Ashtaavadaana

'Ashtaavadaana' is an ancient art-form of our country, where a highly knowledgeable scholar is grilled simultaneously by eight other scholars, on virtually any subject under the planet, in a small span of time - around an hour. However, the questions posed to the Ashtaavadaani (the scholar being grilled) is generally restricted to literature, culture, history and/or any of the arts.
The Ashtaavadaani is typically, a scholar with extreme levels of concentration and intellect and somebody who can think on his feet and can reply to questions posed to him, with a dash of wit and humour as well.
The 'sport' has its roots in AP and is quite popular in parts of AP even today. While originally, the Ashtaavadaana was conducted in Sanskrit, current versions of the same, apart from being held in Sanskrit, are also held in other regional languages, most notably Kannada and Telugu.
Questions can range from being asked to construct and recite a poem (describing, say, a Goddess) using only one single alphabet / letter of the language, to being asked to fill up a grid with numbers, with some sort of a conditionality attached to the sequence of the numbers & the resultant sum, to being asked to play with words and create a poem that satisfies some sort of a mathematical condition with regard to the placement of letters within the poem (say, every fourth word of the line, when put together should form a poem on its own!!!) .....and... this is the best part....the answers are all in extempore!!! None of the questions are known to the scholar answering the questions, until such time he gets on to the stage and begins facing the volleys.
In the midst of all this, there is a joker sitting outside the arena / stage, who is doing oddities like say, ringing a bell, or shouting some inanities, etc. and the Astaavadaani is supposed to point out, at the end of the exercise, as to how many times the joker stuck the bell or recited the inanities!!!
The interesting bit is the there is something called a 'Shataavadhaana' where 100 scholars grill one person, all at the same time. Currently, there is only one person (one Dr. Ganesh of Bangalore), who has actually performed a 'Shataavadaana' and can lay claim to the title.
My personal claim to fame in this regard is the fact that my elder brother, a doc by profession, is an ardent member of this small fraternity of Sanskrit scholars and is an Ashtaavadhaani himself.
While I don't profess to be greatly influenced by either him or his scholarly time pass, I am interested in the fact that there are still people around who have the love and the noble thought of wanting to carry forward a proud and highly intellectual tradition.
In fact, though my brother has been participating in the activity virtually every week for the past 10 years, I have not even once attended an Ashtaavadaana. You might want to call me names, but.... that's how it is :)
People interested in wanting to attend one, can leave behind a note and I shall only be glad to let you know when the next one is taking place in the city.