Image Credits

By Chaitanya

When Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky was imprisoned

by the KGB, he had a copy of a compilation of X’s

puzzles in a magazine and says it helped him outwit his

guards. In his 1964 work, The Ambidextrous Universe, X

quotes 2 lines of verse from Y’s 1962 work Z. In Z the

verses are supposed to have been written by a John

Shade and that is who X credits.

Y returned the favor by having a character Van Veen in

his 1969 book “Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle” quote

from X’s ambidextrous universe - “Space is a swarming

in the eyes, and Time a singing in the ears”. X (author),

Y(author) and Z(book)?. (1 point each)

R1

X = Martin Gardner

Y = Vladimir Nabokov

Z = Pale Fire

R1A

In the July 29, 1946 edition of The Hollywood

Reporter, its founder and publisher William

Wilkerson wrote an article title “A vote for _ _ _ _ _

_”. The contents of this and subsequent articles in

August and September of that year are known as

Billy’s List. This is now considered to be the 1st

suggestion of X, something that happened a few

years later.

In a 65th anniversary article, Wilkerson’s son,

William Wilkerson III, apologized for his father’s role.

What did William Wilkerson kick off with his article in

1946? i.e What is X?

R2

The Hollywood Blacklist

R2A

Warren Christopher, Bill Clinton’s 1st Secretary of

State, was not enthusiastic about US involvement in

the Balkans and explained his reluctance saying

“The hatred between the three groups - Bosnians

and Serbs and Croats - is almost unbelieveable. It’s

almost terrifying and it’s centuries old. That really is a

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _”.

X, an Irish born, US educated journalist working in

the Balkans in the mid 1990s titled her Pulitzer

winning 2002 book (Y) ( about America’s response to

genocide in the 20th century - Armenia, Vietnam,

Cambodia, Rwanda etc ) with that phrase. X and Y?

R3

X = Samantha Power

Y = A Problem From Hell

R3A

Written by a Princeton economist, this influential

1973 book argued that asset prices typically exhibit

signs of a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, that past movement of

a stock price is no indicator of future movement and

that one cannot consistently beat market averages.

The book has been cited in favor of the efficient

market hypothesis. What is the name of the book or

fill in the blank.

R4

Random Walk

Book name is “A Random Walk down Wall Street”

R4A

The origin of the word / term X does not have anything

to do with Einstein or Planck but goes back to 1926 and

a “Letter to the Editor” written by G N Lewis to “Nature”

magazine. In it Lewis writes,

“the process whereby an atom loses radiant energy, and

another near or distant atom receives the same energy,

is characterised by a remarkable abruptness and

singleness”

“Had there not seemed to be insuperable objections,

one might have been tempted to adopt the hypothesis

that we are dealing here with a new type of atom, an

identifiable entity, uncreatable and indestructible,

which acts as the carrier of radiant energy”

R5

“ I therefore take the liberty of proposing for this

hypothetical new atom, which is not light but plays an

essential part in every process of radiation, the name

X”.

What is X?

R5

X = Photon

R5A

The 1952 book “Picture” is believed to be the 1st

making-of-the-movie book. Written by Lillian Ross, a

long time New Yorker writer, it started as a series of

articles in the New Yorker about John Huston’s

making of war movie X, an adaptation of a 1895

novel of the same name. Which critical and

commercial failure from 1952?.

R6

Red Badge of Courage

R6

In his book “Science of Shakespeare”, science

journalist Dan Falk argues that Hamlet is really about

the battle for supremacy between the X, Y and Z

systems (which Z ultimately won).

X is a Greek who did his work in Alexandria almost

2000 years ago.

Among the pieces of evidence Falk gives is that the

setting of Hamlet, Elsinore castle, is where Y made

his observations and that Y had relatives called

Rosencranz and Guildstern.

X, Y and Z? (1 point for each)

R7

X = Ptolemy,

Y = Tycho Brahe

Z = Copernicus

R7A

What document from 1616 is the inspiration for the

poem being recited or what is the name of the

poem?.

The poet is the 1st LGBT poet laureate of Britain.

Who? (1 point for inspiration or poem name, 1 point

for poet)

(play audio from 17 seconds in)

R8

The poem is called “Anne Hathaway” - it is based on

a line from Shakespeare’s will - “Item i gyve unto my

wife my second best ved…”

The poet is Carol Ann Duffy

R8A

What is the context?

R9

Issued by a slightly bitter Governor of Ohio - after

Lebron James took his talents to South Beach

(Miami) and lost the NBA finals to Dallas Mavericks.

