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Category: Quizzes

Take Our Very, Extremely Accurate Personality Quiz from The Very, Extremely, Most Naughty Asura Tales for Kids!

Posted on by ananya

Little asura kids are naughty and troublesome and always up to something! Little will you know when you land in a muddy puddle or your long hair gets chopped off into a bob. They will prod, pull and tug you till you yell-just like the gods in the heavens, especially Vishnu and Shiva who are simply fed up!

This festive season the creator of Bahubali and bestselling author of Vanara-The Legend of Baali, Sugreeva and Tara presents a hilarious romp through the ancient tales of the Puranas in the funniest, most colorful way possible through The Very, Extremely, Most Naughty Asura Tales for Kids!

Just like humans, the beings from Indian mythology are multi-faceted, they’re naughty, mischievous and full of pranks, but they’re also talented, intelligent and spiritual. Some of their acts, hobbies and wishes resonate with all of us-and so we’ve prepared this 100 per cent, fool proof quiz to find out which characteristics are strongest in your personality!

Take this quiz to find out if you’re an Awesome Asura, Divine Deva or Mere Mortal!

 

  1. Do you think you would be more successful if your mother would just calmly let you run amok?

A-No, mothers give divine guidance

B-Sometimes

C-Yes-just want to be a little demon in peace

 

‘No, we don’t want to study. We know everything. We want to conquer the world!’ Mandakka roared. ‘Yes, we are so smart and intelligent and bright and strong. We want to rule the world! If only our mother would leave us be,’ Kundakka wailed.

 

  1. Have you ever cause your parents real embarrassment when guests came around through your clumsiness and stuffing your mouth full of food?

A-Never, you are a model of manners

B-Once or twice

C-Yes, it’s fun to see their shocked expression!

 

The naughty Bhasmasura looked up and said, ‘No, father, I wasn’t crying because I soiled the food of twenty guests. I am crying because I thought the mango would skip further and spoil the food of at least fifty guests! Poor me, I could spoil only twenty. Baaaaaa ngaaa .

 

  1. If you could have exactly one superpower granted to you, which one of these would you pick?

A-The ability to bring peace to the world

B-The ability to fly

C-The ability to incinerate things to cinders

 

‘Put on the spot, Bhasma forgot what he wanted to ask! He was taken aback by the appearance of Lord Shiva. He collected himself and said, ‘Umm . . . uh . . . Whatever I touch should turn to ashes.’

 

  1. Would you grant a ridiculous boon to a rather dangerous person if they pleaded with you long enough?

A-Yes-everyone deserves a reward

B-You might if it wasn’t too ridiculous

C-Never, you only take boons, not grant them!

 

‘Hush, Vasuki,’ Shiva said, flashing a serene smile at the cobra that was perched around his blue throat. ‘The poor asura has done such a tough penance. I will have to give him a boon.’ Shiva turned to Bhasma and asked, ‘Son, what boon do you want?’

 

  1. If there one question all grown-ups love to ask, it is ‘What are your hobbies?’ Which of the following fits your interests best?

A-Listening to the divine singing of apsaras

B-Cricket

C-Annoying the rishis around you

 

Now Shumba and Nishumba were very naughty, right from the moment they were born. They were wild and uncontrollable. Their hobbies ranged from pouring water over the sacrificial fire of maharishis, to setting fire to hermitages and throwing stones at people’s homes while they slept.

 

  1. You are what you eat they say and we all love to eat! Which of the following would you pick for your next snack?

A-Milk and honey

B-Pizza

C-A few dozen elephants!

 

A rice mound as big as a hill, A lake full of sambhar, Another lake full of chutney, A mountain of vegetables, And ninety-six bullock carts full of fruits as dessert. Imagine this lunch, and each meal was double this quantity, for they were twins!

 

  1. If your friend asks you to carry a message to a special someone, which of the following would be your chosen method of communication?

