10Q (Apr 3, 2024)

1. The Portuguese word for 'stolen' is also a Goan surname, and the surname of this Canadian singer born of Portuguese parents [pic below]. Coincidentally, it also forms the name of India's biggest retailer of musical instruments, which has an outlet in Panjim. Name the singer you see below. [Half point if you get only the surname, a full point for the full name.]

2. The word / name in the question above originates from a Latin word for 'thief', which also gives rise to:
(a) an English adjective for someone acting in a secretive or guilty manner; and
(b) the English name for an animal from the family Mustelidae, which includes weasels, stoats, badgers, otters, martens, and wolverines.
What are (a) and (b)?

3. The Venezuelan city of Ciudad Bolivar used, till 1846, to be named [X], which gave its name to the Congress of [X] (1819), the [X] tree, and the House of [X], which is the maker of one of the most famous accompaniments to alcoholic drinks. What is [X]?

4. The title story of the anthology whose cover you see below formed the basis of which 2000 Bollywood movie, that was the debut film of two scions of famous Hindi film families?

5. In its native Swiss German, the word [A] meant 'knock' or 'thrust'. Its use in English grew during the reporting of the tumultuous Kapp [A] of 1920, in which Wolfgang Kapp and his right-wing supporters attempted to overthrow the German Weimar government. What's the word [A], that lends itself to punny headlines such as "When [A] comes to shove" and "One last [A]"? The correct spelling is important.

6. In 2019, Sri Lankan author and illustrator Sybil Wettasinghe enlisted the help of students from all across the country to contribute writings, drawings and poetry to complete the story in her new book, 'Wonder Crystal'. The outcome of that effort resulted in what world record for the novel, recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2020?

7. While performing religious rituals in the Panchganga River in October 1899, Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj of the princely state of Kolhapur noticed that the priests were not chanting mantras from the Vedas, but from the Puranas. The explanation given for this by the priests left such a mark on Shahu that it spurred the young Chhatrapati to action in a related aspect, leading to what first in India being introduced in Kolhapur in 1902?

8. This book [cover below] – the result of the authors' travels in the region in 1938 – was a personal recounting of which war, that began on July 7, 1937, with 'the Marco Polo Bridge incident', and was later subsumed into World War 2?

9. Signed by King Kalâkaua under threat of violence (and therefore known as the Bayonet Constitution), the 1887 Constitution adopted in 1877 in which Kingdom stripped the king of much of his authority, and introduced a property qualification for voting, which disenfranchised most locals and immigrant labourers, and favored the wealthier white settler community? It was the first step in the annexation of that Kingdom into its coloniser nation in 1898.

10. This statue [pic below] in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, is of someone born in that city in 1876, whose life saw a sea change at the age of 18, after she answered an advertisement in a Dutch newspaper placed by Dutch Colonial Army Captain Rudolf MacLeod who was living in the then Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and was looking for a wife. Who is it? You can give either her real name or the one we are more familiar with.

 

Answers
1. Nelly Furtado
2. (a) Furtive
(b) Ferret
3. Angostura

4. 'Refugee'

5. Putsch
6. Book with most alternative endings (it has 1,250 possible endings)
7. First caste-based job reservations in India. The priests had explained that only brahmins had the right to perform ‘Vedokta’ rituals and since Marathas were ‘shudras’, they could perform rituals only from the Puranas. The administrative order of 1902, decreed by Shahu, brought in reservations in government jobs for backward castes.
8. Sino-Japanese War
9. Kingdom of Hawaii
10. Mata Hari