Intelligent trivia?

Angu Rajendran

The Colombo Pub Quiz belongs to Jehan Mendis, aka the fiendish Quiz Master. Like Chess, Quizzing too appeals to all age-groups and all cultures. It is a mind tussle every week, of quick wits and memory.

The Colombo Pub Quiz has since 2001, moved from Clancy’s to Inn-on-the- Green and now comes alive every Wednesday night at the Barefoot Café. The teams that take part in the quiz have also moved along with the quiz, showing great loyalty to the zany Quiz Master Jehan, who now runs the quiz on his own. As he started, his close friend Navin Ratnayake showed him the ropes.

Jehan Mendis. Picture by Lalith C Gamage

The teams - named anything from What, Osama’s Bush, Peccavi, Misfits, Pixels, Shave-arse-ana, Universally Challenged, Where’s Such, Velvet Fog etc. have a few steady members who make it every single Wednesday and many others who are floating members. There is no definite number that makes up a team. It can range from about four to twenty.

The mid-week camaraderie orchestrated by the Quizmaster, Jehan Mendis, challenges memory recall that usually ends up in laughter and friendly bashing over drinks and dinner.

Why is the quiz held on Wednesdays?

‘It is the perfect day to have fun during the week if you can’t wait for the week-end,’ says Jehan. ‘It is bang in the middle of the week, so everyone looks forward to it. ‘

Jehan himself enjoys putting the quiz together. ‘Especially the news round that I compulsorily have every week as the first round, keeps me up to date with the news both here in Sri Lanka and in the world. I spend about three to four hours getting the entire six or seven rounds ready every week and then about three or four hours from 8.30 pm onwards in conducting the quiz,’ he says. So Jehan Mendis spends almost eight hours on the quiz itself. As he says ‘it is all so much fun that I don’t mind spending the time at all.’

‘What is unique about a Pub Quiz is that it can be as serious or as light-hearted as one wants it to be’, says Jehan. ‘While winning the grand prize of Rs 5000/- is definitely a big thrill, participants turn up every week to meet friends who are like-minded. I too enjoy meeting new people. The quiz evening is definitely a melting pot. You get different age-groups, different nationalities, and many people who are just passing by Sri Lanka too.’

As the 34 year old Mendis says ‘I am just about in the median age group of my audience. When I plan my questions, I try to give something for three different age groups – so that everyone ends up knowing something. And if teams get around 6 out of 10 correct in most rounds then they go home happy and I have achieved my perfect level of difficulty. I aspire every week to get that.”

“Most of the time, I put in three easy questions, three difficult and three of average difficulty. Usually I add at least one very difficult question in each round. And if someone is able to answer that one, then it is very impressive. Many times we have rounds that are topical and questions that might be just answers to jokes. Once we even had ‘why did the chicken cross the road?’ as a speed round question.”

Quiz Master will now be quizzed:
What are your views on:
Quiz night without beer?

…is like avurudu without kokis, Christmas without Santa Claus and Eid without watalappan.

Life without women?
Would be pretty boring, although probably a lot less complicated (at least in parts).

Intelligence or memory. Which would you choose?
I would choose intelligence, because without it, the other is useless.
Gym or yoga. Which would you rather do?

I find gym pretty boring - there’s only so much running on a treadmill one can do without feeling like a hamster on a wheel - so I guess I would pick yoga, although I may change my mind after trying it.

Movie or play. Which would you rather watch?

Depends which play and which movie. I would not sacrifice my favourite movie for my favourite play. However, I’d rather watch a decent play than an average movie.

Classical music or jazz. Which would you prefer to listen to?
Jazz, probably. Although, my knowledge of it is very limited.
Wearing un-matching socks?
Almost always.

Alarm not going off on a week day morning?
Doesn’t matter. I don’t hear it anyway.

What is your favorite activity?

Playing Ultimate Frisbee, which I got into pretty recently and play twice or three times a week. It’s a relatively new sport and is like a cross between American Football and Netball, but is played with a Frisbee.

“The answer was simply – to get to the other side. Those are liberties of a Pub Quiz. Usually when there is a tie among the winning teams, we don’t have tie-breaker questions. We have a dance off or the teams have to sing songs or have a hand fight or down a beer and the rest of the audience votes for the winner. It is all in good fun. At the same time, the mind is kept alert,” says Jehan.

As for Jehan himself, he gave up a corporate career with John Keells to become a teacher in an International School. ‘I read something once that had such an impact on me,’ he says. ‘On your deathbed no one thinks - I wish I had spent more time at the office. So, I decided to take the plunge, quit my job and became a teacher. This way I get so much job satisfaction that I will not trade it for all the money in the world. Kids are such fun. They are always happy and they radiate happiness with their jokes and crazy pranks.’

‘But more than anything else, I get the time to do the things that I want to do. Organize quizzes, act in plays and maybe even finish the book I started writing,’ says Jehan.

Jehan puts together and conducts quizzes for many large companies that want to keep their employees on their toes in an entertaining way and at not very exorbitant costs. He also started a theatre company with friends Shanaka Amarasinghe and Nisreen Jafferjee, called the Broken Leg Theatre which recently produced the hilarious play ‘Gods of Carnage’.

It is said that there are over 22, 400 British pubs that have a weekly quiz night, so what does Jehan think about the future of Pub quizzes in Sri Lanka?

‘When I started 8 years ago, there was only one regular Pub quiz in the country. Now there are two others on the same day and two more on other days of the week. As more and more people are realizing that intelligent fun is good too, even those who are not normally attracted to Pubs are coming as well. It is a wholesome evening where you meet interesting people, learn something new and most of all - share laughter. It is definitely gaining huge popularity,’ says Jehan Mendis.