You'd think I would have discovered this in school. Our quiz club had one girl. Me. This didn't really affect any of us, since we were used to each other. Except in the inter-school quizzes when people would discover that our team had (gasp!) a girl. An intelligent human being with, like, legs! In a skirt! My own teammates found the whole thing hilarious. But it was only then that I realised that the number of girls who made it past the preliminary rounds of a quiz was minimal.

Worse still was the patronizing attitude of quizmasters. They never exactly patted me on the head, but some came close. One of the O'Briens (don't ask me which, it's not like I can keep track) invited an all girls team (from the host school) who had not qualified up on stage. Because I was the only one up there. My team came second that day, if I remember correctly. I could have done without O'Brien's surprised "this girl is good!" comments.

While I'm not a brilliant quizzer, I'm decent on my day. The attitude towards female quizzers seems to be similar to that of Dr Johnson, that delightfully funny misogynist, on female preachers. "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

Girls rarely quiz, and so the amount of non-textbook knowledge I possess has led to rumours that I am spectacularly intelligent; rumours...

that any of my teachers would laugh at. An abundance of useless information does not make you more intelligent, just more interesting.

The internet (quiznet, for example) is proof that there are some brilliant female quizzers in India. But they are in a tiny minority, and I'm not really sure why. People have given me possible reasons, but most of those rest on unfair stereotypes, and I don't think I can believe them.

First, there’s this theory that women are just less intelligent. I really hope not. To be less intelligent than many of the males I know would really be plumbing the depths.

Second, that girls have a different kind of intelligence...more focused. This is more acceptable, I suppose, though still a stereotype. It doesn't make women out to be less intelligent, just differently so. Quizzing encompasses an infinite range of subjects, and to be good at it you need a kind of scattered interest in everything. I think.

Then there's the 'conditioning' argument. 'Girls are conditioned by their upbringing to be interested in other things' (How do you condition someone not to be interested in something?). Or 'girls have to focus on their studies to prove themselves and have no time for gathering extraneous information' (eh?). Or that girls naturally gravitate towards arts and boys towards science, that quizzes may occasionally focus on subjects like sports which are more likely to interest boys, etc.

Even if this were true (and I'm not sure it is) it wouldn't explain our comparative...

weakness in quizzes based on 'arty' subjects like literature.

So why don't girls quiz? I haven't a clue. All I know is that I'd like them to. I'd love our college quiz society to have the force of the dance or drama societies. As of now, we count our members in single digits.

Quizzing is exhilarating. Many things are - most dancers and actors tell me they feel the same about their pastimes. But quizzing is essentially an intellectual exercise, and it stimulates on that level as well. Being surrounded by the kind of people who just like knowing stuff for its own sake is possibly the best feeling in the world. Most people I know are unlikely ever to experience this. And it just makes me sad.

- Aishwarya Subramaniam