About Paatal

Paatal is a daily quiz game made for India, where being right is not enough: being rare is what counts.

The idea

In most quizzes a question has one right answer. Here each has dozens: Prime Ministers of India, the twelve Jyotirlingas, characters from the Ramayana. Saying Modi or Nehru is right, and nearly everyone says it. Gulzarilal Nanda is right too, and almost nobody remembers him. Paatal is a game about that difference.

Why Paatal Lok

The Puranas describe seven worlds beneath the earth: Atala, Vitala, Sutala, Talatala, Mahatala, Rasatala and Patala, with Shesha beneath them all. Seven questions, seven realms: every rare answer takes you a realm deeper. The scoring tiers are named for the dwellers there, from Yaksha to Nagaraja, and the rarest of all, the Nagamani.

How answers are checked

Indian names have no single spelling: Mumbai and Bombay, Vishwanathan and Viswanathan, महाभारत and Mahabharat. Paatal's matching is built to understand all of them: English, Hindi in Roman letters and Devanagari, nicknames, honorifics and small slips. The aim is simple: never tell someone a right answer is wrong.

Answers that do not match are reviewed later, and the ones that turn out to be right are added to the lists.

Where the questions come from

Questions and answer lists are compiled and checked from encyclopaedias, official lists and other public sources. The paintings are public-domain Indian art; the full list is on the Credits page.

Free, no sign-up

You need no account, name or email to play. The game is free. In time, ads or sponsored days may help cover the cost of running it, but there will never be paid entry or money prizes.

Contact

Suggestions, a disputed answer, or anything else: help@paatal.in