It was the love they had for questioning their knowledge that brought them together, and not anything else.
It was definitely not with the intention of healthy competition or building friendships that they embarked on their quizzing career. "In fact, we were never friends – not when we were in school or soon after," reminisces Chamindi Ekanayake. "There was a point when the rivalry between us was so great that we never even looked at each other!"
So much for the proclaimed rivalry; these were the very people who proceeded to form their own quiz team which has not only worked together since 2005, but has also won numerous awards – championing the 2006 Sri Lanka Master Minds Competition and the 2007 Management Club Quiz Wisdom Quiz; and emerging runners up in the 2006 Wisdom Quiz, to name a few.
Participating at school level for 4-5 years, these individuals zealously competed against each other many times. Having left school, being unable to compete in quizzes left something of a void for most of them which prompted them to finally band together and establish a quiz team in which they would work together as opposed to against each other.
And three years down the line, they still express surprise at the fact that they ended up like this – a team of ten different individuals with two things in common – the love of all forms of knowledge and the love of competition. The main team consists of 5 royalists, 2 Nalandians and 1 Visakhian. They are lead by Indika Jayasinghe, supported by Neranga, Dinesh, Mahesha, Chamindi, Rasika, Damsith, and Nalaka, joined occasionally by Pulasthi and Palitha. "We feel that competitions and quizzes at school level are extremely beneficial to any student," explains Indika. "It is also important that outstations are encouraged to dabble more in these activities – this is something we feel we should do to inspire more students to pursue quizzing."
The topics for the quizzes, being so vast, range from general knowledge and current affairs, science and technology and literature, to history and sports. Come two months before a quiz, the team could be found busily pouring over newspapers, magazines, encyclopaedias and surfing the net for all the latest facts from around the globe. Considering that all the members still attend university, this is where they meet up to prepare for upcoming competitions.
While their love for quizzes and competition will never fade, higher studies and the resulting lack of time proves to be two of the biggest challenges for the team.
Chamindi has already obtained her law degree and pursues her career; three of the members are in the middle of a Science Degree – Chemistry Special, while two attend Law College and the other two pursue Physics and Software degrees. Once they graduate and begin their careers, they regret that they may not have the time to continue working as a team. Yet, they continue to inspire, coaching their own school teams for competitions and ensuring that the tradition of quizzing is upheld.
"We would also love to be able to organise competitions, but as of now, funds are quite a significant problem," explains Indika. "But we do hope that in around 4–5 years time we would be able to achieve that."
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