prelude  Folks, the countdown for the mega quizzical extravaganza – The Colosseum Open Quiz Fest, 2009, now starts in hours, and it is to be held on Sunday, October 25, 2009, at the Pragjyoti ITA Cultural Complex, Machkhowa, Guwahati. The event is being organised by The Assam Tribune and Social Action Network (SAN), a North-East based NGO. The theme of this quiz event is culture. Altogether, we have prizes worth more than Rs.1,00,000/- to be won. Remember, there are more than 1000 prizes to be won. Apart from these, there are assured prizes for each participating team at the registration desk. There is no registration fee. The research and concept of the event is brought to you by the Neelotpal Deka & Quiz Associates and Trivia Bytes. During the event, The Colosseum Annual Awards for the year 2008 will be conferred on Himjyoti Talukdar, Manjil P. Saikia, Prosenjit ‘Piklu’ Dutta, Jayanta Kumar Nath, Maharnav Gogoi, Md. Sadique Hussain Laskar, Dipankar Koushik, Sonmani Das, Saroj Kr. Deka, Amiya Kumar Baruah and Bhagyajeet Bhuyan. All of you are invited to receive the awards. Entry passes for the event are available at: Bharali Brothers (Panbazar and Chandmari) and Prarthana (Opposite St. Mary’s School, Guwahati). Quiz News: Centre for Management Studies, Dibrugarh University has organised an Open Business Quiz – BizMantra – on Saturday November 7, 2009. The first, second and third prize winners will get Rs.5000/-, Rs.3000/- and Rs.2000/- respectively, along with trophies. There is a mega prize for the audience of Rs.1000/- for the best question answered. The quiz master of the event is Neelotpal Deka. E-mail your questions with answers at: only4_pol@yahoo.co.uk or post at: THE COLOSSEUM, Mosaic, Friday Supplement, The Assam Tribune, Guwahati-781003 or SMS at: 9864102417. Send your name in each SMS.

side screen  1) Picture Clue: Identify this noted literary personality. (Himjyoti Talukdar, New Delhi)

harmonisers  From Alakananda Medhi, Guwahati – 2) Which is the first Hindu shrine to be connected to the internet? 3) Balram Halwai is the main protagonist of which famous book? 4) Which famous Greek was sentenced to death in 399 BC? 5) In which year was English made the official language in England?

unities  From Saroj Kr. Deka, Guwahati – 6) Whose father, R K Shekhar, was a composer and conductor for Malayalam films? 7) In respect of remakes, what is common to Yugandhar, Billa and Sobhraj? 8) Songs My Mother Taught Me is the autobiography of which actor?

do-re-me  From Maharnav Gogoi, AEC, Guwahati – 9) Which city, located near Lake Tiberias (sea of Galilee), is one of the four Jewish holy cities of Palestine ? 10) Which popular political term comes from a Latin root meaning ‘to choose’? 11) Of the three kinds of pottery, two are earthenware and stoneware. Name the third. 12) Who was the first man to die according to Hindu mythology? 13) To whom is the Gayatri mantra dedicated to? 14) Mahati is the veena used by which mythological character?

crescendo  15) The original, dating back to 1952, is owned by Steven Spielberg, who has no intention of selling it. Market buzz places the value of this item at $100,000 or higher. It is done largely in blue and has three people cowering up against a wall, while a shadow lengthens in their direction. It also contains the immortal lines “That thing, that slithering blob coming towards us... What is it...It’s Melvin”. What are we talking about? (Jayanta Kr. Nath, Tezpur)

answers  1) Laxminath Bezbaroa 2) Vaishno Devi Mandir 3) The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga 4) Socrates 5) 1363 6) A. R. Rahman 7) These are the remakes of the film Don in Telegu, Tamil and Malayalam respectively 8) Marlon Brando 9) Zefat 10) Elective 11) Porcelain 12) Yama 13) The Sun 14) Narada 15) The first MAD cover.