A simple one to start the night: If the English cricket fans
are called by the epithet The Barmy Army, the fans of which test
cricket team are called by The Appu Army, the name being taken from
a local ancient word called Appuharmy?
Sri Lankan cricket fans
In the world of comics, who is a 10th degree black belt in Judo
and Karate, also a secret chief of an international organization
called Inter-Intel which fights crime, is fluent in 12 languages
and can read 8 more, apart from being a master chef?
Hojo, the chef of Magician Mandrake
Which is the only Pink Floyd album, where all the five members
of the band appeared it was a last for Syd Barret and first for
David Gilmour? (cover photo of the album given below)
A Saucerful of Secrets
After the birth of the state of Israel and after their first
president Chaim Weizmann, who was offered the President ship of
Israel in 1952 by Israels founding father and first Prime Minister
David Ben-Gurion?
Albert Einstein
Which metal/ rock band was supposedly named after a
masturbation game where everybody has to stand in a circle in front
of a biscuit where they will all masturbate on the biscuit and the
last man has to eat that biscuit which has already become very wet
and wobbly?
Limp Bizkit
This is a dystopian science fiction comic book series by Brian
K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra. Launched in 2002, it's about a man named
Yorick Brown, who is the last surviving man after a mysterious
plague wipes out the worlds male population. Along with his pet
monkey, Ampersand, Yorick embarks upon a journey to find out the
origins of the plague and why he's still alive. This series
received many Eisner Awards (comic book equivalent of Oscars). What
is this series called?
Y: The Last Man
During the October revolution of 1917 in former Soviet Union,
which famous business family had to flee Moscow as they were
considered to be close to the Czars and went to Istanbul where they
set up their factory and hence their product gradually became a
household name in Europe and then the entire world over?
Smirnoff family
Jafar Panahi, the world famous Iranian new wave director, made
a movie in 2006 inspired by the trauma of his own daughter of not
being able to go to a football match which was against the law of
Iran of not allowing women in football matches. The daughter
watched the match anyway and the movie was also about a girl who
entered the stadium disguised as a boy. The movie was shot in a
real football stadium involving a real match and became a cult
movie with many accolades and awards. What if the name of this
movie?
Marc Andr Laguerre was an editor of a famous American magazine.
During 1964, to fill the winter months, a typically slow point in
the sporting calendar of America then, he asked his fashion
reporter Jule Campbell to go on a shoot to fill spaces including
the cover of the magazine with beautiful models. What resulted out
of that?
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue
This is a series of comic books by Tim Vigill and David Quinn,
published by the Avatar Press and Rebel Studios. The series are
highly popular and are known for their strong graphic violence. The
initial story of this series goes like this: An artist, John
Jaspers sells his soul to the mysterious M in order to avenge the
death of his girlfriend. However, the deal has an unexpected price,
and he is periodically transformed into a horned demon with a
passion for killing. Inspired by a classic piece of literature,
what is the name of this comic series?
Jim Dine is a popular American pop artist who has created many
series of arts and drawings. Once while working on one of his
series which is based on fiction, he commented "the idea of a
talking stick becoming a boy is like a metaphor for art, and its
the ultimate alchemical transformation. What was he referring
to?
Pinocchio
Jayceon Terrell Taylor is an American rapper, hip hop artist,
entrepreneur and actor. His stage name was coined by his
grandmother when she said that Jayceon is.for anything. How do we
know him better?
Traditionally accepted as one of the supplementary arms of the
Vedas, this piece of Indian literature is one of the standard books
in the Hindu canon, and a basic text for all gurus to base their
teachings on. This 'revealed scripture' comprises 2684 verses,
divided into twelve chapters presenting the norms of domestic,
social, and religious life in ancient India under the Brahmin
influence, and is fundamental to the understanding of ancient
Indian society. But Since it forms the basis of the traditional
Hindu caste system, it has been subject to much criticism and
controversy, having been attacked by colonial scholars, modern
liberals, Hindu reformists, Dalit advocates, feminists etc. Which
literature am I talking about?
Manusmriti or Manava Dharmaasastra or (Laws of Manu)
Recently, this blood stained glasses which belonged to somebody
is being used by his wife as a message to everybody as a plea for
gun control. Name both of them?
John Lennon and Yoko Ono
A certain famous Indian personality during his teens in the
1930s wrote to 3 Hollywood icons as he was a fan of them. Two were
Ginger Rogers and Billy Wilder who never answered him back. The 3rd
was this lady who acknowledged and answered and thus overwhelmed
him to the point where he never forgot that gesture. So, who was
the Indian personality and the Hollywood star who answered him back
(picture given)?
Satyajit Ray and Deanna Durbin
In Chile, he is called Huaso, in Cuba he is called Guajiro, in
Venezuela or Colombia, he is called llanero, in Mexico Charro and
in Argentina, he is called Gaucho. What is he called in USA?
Cowboy (kind of American equivalent to the above ones)
He was William Hogarth, an English man and the forefather of
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, who invented movie images and
cinema together with Edison. In 1727, he was hired by Joshua
Morris, a tapestry worker, to prepare a design for the Element of
Earth. Morris heard that he was "an engraver", and consequently
declined the work when completed. Hogarth accordingly sued him for
the money in the Westminster Court, where the case was decided in
his favour on 28 May 1728. In 1757, because of all his above work
he was appointed something to the King, which subsequently helped
him to supposedly pioneer something which was the precursor to a
huge industry today. What?
Western Sequential art (which developed into comics and graphic
novels today).
He was the first bowler to get the great Don Bradman out for a
duck in test cricket. He shares his surname with another great West
Indian fast bowler. CLR James, the great writer was his big fan. He
was also a great fielder and more than an useful batsman. Who was
he?