R9A

It was written to popularise views and ideas opposite

to those developed by a W.D.Hamilton in the 1960s.

In a foreword to a 30th anniversary edition, the

author concedes that “the title might give an

inadequate impression of its contents” and that he

should have taken the advise of Tom Maschler, a

publisher” and called it The Immortal - - - -, because

immortal was an up word while X was a down word.

What did end up being the title of the best selling

1976 book?

R10

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

R10

Written as a tongue-in-cheek reference guide

mocking a subculture of Northeast American school

and college students and their fashion and

mannerism, this 1980 book ended up glamorising the

culture. Fill in the blanked word from the title on the

next page.

R11

R11

Preppy

R11A

If Greece was glory, Rome was grandeur, Egypt was

splendour and Babylon was greatness, what was

India?

R12

Wonder - The Wonder that was India by

A. L. Basham was one in a series of books

commissioned by publisher Sedgwick and Jackson

with titles The Glory that was Greece, The Grandeur

that was Rome etc.

The titles came from a Poe poem “To Helen”

R12

Dinah Fried has written a book called “Fictitious

Dishes”, recreating dishes from works of literature. Id

the work of literature in each case (one point each).

a.

R13

b.

R13

a. Alice in Wonderland

b. Fear and loathing in Las Vegas

R13

This writer was a champion of writers' rights, and

was blacklisted in the 1950s for his liberal views;

it was during this time that he wrote his 1,200+

page work(ID the title) for which he is best known.

An obituary in Times of London had the following

to say about him “ ____ _____ belongs to that

select group of journalists who successfully made

the transition from the recording of news to the

writing of history”. Id the writer, whose long

association with M K Gandhi culminated in a

1980 book Gandhi : A Memoir.

14

William Shirer

Sometime in the mid 70s, in the month of June,

the editorial page of The Indian Express

appeared thus.

The newspaper also quoted

Tagore “Where the mind

is without fear and

the head is held high…”.

Funda, please.

15

Blank editorial as a protest against Emergency

imposed by Indira Gandhi

A reviews of sorts(initial reactions) on Gregory Mankiw’s Blog. The book has three main elements: 1. A history of inequality and wealth. 2. A forecast of how things will evolve over the next century 3. Policy recommendations, such as a global tax on wealth. Point 1 is a significant contribution. I like this part of the book a lot. Point 2 is highly conjectural. Economists are really bad at such things. Point 3 is as much about ____’s personal political philosophy as it is about his economics. As we all know, you can’t get “ought” from “is.” Like President Obama and others on the left, _____ wants to spread the wealth around. Id the much-in-the-news book & the author

16

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in The Twenty-First

Century

In May 1997, Newsweek published an article titled “Brain’s Last Stand” by Stephen Levy which started with the following lines “The hope of humanity is in a good mood on a bitterly cold Sunday in late April in Moscow, less than a week before embarking for New York City to represent our species in a battle that may one day become the prime landmark in technology’s ineluctable march to surpass its makers”.

The article was written as a build-up to what “landmark event”?

17

Gary Kasparov vs Deep Blue - Rematch

“Marriage of Inconvenience: John Ruskin and Euphemia Gray”, is a 2013 book that tries to chronicle the reasons for ending of the union between Euphemia Gray and the Victorian art critic and polymath John Ruskin. The author, Robert Brownell, after thorough research, has drawn conclusions that are at odds with the established story. What was the established story before the publication of this work? Additional hint: Ruskin was the author of Stones of Venice -- a three volume tome on Venetian art & architecture and Modern Painters- 5 volumes on the

most

18

Ruskin failed to consummate his marriage and

hence the marriage was annulled.

The reason for non-consummation:

Ruskin was shocked at the sight of Euphemia

naked, knowing women's bodies only from

statues and paintings.

2002: Javed Akthar

2009: Lata Mangeshkar

2011: A R Rahman

2012: Gulzar

2014: Waheeda Rehman

“I am angry with myself for not having pursued

Raj Khosla and Vijay Anand. My biggest problem

is, who next?”

