Brothers crowned at DC quiz finals

The Hashmi brothers — Syed Mustafa and Syed Murtuza — from Osmania Medical College have become the first ever winners of the Deccan Chronicle Quiz Challenge.

The similarly-dressed quizzing geniuses scored a whopping 210 points in the finals on Sunday as they beat Bhargav A. and Chandrashekar of VNR Vignan Jyothi and G. Shruti and P. Bharadwaj of Badruka College of Commerce, who came second and third respectively.

The young duo from the city’s Masab Tank area were clear winners from the start as they breezed through the rounds of questions from the fields of science and technology, history, business, current affairs and sport.

“We were really happy to know that DC was conducting a quiz. So, we took part. Both of us have been quizzing since childhood. Having diverse interests definitely worked in our favour during the finals. I’m interested in history, politics, literature and arts while my brother is more into films. So, we made a good team,” said 20-year-old Syed Mustafa, who is planning a career in the civil services.

The younger sibling, Murtaza, is currently in his first year of studies.

The Deccan Chronicle Quiz Challenge is part of the newspaper’s 75th year anniversary celebrations and was conducted in partnership with recruitment firm TMI Network, across 35 colleges with nearly 300 students participating.

For the finals, at the city’s Radisson Blu hotel, five teams were picked from the total of 10 colleges that had appeared.