The Tata Crucible Quiz in progress at Rabindra Bhavan on Sunday. Picture by Animesh Sengupta

The trends may have changed but what refuses to wane is Jamshedpur’s quiz culture and the city’s enthusiasm for Tata Crucible Business Quiz.

The Jamshedpur leg of the ninth edition of Tata Crucible kicked off here on Sunday with six teams fighting it out across four rounds for the crown of regional champions.

The quiz, conducted by none other than Giri ‘Pickbrain’ Balasubramanium, made the participants — basically employees of various Tata group companies — get out of their comfort zone with its mix of questions on current affairs, visuals and the head of various companies.

So while the participants took no time in guessing the name of the world’s fastest growing e-commerce website (www.irctc.co.in), they were forced to stop and think about the name of the world’s largest matrimonial web portal (www.shaadi.com).

The quiz saw an initial participation of 58 teams for the preliminary round, of which 52 were eliminated after a preliminary round.

The remaining six — four Tata Steel teams and one each from TML Drivelines and Tata Steel P&D Limited — fought it out for the regional championship crown at Rabindra Bhavan in front of chief guest T.V. Narendran, vice-president (safety and flat products) of Tata Steel.

After an hour of intense quizzing spanning over four rounds, it was a Tata Steel team that came out on top and walked home with a cash prize of Rs 75,000.

However, the feeling must not have been new for the winning duo of Mohit Bhatt and Nirmal Tenneti, who have been consistent in reaching the final round of the Jamshedpur leg of the event for the last nine years.

Though the duo missed becoming the national champions by a whisker in 2009, winning the Jamshedpur regional round but faltering in the national final, they have promised to give it everything this time around.

“The trends have changed a lot. Initially the focus of Crucible used to be on brands. But now, it is a mixture of general knowledge and current affairs,” reminisced Tenneti, head of Tata Steel’s strategic project procurement

He added that quizzing had always been a hobby and he kept brushing up his knowledge of current affairs throughout the year for the event. His partner Bhatt said the team was pumped up and would surely do its best during the final.

The runner-up of the event, E.G. Khan and Sourav Das who represented Tata Steel also, walked home with a cash prize of Rs 35,000.

Speaking to The Telegraph later quizmaster Subramaniam, said he was amazed at the ability of the corporates in Jamshedpur of keeping in touch and regularly brushing up their knowledge of current affairs.

“Jamshedpur has always shown great quizzing ability, be it at the school or corporate level. The people here think differently,” he said.