Feb. 4: Come June and two students from the city will step into the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi for an audience with President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. The meeting, a dream for any student, will be part of a fully sponsored all-India trip for a few lucky ones from various parts of the country.

The two lucky ones from the city — Manimugdha Sharma and Shaheen Salma Ahmed — had to work hard for emerging the zonal runners-up in the “Awakening Indians to India” quiz contest, held in Mumbai from January 22 to 26.

The quiz contest has already earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest such competition in the world till now. Over three lakh students — in the age group of 15 to 21 — take part in the contest, held over a period of four months in different phases.

Apart from Shaheen and Manimugdha, another team from the city comprising Arafat Ullah and Dhritiman Deka was selected to participate in the final rounds in Mumbai. They were, however, eliminated in the zonal semi-finals.

The final rounds of the contest were held at the Sankraman Studio and were conducted by actor-cum-quizmaster Jayant Kripalani while Kapil Batra, the man behind “Kaun Banega Crorepati”, directed the show.

As many as 40 teams from across the country took part in the final rounds of the competition organised by the Chinmaya Yuva Kendra, the youth wing of the Chinmaya Mission.

The final rounds consisted of two zonal semi-finals from each zone and then the zonal final and finally the national final between the winners of each zonal final.

Manimugdha and Shaheen did the city proud by being the winners in the zonal semi-final and runners-up in the zonal final. They lost to a team from West Bengal by a very narrow margin of 5 points in the final.

“In the zonal semi-finals, we overcame stiff competition from East zone teams from Orissa, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Sikkim and secured the second highest score in the entire competition,” Shaheen said.

Both of them won a cash prize of Rs 20,000 and another fully sponsored 15-day all-India tour, which spans the entire nation from Andaman in the south to Kashmir in the North.

A.R. Rahman had composed the theme music of the show for the final rounds. The 13-episode quiz would be aired on Zee TV from March.

The winners of the mega final — the team from Riverdale School, Dehra Dun — was awarded Rs 1 lakh.

The quiz was organised in six levels. The institution, sub-centre, centre and regional levels were held at the respective states all over the country while the zonal and the final rounds were held in Mumbai.