I Opened What the What?! by Nipun Jain & Mohit Mamoria for the Trivia, but Found Myself Thinking About Curiosity says Sameer Gudhate

I have a confession.

I like books that make me stop reading.

Not because they are boring.

Quite the opposite.

Because sometimes I am reading a page and suddenly I have to look up and say,

“Wait. What?”

That happened quite a few times with What the What?!

And, honestly, that is probably the best possible reaction to this book.

I came to it expecting a book of strange facts, trivia and questions.

I got that.

But somewhere between one bizarre fact and another, I realised that Nipun Jain and Mohit Mamoria were doing something much more interesting.

They were reminding me what it feels like to be curious for no particular reason.

Think about children.

They ask questions all the time.

Why?

How?

But why?

And then, most importantly…

But WHY?

We smile at them.

Sometimes we answer.

Sometimes we say, “We'll talk about it later.”

And sometimes, if we are being completely honest, we say,

“Because that's how it is.”

And the child moves on.

Somewhere along the way, most of us become that adult.

We stop asking.

Not because we have found all the answers.

Because we have become comfortable with the answers we already have.

That is what What the What?! gently disrupts.

The book starts throwing questions at you.

A tiny island makes millions of dollars out of seemingly nothing.

A deadly weapon gets its name from a fruit.

A world-famous genius makes a spectacularly ordinary mistake.

And your brain does something wonderfully childish.

It goes:

“Hang on…”

You read the answer.

And then comes the second reaction:

“How did I not know this?”

That happened to me more than once.

And then came the dangerous part.

I started telling other people.

“Do you know this?”

“No.”

“Okay, listen to this…”

That is when I realised that the book had escaped from my hands.

It had become a conversation.

And isn't that one of the nicest things a book can do?

Not make you feel clever.

Make you want to share what you just discovered.

That is where Nipun and Mohit's experience with Arey Pata Hai really shows.

They understand that curiosity doesn't behave like a classroom.

It jumps.

It wanders.

It gets distracted.

It asks an entirely unrelated question five minutes later.

So the book allows you to do exactly that.

You don't have to read it from beginning to end.

You can open it anywhere.

Solve something.

Get stuck.

Skip a page.

Come back.

Challenge someone.

Argue about an answer.

And then, suddenly, you've spent far longer with the book than you intended.

There are quizzes.

Puzzles.

Mini-games.

Odd bits of history.

Science.

People.

Things we see every day without ever stopping to wonder about them.

I particularly enjoyed sections such as Quinzingo Mini Game, Plot Twist, String Theory and Alpha Beta.

But my favourite thing about the book may actually be something that isn't printed on any page.

It is what happens after you put the book down.

You start noticing things.

You start asking questions.

You start wondering whether something you've accepted as “normal” is actually quite strange.

And that got me thinking.

We have never had more access to information than we do today.

Ask your phone something and you'll get an answer in seconds.

So why are we not necessarily more curious?

Maybe because getting an answer has become too easy.

We search.

We read.

We scroll.

Next.

There is no time to sit with the question.

What the What?! slows that process down just enough.

It makes the question enjoyable.

And that matters.

Because curiosity isn't always about finding useful information.

Sometimes it is about knowing something completely unnecessary.

Something you'll never use.

Something that will probably win you no money, no promotion and no award.

But you'll remember it.

And later, at dinner, you'll suddenly say,

“Do you know why…?”

And somebody will say,

“No. Why?”

And there you are again.

Curious.

Like a child.

There is, of course, a small limitation.

With a book built around surprise, puzzles and trivia, there is always a danger that one “wow” moment gets replaced by the next before you've had time to sit with the first.

At times, I wanted a little more space around some of the discoveries.

But perhaps that is also part of the bargain this book makes with you.

It isn't asking to be studied.

It is asking to be played with.

And I think that is why I enjoyed it.

Some books ask you to concentrate.

Some ask you to reflect.

Some ask you to learn.

This one asks you to wonder.

And somewhere in adulthood, wondering becomes a surprisingly rare activity.

We become very good at knowing.

Very bad at asking.

Maybe we should reverse that occasionally.

Maybe the next time someone asks us a strange question, instead of saying,

“Why would you want to know that?”

we should say,

“Hmm. I don't know. Let's find out.”

That is the spirit I found in What the What?!

And perhaps that is the real reason I liked it.

Not because it contains hundreds of curious facts.

But because it reminded me that being curious is itself a way of being alive.

I still have questions.

Actually, after reading this book, I seem to have more of them.

And I have a feeling Nipun and Mohit would consider that a successful outcome.

My rating: 4.5/5 ⭐️

If you have a child who asks too many questions, give them this book.

If you are the adult who has forgotten how to ask questions, perhaps give it to yourself.

And if you have someone at home who enjoys trivia, puzzles and the occasional completely useless piece of information…

Don't blame me when they start interrupting dinner with:

“Do you know what I just found out?”

Because that's probably exactly what this book wants.

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