20-20 excitement at its best – This would be the apt expression to describe the on-stage event of the Chennai City Finals of Aqua Regia – The Science Quiz.How else would you describe a competition that see-saws till throughout the length and then gets decided in the very last question of the event?

More than 900 students from 180 schools participated in the Preliminary Round of Chennai City Finals. These students were short listed from more than 36,000 students who competed at the School –Level Preliminary Rounds conducted in the schools of Chennai and Puducherry. Hundreds of students and their teachers reported at the venue of the event, Kamaraj Auditorium, much before the reporting time of 09:00 am – a good measure of the popularity of the event as the schools in Chennai were closed due to incessant rains for the two days leading into the event.

The excitement and the ensuring competition was a given when one of the contestants inadvertently blurted out the answer for the first question – when he was supposed to write in on the answer sheet. Top six teams qualified for the on-stage finals and among them was an all-girls team from Puducherry. A team from Puducherry would not find great audience support in Chennai. But as the competition unfolded, the girls from St. Patrick found great support from various sections of the audience.

The large number of students who witnessed the event has also something to play for as the bumper audience prize was an Apple iPod. Also on the offer as exclusive audience prizes were wrist watches from Timex.When the very last question in the Rapid Fire Round was asked, the girls from St. Patrick were five points behind PSBB, Chennai. After what seemed like an eternity, the girls hit the buzzer and got the correct answer, winning by a margin of five points. The total cash prize for the Chennai Event was Rs. 25,000/-. The sponsor of the Event, Veegaland Amusement Park gave away lots of prizes for the audience.

The final standing after the event was as follows the top two teams qualified for the Tamil Nadu Regional Finals that followed.. They would compete with four teams from Madurai, Trichy and Salem.

Chennai City Finals:-

1)  St. Patrick MHSS, Puducherry

     G. Deepika Raman
     Madhuvanti K

2)  PSBBSS, KK Nagar

     D. Akshai Rangasai
     R. Visakh

3)  Bhavans Rajaji Vidyashramam, Kilpauk

     S. Venkatasubramaniam
     Mayank N K Choudhary

4) St. Johns English School and Junior College, Besant Nagar

    Nathanael Koilpalli
    Atishay Jain

5) AMM Matriculation HSS, Kottur

   S. Giridharan HSS
   V. Adithya

6) PS Senior Secondary School, Mylapore

   S. Abhinav
   Sarvesh Ashok

Quiz Master:- Ajay Antony, Vice President,T.I.M.E.