Before I write anything further... Congratulations to the events committee and the food committee for putting up a great show. Great job done by both the teams to arrange the event and probably one of the best that I have seen in the last 8 years and I am sure everyone who was there at the event would agree with me. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed it thoroughly. Congratulations to every hero / heroine who put in their efforts in arranging the event.
We are Indians after all
All of us were expected to be there at the venue (Chillies) by 6.30pm IST. My team "(Wiser Together") had a customer call and a demo so we had informed that we will be there at the venue after 7.15pm. We had finished the call at around 7.05pm went back to our desks to pick up our bags. There were a few people at their desk still. We pulled them along, went to the fourth floor and saw a few more at their desk. Some were busy with some urgent work and said would join later. Viraj, Rajeev and myself, all of us had cars and so we pulled them all into our cars and were rushing towards the venue, since we were already late. We reached the venue, parked our cars and as I was walking in I was thinking that we would have missed a major part of the performances that was planned for the event. In we walk and guess what??? People have just started walking in and we were not late. It was around 7.30pm IST a full one hour beyond the originally planned time... Then I remembered someone telling me as a school kid, IST stands for Indian Stretchable Time and thought to myself... so true!!!
Gals are gals and the guys are guys
All the guys at the venue, were there straight from the office. But, with the girls it was a different scenario. They were all dressed for the occasion. They had enough time to leave the office, change into party wear and get to the venue. Look at them and you know that a party is going on.
The guys cannot be far behind the girls can they? Well, they may not be dressed for the occasion, but they were already at the bar and some of them had already gulped down a few pegs. You look at them and you know that a party is going on too :)
The build up
SNS foundation Day celebration was planned in advance and we had various theme days every week and a winner was selected for each theme. We had some interesting themes like Twins, Mismatch, Cocktail, Tapori, Hawaiian etc. Some themes had good participation while some of them were cake walk for the judges with hardly a handful participating. On the day of the event, we had to vote for a lot of titles like - Mr. SNS, Ms. SNS, Most Talkative, Most silent, Most cheerful person, Most Pleasing personality, Most eligible bachelor / spinster etc.
The ball set rolling
While the energy was building up on one side and some of them had already drained out their energy after in-take of couple of doses of "tonic" on the other. Then, out of the blue there was this announcement … It was Aparna drawing everyone's attention. The event was all set to begin. Devesh was invited to talk about SNS. He made his intentions very clear that he was not going to give any speech, but was generous to stop it after more than 10 minutes :) but of course before giving some insight about the company and some interesting and funny incidents. The speech was followed by the introduction sessions of the new comers followed by individual performances.
Talents came out of their hiding
After the short and sweet speech from Devesh, it was time for the performances, showcasing the hidden talents of SNS-ites. Most of the old timers know that Zohair is the Ghazal king at SNS. So, he was the obvious choice to kick start the performances. He started of with the foot tapping number from Mohit Chauhan - "Dooba dooba rahta hoon". (Thanks Deepak for correcting me). The surprise package however was Nishit... You bet ... he was awesome on his guitar. After Zohair, there were performances from Yash, Nishit and from Amol who performed a short and intoxicating (read intoxicated) performance. Then the request for a performance by the ladies came in. Nidhi was the one who came forward to sing. (To be honest, I did not know her name and I had to confirm the name from a colleague before I started writing this). Nidhi walked to the stage elegantly in a party wear. There were loud cheers all around. Unfortunately, it took me a while to realise that she had already started singing. Probably, Nishit's guitar notes were overpowering Nidhi's voice. Someone sitting next to me asked why her voice was not audible and I joked - "Can't you see that she has covered the microphone with a hanky, that is the reason" :) Devesh's presence of mind helped Nidhi's voice to come through better. He moved the microphone at Nishit's guitar farther away. But one thing I must admin, Nidhi was loud and clear outside the stage even without the microphone :). It was nice to see so many talents in SNS which not many people knew about. While these performances were going on, I was just praying that these performances should end soon and people should start of with the birthday celebrations and then hit the dance floor. No, don't get me wrong... the performances were excellent, I was only afraid that I would be asked to get on to the stage because, Shaju and Nishit were of the opinion that I should be on the stage too. I was just praying that they are not reminded about me at that time and luckily, they did not. Phew!!!
Winners take it all
Soon after Nidhi's performance, the Birthday celebrations began and then there were some games and prize distribution to the winners of various events that were conducted as part of the foundation day celebrations. Then came the most waited event for the day... the dance floor.
P - A - R - T - Y? bcos its party time
Soon after the prize distributions, the bar was "officially" open and the DJs were ready for the guys n gals to set the dance floor on fire. I have never seen this kind of an atmosphere at SNS in a very long time. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. Dancing like there is no tomorrow, drinking like they would never get to do it again. It felt nice to see so much of energy on the dance floor. The gloomy faces that were seen all around just a couple of days before the party (after the appraisals) were all gone. It was merry making time ... Some guys even went back to their childhood, literally. Yes, they were barely able to walk trying to balance themselves and even crawling. It was Rock n roll time... some were rocking on the dance floor while the others were rolling on the floor (in the lawns outside). Every now and then, people sitting were dragged to the dance floor. I was dragged many times, but managed to stay away from it since I enjoy watching the dance rather than being part of it. But, finally I had to oblige and was there for a couple of minutes dancing with each guy who had attempted to pull me to the floor. The dance floor was finally closed and everyone was queuing up for dinner. Some had already finished their dinner.
The finishing touches
Just when I had finished my dinner and was chatting up some friends, Nishit spotted me and looked like he was in no mood to let me go. He came straight to me and asked “why didn’t you come on to the stage” and asked me if I could sing then. I said "okay get the guitar" (I assumed that the guitar was not in that room and so I would not have to sing). But, he said lets do it without the guitar and I was game for it since it was just about 5-6 people around while the other were at the dinner hall. But what happened next was unexpected. Nishit went around announcing that I am going to sing and soon more people joined him and I had no other option but to oblige. I am pre-dominantly a bathroom singer and not comfortable singing in front of a crowd. But I mustered the courage to do so and was relieved when I finished with it. I guess I did a decent job as I saw everyone clapping. Even now, I am not very sure if they clapped because it was not bad or because finally I stopped it. :)
The next one came from an unexpected corner - the newbie Nandakumar. He sang a gem from Kishore da. The beauty about Nandakumar singing this song was that he does not speak or understand Hindi, but he did a great job. That was not all… the finishing touch came from Kishor (Borade) on the guitar and also singing some lovely numbers. Soon the crowd was all around Kishor, Nishit, Yash and gang.
The Good Samaritans
With the party finally over, it was time to head home. But there were quite a few who could not be left alone or could have reached their dwelling on their own or did not know where they lived :). So the plans were being charted out by the good Samaritans – Shaju, Viraj, Sharvan etc about who would drop whom and where. The "allocations" were done each of the "steady" people were ferried either to their place or to their friend's place. Three cheers to these good Samaritans who were willing to wait and ensure that everyone was taken care of.
This definitely is one of the best parties that I have seen at SNS and will remember it for a long long time. Some of you may have already been bored to death reading this "short" story, but before you are stop reading it any further (well there is nothing left to read) let us put our hands together once again, for the people who put in a lot of effort to make this event a memorable one.
Three Cheers to the Events committee and the Food committee. Hip Hip Hurray!!!