A-Send a showers of roses from the heavens

B-Send a text message

C-Kidnap the special someone on a flying carpet

 

‘What—’ he said and there was a flash of explosion. Aniruddha was thrown back from the window to his bed. In her panic, Chitralekha had used more force than necessary in her chant. She flew into the room and jumped out of her carpet. She was scared he was dead. She felt his heartbeat and sighed in relief. He was still breathing. Chitralekha dragged him and put him on the carpet.

 

Ticked your preferences? Here are your results!

Mostly As-Divine Deva

Mostly Bs-Mere Mortal

Mostly Cs-Awesome Asura

Do YOU have what it takes to be a detective?

Posted on by Penguin India

‘The youngest and coolest teen detective in India’ is back!

No case is bizarre enough for detective Shrilok, a chaiwala with a penchant for deduction, disguises and drama, and his partner in crime, Rohan Doctor. India’s favourite teen detective is back! After taking Mumbai by storm, Shrilok and his best friend, Rohan, are now chasing criminals far and wide, even landing up in London. The stakes are high for the chaiwala-turned-super-sleuth, with murder mysteries, secret codes, museum robberies, an exam-paper racket and a terrorist from the past.

Our desi Sherlock always rises to the challenge, but can you do the same? To help you find out if you have what it takes to be a detective, we have conducted this detailed analysis of Shrilok’s brilliant methods and his fascinating personality to come up with The Ultimate Detective Test!

See how many of these questions you can honestly say ‘yes’ to, and use this foolproof scoring system to determine your Shrilok Quotient!

 0-3 Affirmatives—Innocent bystander

4-6 Affirmatives—Trusty companion and chronicler

7-10 Affirmatives—Youngest and coolest teen detective!

 

While a little advertisement is useful, a good detective needs to go undercover occasionally. Do you have the necessary discretion to refrain from wanting to spread the news of your talents far and wide?

“Shrilok Homeless is discreet and good for undercover work, I like blowing my own horn sometimes, I admit, but “Detective Shrilok would be like walking with an entire marching band!”

∼

It’s nice to mind your own business, but a detective needs to poke his nose into other’s business and sniff out trouble. Is your nose just a little longer to enable this?

“He had grown an inch taller over the last month, but his straight nose was the same, half an inch longer than perfect.”

∼

A good detective needs something to keep their energy up! Chai gives Shrilok wings! What about you?

“Shrilok finished three cups of tea before he got an idea.”

∼

Even the best and most private of detectives needs some help from the police force to be taken seriously? Have you helped your friendly neighbourhood policeperson yet?

“Upon reaching, we met our friend, Divya Lokhande who had helped us with many of our cases in the past. She had been recently promoted as the assistant commissioner of police. We filled her in on the details of the case. She is usually very calm and collected but our news had her gushing with excitement.”

∼

 A detective needs a hobby apart from detecting to look busy and stave off unnecessary questions. Do you have any musical talent—can you play the flute, the cello or perhaps the violin?

“Shrilok played his flute during the journey and avoided any talk about the case.”

∼

 A detective does not dismiss the most mundane of evidence. Do you have the observational skills to spot even an unassuming bead of water, and analyze it correctly?

“Shrilok, who had been quiet till then suddenly commented, ‘He will not be able to read. He’s left his glasses near the bathroom sink.” “That I wear glasses is obvious from the marks they have left on the bridge of my nose. But how did you know I had left them in the bathroom quizzed Mr Ansari standing up to fetch his specs. “Simple hai! There is a bead of water on your neck. The AC is on so it cannot be sweat. Therefore it’s obvious you went to the bathroom to wash your face and took off your glasses. When you wiped your face you missed that spot.”

∼

Sometimes it’s not very easy to see your friends as possible criminals. Can you set your feelings aside and analyze ALL possible suspects, even the ones you really like?

“My motto is to suspect everyone.”

