Nat Geo Genius - my gud luck :)

Back to blogging after a month long work on MS applications & other stuff. Reco letters, transcripts, innum ithara pala documents nu ovvoru university kum anupangati pothum pothum aiduchu .. still need to send three more apps .. Fortunately, this Nat Geo Genius contest came as a relief in the middle. Its a quiz competition conducted by National Geographic Channel. I myself know I don't deserve a place in this contest as my GK is very low when compared to my peers. yetho konjam knowledge + more luck nala i got the chance to participate in this nationwide event. The winner of this contest will get a week long all expenses paid trip to any destination in the world, sponsored by Lufthansa.

I was at Delhi from Dec 3rd to 6th for the shoot of this contest. Everyday was a new experience to me. I stayed along with 10 ppl from different corporate sectors from different state. All of them are 30+ and working as Managers or Senior Officials having more experience than me. They had been to many different countries, aana naama ippa than south india thandiye varom. Sadly, I was the only one who don't speak Hindi. :-( .. but since I was able to understand hindi, i didn't find it so tough to manage. This contest has 54 contestants, out of which only 12 are from corporates like me and rest are all professional quizzers selected by auditions. One common thing among the 12 corporates is, yaarume quiz la puli illa ... ellarum enna pola select aanavanga than.

My shoot was supposed to happen by 5th Dec morning. But due to poor planning, it got postponed twice and finally it happened at 6th Dec evening. The program was shot in a studio at Noida Film City. Before the start of my episode, make-up lam potanga. enakey enna parka comedy ah irunthuchu .. :) .. when I went to the floor (they call the shooting set as floor), it was very cold. Room temp was kept at bare minimum to compensate the heat generated by lights there. I was wearing a micro-checked shirt that time. Antha mathiri design iruntha camera move aagum pothu waves mathiri varumam. so i was asked to wear a coat. enaku udane 'Kalaka povathu yaaru' program than gyabagam vanthuchu. enga stage la poi joke or mimicry panna solliduvangalo nu bayanthuten. ;-) ..

then the shoot went on for nearly 2 hours. there were 3 contestants (incl me) and 4 rounds. one guy was eliminated in third round and I lost in the last round to a professional quizzer from Mumbai. Luck evlo thooram than kooda varum!! One more thing. set la audience um irunthanga .. . but all of them were paid audiences. Whenever a clap sound is needed, director will lift his hand then every body will clap. orey comedy ah irunthuchu .. :) It would be better if this program is called as 'Nat Geo Luckiest' rather than 'Nat Geo Genius'. Coz, each and every question is given two choices. So, even if we don't know the answer we can rely on our luck. The shoot was over by 6.30 pm and at last I reached airport at 8 p.m for 8.10 flight to Bangalore. Luckily flight was delayed due to traffic congestion in the airport and I reached Bangalore by midnight.

This program will be telecasted in NGC every Saturday 9-9.30 PM. As of now, it is tentatively scheduled to start from 19th of Jan'08. Not sure when my episode will come. Waiting eagerly to watch that comedy !!!