Writer’s Corner: Meet Berty Ashley, the quizmaster shaping Bengaluru’s quiz culture

4 min readBengaluruJul 8, 2026 10:15 AM IST

After permanently moving to Bengaluru in 2014, Berty Ashley began conducting quizzes for the Karnataka Quiz Association (KQA). (Express photo: Special Arrangement)

Hang around Bengaluru’s quizzing scene long enough, and you are bound to run into Berty Ashley. Whether it is at a larger event or a cozy pub quiz in Indiranagar, the molecular biologist-turned-quizmaster is known for bringing a distinctive style to quiz format that often follows familiar patterns.

Berty Ashley, who hails from Madurai, has been quizzing since he was a Class 5 student. Recalling how he got involved with quizzing in Bengaluru, he said, “The city has a very strong quizzing history. Earlier, when I was in Chennai, I used to travel to Bengaluru just to attend the KQA (Karnataka Quiz Association) quizzes… whenever they conducted quizzes, we used to cross state lines just to attend them. There was always this sense that the KQA quizzes were like the pinnacle of quizzing. And if you could do well in one of those, then that kind of seals your CV as to how good you are.”

After permanently moving to Bengaluru in 2014, Ashley began conducting quizzes for the KQA before expanding into the wide range of quiz events he is known for today.

Berty Ashley, the writer

Beyond the quiz stage, many Bengalureans may also recognise his name on bookstore shelves — the 42-year-old has authored and co-authored eight quiz books. They had their roots in a series of quizzes that he does for The Hindu’s Sunday Magazine – after which Rupa Books approached him in 2020 to compile them into a book, Quizzes for Quirky Minds. The other seven were all independent books, built on the pattern that Ashley incorporates into his quizzes – from topics as far apart as science, literature, and even the Indian Premier League (IPL).

There is one major difference between the quiz books and how he likes to manage a quiz. However, a book can never have an audiovisual component. He explains, “The one major difference is that none of these books can use any other media rather than print….There are no visuals, there is no audio or video, and I can’t do any cluing in terms of visuals….the quizzes that I host are heavily visual and only around five per cent of the questions are fully text based.”

Quiz books packed with entertainment

However, he isn’t necessarily only aiming at people looking to prepare for a quiz. Ashley said, “My quiz books are written in such a way that they are more like entertainment. So a lot of people just pick it up and leave it on the coffee table. They give it away as gifts because you can just randomly open it up, as they have a lot of interesting themes. A lot of schools stock them as well. One thing which I also promote is purchasing the books so that people can run quizzes among circles themselves, among friends, and among family.”

Ashley has been partnering with schools to establish quiz clubs, hoping to draw younger participants into the city’s quizzing scene. While Bengaluru’s quiz circuit has traditionally been dominated by older men, he says the demographic is slowly changing, with more women and students now taking part.

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New trends

As far as the quizzes he has been conducting are concerned, he bucks the trend again, with quizzes tending to go for a unique theme – possibly incorporating humour or even memes as he goes along. He explains, “I’m working on a quiz for the Tata Institute of Genetics and Society –  all to do with genetic disorders and genetically inherited diseases. It’s a very serious topic, but I’m using a lot of GIFs and memes –  using fun facts and comedy to get a very serious subject across.”

Readers interested in participating in quizzes across Bengaluru are advised to join one of the WhatsApp groups of the Karnataka Quiz Association to keep an eye on timings.