∼

While a true detective takes a while to trust people, he must be able to inspire trust in others, even criminals. Do you have the kind of persona that just makes people want to confide their deepest, darkest secrets to you?

“Bro you’re a pro at winning trust. So many people have confessed their crimes to you in the past’, I reminded him.”

∼

 With great power comes great responsibility. You may be blessed with extraordinary deductive genius, but will you always choose the right path and remain a super sleuth and not turn into a criminal mastermind?

“Being an orphan and a chaiwala, spending my days on the streets of Mumbai, I had to make the choice between good and evil quite early in life’. And the choices he made transformed him into who he is today.”

∼

 No man is an island, and detectives too need a sea of informers! Do you have the right networking skills to get you to the top of the detective league?

“Once fifteen eager kids were in the dining hall I laid out my plan. Shrilok had his own network of informers who collected information for him. I was going to use the very same network to find the detective himself.”

∼

 And most of all, do you have a best friend and eternal companion, who praises your achievements unabashedly, whose friendship survives (fake) bullets, and who saves you at the very end?

“I ran to where Shrilok was standing. ‘Rohan bhidu you saved my life!’ he yelled, giving me a hug… Shrilok and I, stood side by side ready to face another day.”

Find out what happens next in Shrilok Homeless: The Ultimate Adventures Volume 2

Best of Bournvita Quiz for You!

Posted on by Penguin India

The award-winning Bournvita Quiz Contest started as a radio programme in 1972, then shifted to television in the 1990s. Since 1994, it has been hosted by Asia’s best-known quizmaster, Derek O’Brien, in his inimitable style, and it holds the record for being the longest-running knowledge game show on Indian television. This definitive edition comprises a selection of the best Q & As from this iconic children’s show.

Here’s a super fun quiz carefully curated for you!

Featuring 1000 questions, carefully curated from the exhaustive twenty-year-old archives, The Bournvita Quiz Contest Collector’s Edition is dotted with heartening anecdotes, fun trivia and thoughtful essays by people who worked on this much-loved show.

 

Quiz Yourself: How Much Do you Know about Nanotechnology?

Posted on by Penguin India

Five Fun Facts From Reignited 2

To get you started on an incredibly fun path to a giant world of very tiny and very powerful particles, take this quick quiz on nanotechnology!

Following the success of Reignited: Scientific Pathways to a Brighter Future, Srijan Pal Singh pens yet another significant book for students. Reignited 2: Emerging Technologies of Tomorrow bares all about some exciting and cutting-edge fields in sciences, such as nanotechnology automobiles; energy; astrobiology; environment and defense technologies; and a lot more!

This must-have guidebook will provide budding scientists with a whole new world of ideas, inspiration and inputs from pioneers in fields that have shaped the world, helping them think out of the box and make a difference in the future! One of these really futuristic fields is nanotechnology which works with matter that is in the range of 10-9 metres in dimension!

Meet the Deities from Hindu Mythology

Posted on by Penguin India

The Hindu mythology comprises of many deities who are worshipped in many forms across India. We all have heard stories about them and have been fascinated about by them. Award-winning author Sudha Murthy in her new book, The Man from the Egg brings together fascinating tales of the most powerful gods from the ancient world.
Here are a few of those deities:





How many of these deities did you know about?

How Did the Don Become the Master Baker?

Posted on by Penguin India

Raja Sen’s The Best Baker in the World opens up the world of cult (and sometimes controversial) films to children and their parents, as Sen’s tribute to Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, comes visually alive with the stunning illustrations done by Vishal K. Bharadwaj. But what is the secret recipe that went into the making of this amazing, one-of-a-kind book?
Raja Sen and Vishal Bharadwaj spill the beans!
Where did the thought of adapting a cult-film into a book for children come from?

