INTACH quiz spans 110 cities; Delhi girl duo crowned champs

Seeking to instill love and respect for country's cultural legacy, INTACH has taken its second edition of the annual heritage quiz for schoolchildren to nearly 110 cities now, with the Delhi-Haryana round here today throwing a pair of girls from the capital as a champion.
Starting on July 2 from Pondicherry, the INTACH India Heritage Quiz 2015 has so far covered cities, ranging from Srinagar to Port Blair and Daman to Darjeeling, celebrating India's architectural, linguistic and pluralistic history.
More than 70 schools and 80 teams from Delhi and Haryana gathered at the India International Centre (IIC) Annexe today to test their India quotient, but it was a duo of young girls from Convent of Jesus and Mary (CJM) who came up trumps against other teams with a comfortable margin.

Riva Mehta And Ojasvini Bali, both class X students of CJM, and avid quizzers, brought laurels for their school as they outperformed seven other teams in the final Delhi-Haryana round.
Ojasavini, who couple of years earlier had represented her school in the Bournvita School Quiz, said, "We made it to finals last year as well but this time we converted it, though we were initially not sure of winning, but it all happened finally."
Both girls being members of their school's quiz club, Ojasavini said, "Many people think that girls can't quiz. But, look at us. We hope more girls will quiz, because, it enhances our knowledge and its fun."

Driven mainly by volunteers including its quiz masters, numbering about 20, through the Heritage Quiz, city-based Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) seeks to make it a country-driven effort that unites and celebrates the country's rich past.

Purnima Datt, INTACH's Heritage Education and Communication Service (HECS) said, "The idea with which we started the event last year has borne fruits and this year we have expanded our reach."
"We have reached nearly 110 cities with couple of more to go. The scheduled for finals is not yet decided but tentatively, it should be in November," she told PTI.

Talking about the experience of conducting quizzes in varying geographies, quizmaster Kunal Savarkar said, "It truly is an India quiz, as with venues, language, costume, and weather changed."
"Last year, at some places we couldn't conduct a quiz because some cloudburst happened, some city had curfew imposed there, but overall we proudly spanned practically the whole of India, from its states to its Union Territories, from big cities to small towns," he said.
Before the Delhi-Haryana round, INTACH also held its zonal finals for the Western UP/Uttarakhand region, which was won by Bal Bharti Public School of Ghaziabad.