There you were, sweaty and watchful, in school uniform, planning to eliminate your seat partner’s pen from the desk while there was still time for the subject teacher to arrive. Your eyes would trace and re-trace the direction between the two objects, and your fingers would modulate the force. It was the pen fight of your life, and it had to be played in all seriousness. Come to think of it, every pen fight was the battle of our lives.
All those unseriously serious pen fights nestle among my fondest school memories. But never, in my wildest of dreams, I could imagine that the timestamp game of every ’90s-2000s school kid would one day become an ultra-serious pen fight championship between Indian states. But well, dreams do come true.
Team Ok Tested recently released a 23-minute long nostalgia extravaganza, in the name of India’s First Pen Fight Championship. With representatives of 21 Indian states, they brewed drama, rivalry, and nostalgia, and it was everything.
The championship comprised 3 eliminating rounds. From the first round, only the top 17 states who pushed the pen to the farthest distance across the table moved ahead in the game.
The second round came with a sad twist. The participants had to form a team of 4, which, in extension, meant the one without the team would be disqualified. You see, here is where the game became meta, and without really forcing, it naturally offered a subtle commentary between inter-state relations and conflicts among our people.
The 16 remaining contestants, thereafter, had to get their hands dirty. They had to compete with each other to find 11 gadgets hidden underneath a pool of mud to strengthen their pen. Later, the teams had to battle with each other and only the winners from the four teams would make it to the final showdown.
For the last round, the final four had to step on a slippery plastic and remain the last person standing whilst trying to eliminate the other three states. It was difficult, it was intense, it was SOO WORTH IT.
After a battle of a lifetime, Kerala claimed the title and got honoured with an enormous pen crown and a cash prize. Can you imagine? If I had been paid each time I won pen fights, I would have had a pretty RICH childhood. Not kidding!
I was too curious to not ask about how the team came up with this concept. So, I spoke to Ok Tested anchor Kaustubh Chaturvedi, who was the mastermind behind this concept. He was managing and directing behind-the-scenes the entire time.
He confided with me about how this concept has been somewhat influenced by Japanese shows. “Wo log bohot hi stupid games karte hain bohot hi grand scale par. .Japanese shows humesha se inspire karte aaye hain, abhi bhi karte hain. Toh humne socha India mein abhi take aisa kuch nahi hua…the inception of nostalgic game shows”, he said. And we haven’t seen anything like it in India. But here we were re-living a core memory. You can’t watch this video and not smile throughout. That’s just the vibe.
But, with heaps of footage, multiple camera angles, slow-mo shots, and the animations required, it was the post-production that was a real rollercoaster. It took up to a solid two weeks. The shoot lasted for a day. But the preparations had begun much earlier. You see, they wanted a representative from every Indian state and they reached out to as many people as they could. Some agreed immediately, some denied, and some just ghosted. But the sense of FOMO to those who didn’t get to participate is real. I CAN FEEL IT.
But you know what? There’s still a chance. Kaustubh revealed there will be a season 2 of their championship franchise. Whether we’ll see a pen fight reboot or another nostalgic game altogether, we’ll know with time. But this may just get BIGGER and GRANDER, and we’re here for it.
If you haven’t watched the OK Tested’s PEN FIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP, you can watch it here.