Raja: Great stories transcend boundaries. Children routinely read adaptations of classic novels and Shakespeare plays, and I strongly believe cinematic masterpieces are as fundamentally strong as those texts. I thought it would be fascinating to see if a mature, R-rated film can retain its narrative appeal without the ‘adult’ elements — the blood and violence and sex — and if we could still pay tribute to the iconic and memorable aspects of the original film. The characters, the moments, the drama, all of that still remains even if the stakes aren’t fundamentally tied to violence and war. The thing we must remember is that if told right, the popping of a water balloon can feel as momentous in a story as the assassination of a character.

Vishal: When Raja approached me to illustrate the project, two things were set in stone: that these would be ‘adult’ films i.e. ones that only they should watch, as opposed to all-ages classics or PG-13 level movies that a child might be exposed to with the right guidance; and second, that we wouldn’t do a shot-for-shot, beat-by-beat representation of the films. This transformative quality is what really intrigued me about the project.
Why a baker, and not any other profession, for your protagonist who happened to be the head of a mafia in the original?
Raja: More than anything, The Godfather is a film about family — a family business, if you will. It is also a specifically Italian family film, which means food features heavily. Thus I wanted to adapt it around a family business about food, and a bakery seemed both appropriate for the task and appropriately inviting for a children’s setting. As a bonus, my illustrator Vishal Bhardwaj loves cooking and photographing food, and I knew he’d draw mouthwatering pastry.

Vishal: Fairly early on I asked Raja if we could concentrate the setting of the book down to a single street or neighbourhood (the movie takes place across multiple countries and cities), since we were telling an intimate story of families. The term ‘godfather’ denotes a certain protector status, someone you turn to for guidance & comfort. So we thought of similar pillars of a community, the kind who would always be there for you and make you feel better. Also, since I have a penchant for food, a bakery, with all its warmth and the aromas of its fresh baked goods filling the neighbourhood, was the perfect fit.
How difficult was it to dress up The Godfather as a bird who’s a baker?
Vishal: The process took a couple of weeks to go from Brando to bird. Plenty of exploratory sketches, starting with straight renditions of Brando himself, then trying on different animal ‘skins.’ During the research phase I read that Brando thought of Don Corleone as an old bulldog, so he added in the now-famous jowly look to the character. A bulldog version of our Don was tried, but he didn’t vibe with our baker’s character. Finally, after hogs & lions and other beasts, he took the form of a bird, a wise owl. There was the right gentleness to him now, but when Raja saw me draw his wings as delicate arms that manipulated pastry, he asked me to change them to more formidable, warmly enveloping wings almost as huge as the rest of him, and the physical character was complete.
As far as actually dressing him, we moved away from the iconic tuxedo. He is a baker after all, so an apron was appropriate, and  rolled up sleeves with a bowtie (he’s still dapper, not sloppy!). I put in a subtle nod to a contemporary chef I like, Mario Batali, who is known for wearing shorts and Crocs sandals under his apron. But because our Don is more old-school (and Raja, like myself, appreciates a good pun), did away with the Crocs and instead gave our big bird a pair of classic wing-tip brogues.
What are the other cinematic masterpieces being retold for children in this series?
Raja: We’re looking at taking on several mature, memorable films and recreating what made them special while setting them in an entirely different (and wholly innocent) world. Next up is a homage to Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, a highly explicit and wild film about addiction, and one of my favourite films of the 90s. Others on the list include some of the most quotable films of all time, as well as a particularly scandalous one by Stanley Kubrick.
Vishal: I hadn’t seen The Godfather before saying yes to The Best Baker in the World (as it came to be called. For a long time we referred to it as ‘Project Cannoli’). The running joke of-late has been that whatever we end up doing, if it’s a film I haven’t seen before taking the adaptation on, we must be on the right track! Raja has dropped some intriguing names into the hat, from sprawling epic classics to mind-bending modern gems. I’m excited to visually interpret any of these.
Fascinating, isn’t it? Do you still need any more convincing to pick up this marvellous book not just for your little one, but yourself too!

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