‘All well?’ asks a member of the organizing team. ‘Perfect’ replies quizmaster Pickbrain barely seconds after the national finals of India’s biggest business quiz. The answer to me summarised the 19 city journey, the intensely fought regional rounds and the mega final.
The evening at the Crystal Ballroom of the Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai belonged to some outstanding quizzing, the levels of research setting a new benchmark for teams from across the nation to brace with as TCS Chennai represented by Jayakanthan / Sreekanth and Accenture with Rohan Khanna and Anish Raju earning the right to be called the nation’s best business quizzing teams for 2011.
Tata Track Finalists
- TCS Mumbai: Aniruddha Dutta and Priyambad
- Tata Elxsi Bangalore : Ajay Rao and Anuroop
- TCS Delhi : Anurag Krishna and Debabratta Mallick
- Tata Chemicals Pune : Chintan and Ravi
- TCS Chennai : Sreekanth and Jayakanthan
- Tata Steel Jamshedpur : Siddharth Mishra and Amit Agrawal
- mJuntion Kolkata : Debashish Mukherjee and Rajiv Chatterjee
- TCS Lucknow : Sudipt Tewari and Abhishek Puri
Non Tata Track Finalists
- Caterpillar : Balaji and Arun
- Accenture : Rohan Khanna and Anish Raju
- ITC : Abhijit and Tanmay
- Savoir Faire : Harsh and Rajiv D Silva
- Triton : Mahesh and Mayur Rana
- Deutsche Bank : Rajiv Rai and Uttam Rao
- Malayala Manorama : Arun Thomas and Ranjit Wilson
- Armed Forces Medical Services: Dr.Bhattacharya and Dr.Anuraksat Gupta
In the Tata track of the quiz Jayakanthan and Sreekanth of TCS had to battle tough counters from TCS Mumbai, Delhi and a spirited young duo from Tata Elxsi Bangalore before clinching the title while in the non Tata track, 2010 champions Savior Faire started in style putting pressure on all the teams setting the tone for a cracker of a final. A riveting battle that followed saw some extraordinary quizzing with a flawless Accenture duo after six rounds of quizzing taking the crown ahead of Savoir Faire and the Armed Forces Medical Services.
The guest of honour Mr.Prasad Menon the former MD of Tata Power and Tata Chemicals congratulated the young corporates and while underlining the importance for learning said “I always tell youngsters to forget about their careers for the first 10 years and just learn as much as you can, success will fall in place”