The general of knowledge

Neil was a warm, friendly person. He held it all together. We were a bunch of geeks and freaks, those early quizzers. Mixed nuts is the only way to describe us. We came from a variety of backgrounds and incomes and age groups. Journalist Ashok Malik used to come directly from school, for example, still in uniform. He was disturbingly well informed. I think I eventually gave up quizzing because I got fed up of constantly losing to a little boy in short pants. Some of the others were pickled old fogies, steeped in Broadway and oil paintings and Shakespeare. Then there were the uncategorisable polymaths, like Partha Basu and Mrs Jayakumar and Devangshu Dutta. It gave me a personal dose of perspective, because until then, I had thought I was smart. They were the brightest group of humans that I have ever hung out with.

If a man is known by the company he keeps, then Neil was a great man indeed. He made us all very welcome. Whether you were in short pants or a Kanjeevaram saree, if you were into quizzing, you were his comrade, and he would always talk to you with the easy familiarity of an equal. Clubs by their very nature are supposed to be exclusive. Whenever I’m in the Delhi Gymkhana or the Bengal Club, for example, I feel like an interloper. I live in constant fear of being exposed as unworthy, and being hauled off by a six-foot tall bearer in a spotless white jacket, held together by a cummerbund and topped off by a turban. Neil never made anyone feel that way, and largely thanks to him, the Dalhousie Institute has to be one of the most egalitarian clubs in the country. The squiz was the thing.

He also changed my perception of alcohol, and its appropriate usage. I had never actually seen anyone drinking in public before. It was something that you did skulking behind a car at your cousin’s wedding, with lookouts posted and breath mints in stock. We were always improbably fragrant. Judging by Hindi movies, I had always assumed that the only activity you could indulge in while drinking was watching cabaret. From observing Neil and the rest of his merry crew, I realised that this was not necessarily the case. It was possible to drink alcohol and do other things also. Beer and quizzing went hand in hand at DI, and no one seemed much worse for wear. As the evening went on, Neil as the Quiz Master would sometimes grin a little bit more, and perhaps be a touch more lenient in awarding points, but other than that, he was as sharp as ever.

He was part of a generation who devoted time and energy to quizzing as gentlemanly amateurs. They did it because they loved it. It was a pure art form, like Test cricket, with no newfangled fripperies like buzzer rounds and lifelines and can you identify the cheerleader. Two points for a direct, one for a bonus, and that was it. He was part of a noble breed. Francis Groser, Sadhan Banerjee, RM Sinha, Caro Basil — they all slogged away, sometimes with audiences of less than 100 people. But Neil was the prince of them all, and everyone was welcome at his court, greeted by him personally with a pat on the back and a smile. And he always remembered your name.

He was a lovely guy. An incredible number of mixed nuts are going to miss him.

Shovon Chowdhury is the author of two novels, most recently Murder With Bengali Characteristics.