Thank you Quizzing

Hello! This is either the least relevant section or the most relevant section of this website. If you ventured this far into the website, I'm grateful, but keep reading only if you're sure that you want to waste your time. Although amongst all this AI generated crap, colour coding, website and social media building, corporate unga bunga, publicity and so on, this little corner is probably the realest part of this quiz club. This is my journal if I may...

I was 12 when I walked into my first quiz class at school. We had to choose one among many CCAs and my parents thought let's not over estimate your kid's IQ by putting him into chess and let's not over estimate our own budget by putting him into photography or guitar, and hence. A few days into quiz classes I realised I did stand out. For the first time in life I did not feel useless, for the first time in life I felt like I was not the most worthless person in my life. I remember my first quiz sir. I remember him informing me that he had signed me up for a Barry O'Brien quiz! Imagine. A 12 year old who barely scraped through his exams, was informed he was going to represent one of the biggest schools of the city in front of Barry O'Brien, imagine. We did qualify for finals but that was it for the quiz, we did not win but I did. My life changed. I had a calling. I had respect in the eyes of my classmates. Soon after, it was no more about being celebrated, I started enjoying it. The rush, the adrenaline, the excitement. Not for long. That sir went abroad to work. The new sir, no longer cared, I was out of the team. It wasn't until a couple of years later that I was again in there. Fast forward to college, I restarted quizzing, the long lost passion that was forgotten amongst the rush to get science in +2 and the rush to become a doctor or engineer soon after. This rekindled romance was more than just a hobby for me. Quizzing had given me purpose, and I once again had the chance to hold on tight to it and make something out of it. And so I did.

So today, this club is not a fun idea that I had or something I thought would just look good on my resume. This is an attempt to make 12 year old Annay not feel worthless, let him know that we are giving back, an attempt to do justice to all those early morning walks and bus rides to school (my school started at 6:45) with my father during which we talked and talked and talked about cabbages and kings to movies and dictators. This club has been a dream since college. A dream which failed once but succeeded this time, and thankfully so.

Even today, after racking my head over quiz questions, and obtaining permissions and trying to incentivise people to quiz, for several days, if someone asks me "why? It's just another club", I just cannot express what I feel. How a thing as trivial and irrelevant as quizzing is so important to me. What those adrenaline filled moments, when my "palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy", mean to me, how alive it makes me feel. It is inexplicable. It's always "you had to be there".

Anyways, if you stayed till here, I am not sure whether I should call you jobless first or thank you first. Hope you stay with DQS like this too. It is more than just my passion project, it's an attempt to introduce people to the thing that changed my life. Help them taste the adrenaline, feel the rush, shake with anxiety. This society is to leave a mark, as indelible as the Dead Poets Society. The idea is to quiz to feel alive, to pursue our dreams because they do come true, as this society itself stands testimony to. Carpe Diem!

With Love,

Annay