Enquire started off “Crossroads”, probably the first full fledged quiz fest in Kerala, with generous support from the college union. The NITC team also appeared on "University Challenge", the BBC World quiz show conducted by Siddartha Basu. The successes of that period greatly improved the enthusiasm and support of students and faculty in the college towards quizzing.

Along with Praveen, he had several good visits to Thrissur, winning a few events conducted by Dr. Kishore. NIT Surathkal was another great venue for the team. The team's best achievement would be winning Ragam four times in a row, in great match ups every time.

Manjith exited the Kerala quizzing scene after winning the Manorama Trophy in 2006, a few days before joining a new job at Bangalore. At Bangalore, shared a room with UC partners and close friends (Praveen, Atul, Vipin) which ensured that he continued to quiz regularly. Except the occasional finals appearance, nothing spectacular was achieved :)
In Sept 2006, he left for the US to do his masters course. He is currently an “online quizzer” and overseas member of the “Greycells” team.

Manjith, proudly states that most of his closest buddies have been quizzers. His interest in various fields like Literature, History, Movies, Sports etc have benefited greatly from his quizzing experience. The travelling part associated with quizzing has contributed several enjoyable moments in college, be it the train journeys to Thrissur,beeches of Surathkal or the Taj Mahal in Agra. The organisational experience from quizzes has also been immense.

Partners:

Praveen V R, Atul V Nath, Vipin S Nair, Ravi Ananthan. (Roshith, Abid et al have also been partners on rare occasions)

Achievements:

1. Winner, Ragam, 2001.(QM: Anjay-Anoop Kosi. 2nd : IIMK)
2. Winner, Ragam, 2002-’03.(QM: Anjay. 2nd : Mukund, NIT Surathkal)
3. Winner, Ragam, 2004.(QM Rajmohan. 2nd : Abid-Kevin, NITC )
4. Winner, Ragam 2005.(QM: Nagesh. 2nd Vijaykrishnan, JIPMER)
5. Winner, Manorama Trophy, 2006.(QM: Rekha Menon)
6. Winner, KRL 2005. (QM: Abraham Joseph)
7. Winner, Baselius College quiz at Kottayam. (QM: Promoth George), 2004.
8. Winner, Baselius College quiz at Kottayam. (QM: Promoth George), 2005
9. Winner Quien-Sabe, 2005. (QM: Dr. Kishore Chandran)
10. Winner, General Quiz at “Incidents”, cultural fest of NIT, Surathkal, 2003. (Partners: VR and Atul)
11. Winner, Lonewolf quiz at “Incidents”, cultural fest of NIT Surathkal.
12. Winner, Backwaters, general quiz at IIM Kozhikode.
13. Winner, Renaissance 2005 (MCA Dept.) at GEC Thrissur. (QM: Rajesh Mohan)
14. Winner, Science quiz at “Under the Peepal Tree”, 2004.(Partners: VR and Atul)
15. Winner, Sports quiz at the inaugural “Crossroads”, fest of NIT Calicut. (QM: Dr. Kishore Chandran, Partners: Atul and Vipin)
16. Winner, SBT Intel-Teens (Zonals) in 2003.(Did not attend state finals)
17. Winner, SBT Intel-Teens (District) in 2004. (Lost zonals to Sarin-Rejith. Partner: Abid E H)
18. Winner, SBT Intel-Teens (District) in 2002. (Lost zonals to Vaidyanathan-Ghevarghese of GEC,Thrissur).
19. Winner, “Resonance” quiz at GEC Thrissur, 2004. (QM: Dr. Kishore Chandran)
20. Winner, “(?)” quiz at GEC Thrissur, 2004 (QM: ?)
21. Winner, Quiz at Thavanur Agricultural Engineering College, 200? (QM: Devadas Krishnan)
22. Winner, “Talentime”, 2002. (QM: Anil Raghavan)
23. Winner, Quiz at College of Engineering, Munnar, 2002. (QM: Abraham Joseph)
24. Winner, Calicut University Inter-zone youth festival 2002-’03. (QM: Abraham Joseph)
25. Winner, Inter-Collegiate quiz conducted for the Devagiri Trophy, 2003-04 (QM: Nagesh Sir).
26. Winner, UN Day Lions Quiz, 2003, Calicut.
27. Runner Up, Quintessence Quiz at GEC Thrissur. (QM: Promoth George, Partner: Roshith Mohan, 1st: Abid and Kevin Thomas)
28. Runner Up, General quiz at School of Naval Architecture, CUSAT. (QM: Devadas Krishnan, 1st Lloyd Colopilly and Anand P K)
29. Runner Up, Science quiz at “Under the Peepal Tree”, 2002.(Partner: VR)

30. Runner Up, General quiz at "Euphoria", festival organised by Calicut Medical College. (QM: Anjay-Rajmohan. 1st: Kishore Chandran- Anoop Kosi)
31. Winner Ramesh Memorial Quiz, 2001-02, 04. (This was NITC’s internal quiz. Still close to the heart, because of great competitions with the likes of Hari-Issac, Ravi-Roshith, Atul-. Vipin and Abid. Also turned up as QM for the quiz in two years. (QM: Suraj-Zerin (2001-02), Anjay-Manjith(2003), Kishore Chandran(2004) and Manjith (2005)).
32. Finalist, IIT Madras Sports Quiz (2003,2005). Partners: VR and Atul.

33. Participant, University Challenge 2005. Partners: Atul, Praveen VR, Vipin. Lost to MDI Gurgaon in round 1 and IIM Calcutta in round 2.