The Oasis English Press sat down with Zehaan Sharma, the coordinator of the English Language Activities Society (ELAS), while he was literally in the middle of preparing for a quiz to gain some insights about the working of the club before the fest.

ELAS is conducting four quizzes this year. The Oasis quiz is a general quiz hosted by Major Chandrakant Nair—a renowned quiz master. The Travel and Living Quiz, to be conducted by Aryapriya Ganguly, would consist of questions pertaining to culture and geography. The combined prize pool for both quizzes is INR 32,000.

The Entertainment Quiz, being conducted in collaboration with Informalz, and the Music Quiz is going to be informal events with prizes in kind which anyone can go and enjoy.

While the events themselves have been going on for a long time and remain largely unchanged, ELAS tries to incorporate the theme of Oasis into their quizzes. ‘For instance, we might add a question regarding [redacted movie], to relate it with the golden theme,’ Zehaan shared with us.

About the preparations, Zehaan mentioned that they did not face any major issues. ‘Both the quiz masters had come before, and they were glad to come back[sic],’ he added. Preparing quality content on time, he said, has been the only challenge.

Talking about his experience as the coordinator, Zehaan said that this is the first time he has received an opportunity to take charge and that he is enjoying the work so far. ‘We are carrying a part of ELAS’ legacy, while also deviating from it slightly,’ he mentioned.

In an effort to increase participation and outreach, ELAS has opened up pre-registrations to the Oasis Quiz this year, as opposed to previous years which only had on-the-spot registrations. The response has been great with ELAS having received 228 responses.

On a concluding note, Zehaan encouraged everyone to participate in the quizzes. He said that you do not need to be an avid quizzer to enjoy them and shared that he himself had not quizzed much before coming to BITS.