1. What connects the Blake Edwards movie ‘The Party’ staring Peter Sellers, the American jazz saxophonist John Coltrane and Chilkur Balaji Temple in Hyderabad in relation to Kolkata?

Ravi Shankar (showed Peter Sellers how to play the sitar for that movie, Coltrane named his son on Ravi Shanker – Ravi Coltrane, Shanker married Anoushka’s mother in that Temple)

2. In the movie ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People’, the actor Megan Fox appeared in a cameo in a satirical film-within-a-film portraying a famous Kolkatan. Who?

Mother Teresa

3. It is said that Satyajit Ray had 3 unrealized projects which he could never made. One was ‘The Alien’, which urban legend has that Steven Spielberg copied it and made into his movie ‘E.T.’ Second was the ‘Mahabharata’ and third was from a famous piece of literature which now has been made into a movie by David Lean. Which was this third unmade project?

 E. M. Forster's 1924 novel ’A Passage to India’.

4. It is one of the 51 Shakti Peeths of India. Legend has it that a devotee discovered a luminant ray of light coming from the Bhāgirathi (Ganges) river bed, and upon investigating its source came upon a piece of stone carved in the form of a human toe. He also found a Svayambhu Lingam of Nakuleshwar Bhairav nearby, and started worshiping the Devi in the midst of a thick jungle. Which Temple am I talking about?

KALIGHAT Temple

5. He was born in Kolkata  on 18 December 1955. He attended La Martiniere for Boys school in Kolkata, where he was appointed House Captain (the house was called Hastings house) in his final year. He went up to St. Xavier's College then in Kolkata from which he graduated with a Bachelors of Commerce degree. If you go to the DL Khan Road in Kolkata, you can still see his dilapidated ancestral house which still has a certain grandeur about it. Currently, a more or less controversial public figure in India, who is he?

Vijay Mallya

6. What connects:

Sabyasachi Mukherjee, the fashion designer from Kolkata who has designed costumes for Bollywood films such as Guzaarish, Babul, Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, Raavan etc.

A digestive enzyme discovered by Theodor Schwann in 1836, the name of which was also coined by him from the Greek word for digestion.

And, A world famous beverage?

Pepsi (Sabyasachi’s nickname is Pepsi)

7. Kolkata is a city which is also known for its nightclubs and pubs. One of the most popular pubs of this town is based at the ‘Kenilworth Hotel’ in Little Russel Street and is named after a world famous English structure. What is this pub at the Kenilworth Hotel Kolkata called?

The Big Ben

8. When Sourav Ganguly first burst into the scene, he was nicknamed after another very stylish left hander as ‘Sourav …………..Ganguly (the middle word being the name of that cricketer). Ganguly himself even admitted that he followed that particular cricketer as his role model and wanted to bat like him. Which cricketer?

David Gower (Sourav Gower Ganguly)

9.

Ans: Mahasweta DeviPic 1: The Movie Gangor (2010) Directed by Italo Spinelli, based on her short story, Choli Ke Peeche, from the Book, Breast Stories.

Pic 2: Ramon Magsaysay Award, which she got in 1997.

Pic 3:  Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak who has translated Devi's short stories into English.

Pic 4: Her uncle Ritwik Ghatak.

Pic 5: At the Frankfurt Book Fair 2006, when India was the first country to be the Fair's second time guest nation, she made an impassioned inaugural speech wherein she moved the audience to tears with her lines taken from the famous film song "Mera Joota Hai Japani" by Raj Kapoor (the English equivalent is in brackets):This is truly the age where the Joota (shoe) is Japani (Japanese), Patloon (pants) is Englistani (British), the Topi (hat) is Roosi (Russian), But the Dil... Dil (heart) is always Hindustani (Indian)... My country, Torn, Tattered, Proud, Beautiful, Hot, Humid, Cold, Sandy, Shining India. My country.

Pic 6: She is the founding member of Budhan Theatre - the theatre group of Chhara Denotified Tribals of Gujarat.

10. What phrase connects Ganesh Pyne, the famous international painter from Kolkata who was known for his emphasis on human skeleton with John Donne - the English metaphysical poet of medieval ages, John Webster - a contemporary dramatist of William Shakespeare who was known for his tragedies and the name of a detective novel by PD James and a hard metal number by Megadeth?

'Skull beneath the skin‘ (Ganesh Pyne, Donne and Webster were all referred by this phrase that they were people who could see the skull beneath the skin. TS Eliot made it popular by referring it for Webster)

11. In the slums of Kolkata, the local populace make a local alcholic drink which they think is the best in the industry and they have named it as 'Shottur' (Bengali for Seventy). But why do they call it 'Seventy'?

They think that their drink is even better than 'Vat 69'

12. During the Durga Pujas, the artists who make the idols of Ma Durga, collect the earth from outside the brothels. Why?

They believe that when people are entering the brothels, they are leaving all their virtues, all their Godly qualities behind. So that earth where they are leaving those becomes pious. Hence……

13. You have seen her in a Coke ad with Aamir Khan a few yrs back. A very famous heroine of Kolkata, who is she?

Sreelekha Mitra

14. In 1932, in an article in the American Cinematographer in US, what name was coined for the first time by Wilford E. Deming, an American engineer who was involved in a lot of work in Kolkata and India. This name now, though is more synonymous with something in South India? 

Tollywood

15. She is a Pune based actress who got immense popularity in Kolkata because of her role by the name of ‘Brinda’ in a certain 2009 Bengali movie. What is her name?

Radhika Apte