Saranya Jayakumar: A lifetime of curiosity and quizzing

As an avid reader with an insatiable curiosity, 85-year-old Saranya Jayakumar has spent her life chasing questions, finding answers, and proving that learning never stops.

Even today, decades after she first forayed into competitive quizzing, Jayakumar remains as inquisitive and passionate as ever.

“Just yesterday, I was reading about the Wallace Line, the biogeographical boundary between Asia and Australia, as imagined by naturalist and geographer Alfred Russel Wallace,” she says. 

Jayakumar's tryst with quizzing began in the 1950s, a time when competitive quizzing was largely an elite pursuit with few women in the scene. Back then, intercollegiate quizzing was still in its infancy, with just two major competitions in Chennai—the Madras Students Union quiz and the prestigious Johnson Cup, hosted by a Pachaiyappa’s College professor by the same name.

As a student at Queen Mary’s College, and later at Presidency College, Jayakumar found herself among the few women making waves in the quizzing scene. “There weren’t many of us, but we never saw it as a battle of the sexes,” she tells HerStory. “We were just there to compete and to win.” And win she did, claiming the Johnson Cup multiple times.

At a time when women in academia were still breaking barriers, Jayakumar’s presence in quizzing was a statement in itself.

Post marriage, Jayakumar moved to Calcutta, and quizzing seemed like a thing of the past, as she found herself immersed in raising four children, a full-time commitment that momentarily eclipsed her passion for quizzing.

But not for long, as in 1978, a simple newspaper advertisement—a notice for the North Star Quiz—reignited it and led her to her second innings into the quizzing scene. Her husband’s nephew spotted the ad and suggested to Jayakumar that she participate. With that, Jayakumar re-entered the quizzing world—this time with a new team, ‘Motley Crew’, which soon became a formidable presence in Calcutta’s fiercely competitive quizzing circuit.

Under the shadow of legendary quizmaster Neil O’Brien, the team quickly rose through the ranks, competing at events hosted at the Dalhousie Institute and beyond. “Those were some of the best years,” says Jayakumar. 

By the time she returned to Chennai (then Madras) in 1986, Jayakumar was determined to continue quizzing. She formed yet another team, ‘Memory Bank’, this time featuring her son and his friends from medical college. Together, they won the All India North Star Trophy in the early 1990s, marking the first time the prestigious title left Calcutta.

Quizzing today is a far cry from the memory-intensive, knowledge-driven contests of the past. “Back then, you had to remember things,” Jayakumar says. The rise of the internet and smartphones has changed the way people approach trivia, with access to information easier than ever before. “But, this kind of change is inevitable,” she adds.

Despite all these developments, Jayakumar believes that the fundamentals of quizzing remain timeless. “Certain things—like geography, history, and classic literature—don’t change,” she says.

If quizzing has been Jayakumar’s lifelong passion, reading has been its predecessor, and in many ways the reason why she got into quizzing in the first place. “When I was a student, nobody even mentioned the word ‘quiz’ to me,” she says. “I was always in the library, and my English professor suggested I register for a few quizzes in the city. I just went with it. And that’s how this journey began,” she says.

From her early visits to the Oxford Bookshop library in Calcutta to her present-day reading habits, books have remained a constant source of learning and joy.

“I never stopped reading,” she says, noting how her literary preferences have evolved over the years. “It started with fiction and thrillers, but once I got back into quizzing, I began reading more history, mythology, and art.”

Even today, her reading choices are diverse. “I just finished Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond,” she shares. But espionage novels remain a guilty pleasure. “John le Carré, Len Deighton-those were my favourites for the longest time.”

Her love for knowledge even led her to write a quiz book on world religions for Rupa Publications. Unlike conventional quiz books, hers went a little beyond multiple-choice questions, weaving engaging narratives into every section. “I wanted to make the questions themselves interesting,” she explains.

As an octogenarian, Jayakumar remains a beloved figure in Chennai’s quizzing circles, recently awarded the 'Lifetime Achievement Award' by the Quiz Foundation of India, founded in Madras in 1987. 

After all these years, Jayakumar is still asking questions, still seeking answers, and still proving that curiosity never grows old. “You never stop learning,” she says.