True Weakness

January 2002

My team (Swami, Ramu and I) was one of the 6 finalist teams onstage during an annual inter-collegiate quiz. That's part of an annual student festival we eagerly looked forward to each year – right from intermediate to our final year of graduation. We couldn’t do well that day and remained at the 5th position all the way. The scores were announced after the audio round (last but one round). Throughout the quiz, I was closely observing this team at the top position, one of its members, in particular, who was incredibly sharp, literally cracking all questions – direct or pass. The other two members of his team contributed hardly any. I was so amazed at his agility and confidence. He single-handedly managed to keep up the first position right from the first round through the audio round, trailed by yet another strong team following them too closely. The next ie the final round concluded and the final scores were announced. This agile quizzer couldn’t attempt even a single question from the final round, which was an all-visuals. Sadly, his team ended up only being the runners up.

For one unfortunate reason - the agile quizzer was congenitally blind.