Who? What works are we talking about(a specific

answer please)

19

Nasreen Munni Kabir’s biographical

conversations

The essay Notes on “____” by X starts with

“Many things in the world have not been named;

and many things, even if they have been named,

have never been described. One of these is the

sensibility -- unmistakably modern, a variant of

sophistication but hardly identical with it -- that

goes by the cult name of _____.” Later, the

author explains that there is a difference between

____ and Kitsch, while the former refers to the

performance, the latter refers to the work of art

itself. Word and the author, please

20

Camp, Susan Sontag

“The ultimate Camp statement: it's

good because it's awful . . . Of course, one can't

always say that. Only under certain conditions,

those which I've tried to sketch in these notes

shown below”

Dr. Koenraad Elst in his essay Tale of Two

Murders, writes about the murder of two popular

leaders(X & Y). Dr. Elst writes that although Y’s

murder drew parallels with the deaths of Anwar

Sadat, Indira Gandhi & Rajiv Gandhi, the real

comparison is with X. He goes on to say that X

was killed for the very same reason as Y: both

conceded "land for peace".

Like Y, X was murdered by a diehard belonging

to his own community. Identify X & Y

21

Gandhi & Rabin

When asked about the genesis of his

masterpiece, the author said “my editor said you

can do pieces you want, and you can do

pieces we want. The first piece was what

I wanted to do”. It was about a guy named Alden

Whitman and the piece was called “Mr Bad

News”. Identify the occupation of Alden Whitman

and the writer, whose next piece, on a

singer/actor, is considered as one of the best

celebrity profiles ever written.

22

Alden Whitman was an obituary writer at the New

York Times.

Author: Gay Talese

His next piece was “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”

Vishnu Narayan Bhatkande’s works on Indian Classical

Music are considered very important for prior to his

work, the Ragas were classified as Raga(male),

Ragini(female) and Putra(child);

Bhatkande devised a new system similar to the

Carnatic system __X___ . In the new system 10 different

groups called __Y__ were formed, each named after

famous ragas associated with these __Y__s.

23

Melakarta Raaga

Thaat

The following is an excerpt from a blogpost by a famous

Indian movie director.

"There is always a thin line between farce and fantasy. I

was having so much fun shooting the characters of

_______, with such fine actors, that I thought the film

would be turning into a farce. And films like ____ cannot

turn into a farce, they must be like a fantasy that makes

you believe in what is happening, or there will be a

rejection from the audience, specially from

Children. There is a sense of emotional involvement

and believability that rides through the film“.

Identify the film and the director

24

Shekar Kapoor on why he killed Tina in Mr. India

From an interview of Yehuda Amichai:

Interviewer: Did your father fight in WW1?

YA: Yes, he did. So did my uncle, my mother’s brother,

who fell in 1916—I have a poem about that. It was

strange for Jews who fought in World War I—Jewish

people were divided among feuding nations. There were

Jews fighting for Germany, for France, for Britain, for

Russia, Jewish rabbis praying for the Allies, for the

Turks, for the Germans and the Austrians. It was very

much like the ______ in the Middle East—Israeli

___fighting for Israel, Syrian _____fighting for Syria

against Israel. Identify these People of Monotheism

25

Druze

“Several people have pointed to Walt Disney’s

cooptation of ____’s music for Fantasia in 1940

as the moment when the work officially lost its

edge, reports on the subsequent performances in

Paris and the reviews of the London premiere

show that it did not take three decades—or even

three years—for audiences to see past the shock

and find the beauty in ___ ___. It took a few

weeks.” Id the work which celebrated the

100th anniversary of premiere on May 29th 2013

26

Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky

Jijamata Udyaan houses one of the oldest zoos in

India that finds regular mention in the lists of

world’s worst maintained zoos. Apparently, the

existing enclosures do not conform to anti-cruelty

guidelines and hence the zoo has decided to stuff

animals and put ‘em on display in a taxidermy

museum. The locality where this park is situated

was in the title of a 2014 work.

Identify the work and the author

27

Husain Zaidi

Byculla to Bangkok

This Fissured Land : An Ecological History of

India, is co-authored by Dr. Madhav

Gadgil(founder of the Center for Ecological

Studies at the IISc) and a famous author. The

book aims to offer a fresh perspective on both the

ecological history of India and on theoretical

issues of interest to environmentalists.

Identify the second author, whose doctoral work

focussed on Chipko Movement and culminated in

a work titled The Unquiet Woods.

28

Ramachandra Guha

Suragi is a type of flower grown in the Western

Ghats that retains its fragrance even when it dries

up. An autobiography released late last

year(2013) of this Bangalore based author was

titled “Suragi”. Due to poor health, this author

narrated his personal life to a certain Ms Tejasri

who compiled the work. Identify this Bangalore

based author

29

U R Ananthamurthy

A dedication by Author A(in his work) to author B

and her work. All 4 elements, please

29

Solomon Northup’s dedication to Harriet Beecher

Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 12 Years a Slave.