Quiz on genius

It is the 97th birth anniversary of Satyajit Ray, filmmaker, screenwriter, author, graphic artist and composer. This week’s quiz is about genius.

Gallery of genius

1 ‘The Red Vineyards near Arles’ was created on a large piece of burlap in November 1888 and is currently housed in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. What specific claim to fame does this painting have in art history?

2 Leonardo Da Vinci had a series of notebooks containing his scientific and anatomical drawings. Most of these are in major museums such as the Louvre. Only one, Codex Leicester , is in a private collection and is put on display in different cities every year. Who owns it?

3 When the South African cricket team was banned from touring England in 1970, the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) instead organised a Test series against a team called the Rest of the World (RoW). The RoW captain took six wickets on the opening day with hostile pace bowling, scored a magnificent 183, and finally helped dismiss the Englishmen with his left-arm Chinamen. Name him.

4 Other than composing the music, and singing for it, which 1964 film did Kishore Kumar also write, produce and direct? If it helps, the film is about a father’s relationship with his mute son, and Kishore and his son Amit also played the lead roles.

5 To make this famous move, while looking to pass or cross, a footballer instead drags the ball behind his planted foot with the inside of his crossing foot, turns 180 degrees, and accelerates away from the defender. It was first seen in the 1974 World Cup. Name the move.

6 A Letter to a Hindu was a letter written by a famous writer to Tarak Nath Das in 1908, in response to letters sent by Das seeking support for India’s Independence. The letter helped Mohandas Gandhi form the basis of his views on non-violence. Who wrote the letter?

7 This player invented Chess960, a variant of chess where the position of the starting pieces are randomised. After a series of run-ins with his own government, he was granted an Icelandic passport and lived there until his death in 2008. Name the player.

8 While Picasso had a famous ‘blue period’, which legendary jazz musician is regarded to have had the same phase during 1949-55 when he was struggling with heroin addiction while on a US tour with Billie Holliday?

9 Whose missing notebook were found by George Andrews in 1976 among the effects of GN Watson stored at the Trinity College, Cambridge, and in which specific scientific community did it cause a huge stir?

10 In 2016, Bill Gates wrote an article about the best teacher he never had, naming a certain Nobel laureate. Gates was so impressed by this scientist that he put together Project Tuva to place all his lectures in a website for public viewing. Who was the scientist?

Answers

1 It is believed to be the only painting Vincent Van Gogh sold in his lifetime

2 Bill Gates; he bought it for over $30 million in 1994

3 Sir Garfield Sobers of the West Indies

4 Door Gagan Ki Chhaon Mein; the film is remembered for its soundtrack, particularly the song ‘Aa chalke tujhe’

5 The Cruyff Turn, after the legendary Johan Cruyff

6 Leo Tolstoy

7 Bobby Fischer

8 Miles Davis; he also released an album of the same name in 1953

9 Srinivasa Ramanujan’s lost notebook. The discovery took the world of mathematics by storm

10 Physicist Richard Feynman

Joy Bhattacharjya is a quizmaster; Twitter: @joybhattacharj

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