Herman Griffith
With the third-highest career batting average in Major League
Baseball history (.356), Joseph would certainly be a shoo-in for
the Hall of Fameif it werent for the Black Sox Scandal. He and
seven teammates on the Chicago White Sox were accused of conspiring
with gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati
Reds. They were acquitted following a jury trial in 1921, but newly
appointed baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis
barred them for life from professional baseball. This guy,
according to him, got his nickname during a mill game played in
South Carolina. He suffered from blisters on his foot from a new
pair of cleats, and they hurt so much that he had to take his shoes
off before going to bat. As play continued, a heckling fan noticed
him running to third base in his socks, and shouted "You son of a
gun, you!" and the resulting nickname. By what nickname is he
popularly known to us?
Shoeless Joe Jackson (Joseph Jefferson Jackson )
Legend has it that Lalmohan Seth was behind the naming of
Lalbazar Street. Lalmohan Seth had a farm house in Lalbazar area in
the erstwhile Kolkata, where he used to grow many things including
rice, vegetables etc. One of the produces was offered to his family
deity, before being made and consumed by the family members. This
practice is believed to be behind the naming of a popular food item
amongst Bengalis. What?
Gobindobhog Rice (they used to give bhog/ offerings to Lord
Krishna (who is also known as Govinda/ Gobindo)
It is one of the most prestigious and oldest events in Olympic
games. In Old English, it was called Glossing Palestra. In India,
apart from many names, it is also called Dangal . The origins of it
go back 15,000 years through cave drawings in France. Shuai jiao is
a Chinese style of this which has a reported history of around 4000
yrs. What am I talking about?
Wrestling
It is one of the most popular Himalayan peaks in India. The
source of the river Yamuna originates from one of its flanks. The
first team to reach its summit also included Tenzing Norgay. Its
name literally means Tail of Lord Hanuman in Hindi. Situated in the
Garhwal Himalayas, which peak am I talking about?
Bandarpunch
Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, the Pakistan president wanted to turn the
Pakistan army into a pure Islamic force. He was the person who was
responsible for mushrooming of terrorist Jihadi groups and the army
patronizing it, as they feel it is serving Islam values. Hence,
during the time of his rule, Zia turned the Army Headquarters into
an identification code/ number of 786. He emblazoned this number
into the walls, pamphlets, desks, hoardings, directional signages
etc. of every corner of the army establishments. But why this
number 786 or what is its significance?
786 is the numerical representation of the first lines of Quran
Bismi allaahi arrahmaani arrahiim In the name of Allah, Most
Gracious, Most Merciful.
Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, was a Belgian polymath of the
19th century, who founded and directed the Brussels Observatory and
was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social
sciences. What did he devise while during the course of developing
"social physics, which was initially known by his name but later
gained the present name to a paper published in the July edition of
1972 in the Journal of Chronic Diseases by Ancel Keys?
Body Mass Index (BMI)
If anybody hears his surname, he would think that this
gentleman has got something to do with lands and real estate as his
surname is the name of an unit in measuring land. He, together with
Robert William Paul supposedly pioneered cinema in Britain. He
invented the first British 35 mm moving picture camera, the first
daylight loading home movie camera and projector and the first
European film maker who had his films shown in the United States in
public performances. Whats his name?
Birt Acres
Born as Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes, he was Latin
America's most celebrated and loved comic actor and the man Charlie
Chaplin once called "the world's greatest comedian." Although
generations of Latinos were charmed by his garrulity in a variety
of parts, he was best known to American audiences for a single
role: In the 1956 film "Around the World in 80 Days," he portrayed
Passepartout, the bumbling valet of Phileas Fogg. He had such an
impact in the Spanish speaking world through his performances that
his nickname by which the entire world knows him is now defined in
the authoritative Larousse Spanish dictionary noun, as a
long-winded meaningless speech, while the verb means to talk too
much but say too little. According to legends, he got his nickname
when somebody screamed at one of his bad stage performances in his
early days saying You are annoying, the Spanish/ Latin corruption
of which he has made into his nickname. How do we know him
better?
Cantinflas
What word connects: 1. An Andrew Collins book explaining the
following phenomena: The veneration of ..as a bird associated with
cosmic life and death goes back 17,000 years to when the
constellation occupied pole position in the Northern night sky.
..is at the root of all the world's religions. Cosmic rays from a
binary star known as ..X-3 helped accelerate human evolution during
the last Ice Age. 2. A famous jewellery brand in India. 3. A famous
portfolio management company from North Carolina (US)?
Cygnus
His theories, now discredited, were the product of years of
historical, anthropological, and ethnological studies and were part
of a general European interest in biological and sociological
determinism. His works had a marked effect on the thinking of such
men as Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche, and, in time, a
movement called Gobinism developed. He was a French aristocrat of
the 19th century, also novelist and man of letters who became
famous for developing a certain theory in one of his famous books
which was taken in a negative connotation later on and for which he
is credited as being the father of modern racial demography. What
theory did he develop?
Aryan Master Race (Joseph Arthur de Gobineau). This theory was
later taken by Hitler.
In the world of Bengali movies, how are Bibhuti Laha
(cameraman), Jatin Datta (sound), Sailen Ghosal (Lab work), Nitai
Bhattacharya (Scenarist) and Bimal Ghosh (production) better known
to us?
Agradoot
This music album according to the magazine Rolling Stones is at
No. 4 in the 500 Greatest Albums of all time. The musician named
this album after the American highway which connects his home-town
to those Southern cities which are famed for their musical
heritage. Which album?'