Bio-wise and otherwise

The day: August 17.

The morning: uneventful. The IECians ambled in to the office as usual with their lunchboxes. Logged onto their machines.

Come afternoon:  Uh, uh, still nothing. The average IECian continued to peer at the computer screen, commenting, emailing and drumming their favorite I-tunes on the tables.

Come evening: Something was definitely hip-hop happening! It all started with a the sound of footsteps marching out the door.  Then a thundering sound of the accelerating motorbikes. A crunch of car wheels on freshly laid gravel.

Cut to the swank Chancery Pavilion hotel. The IECians quickly donned their coolest ever attitude to attend the IEC Annual Event. Thereafter, there was no stopping them!

And the award goes to: 

The celebration began with Anil, saying some good things about our yearly performance. The audience nodded in benign acknowledgement. KNR took over with some straight open source talking. And then Sumitha and Srini showed some great chemistry while announcing the honors with the awards. Solaris folks had a windfall of trophies to tow home while the Quality team carried  a shield back proudly. The IEC IPG team had great moments when Sunil Bhaskaran was awarded for his technical competence and Pallavi Madhusudhan got the 'Rookie of the Year' award.

Glowing Trophies 'n Rolling Shields

So far so good, we thought. We sat in our chairs with the anticipation that the rest of the show was going to be um, some tame fun, some tame food then homeward bound.

But nothing, nothing prepared us for the blast that followed. No matter how much our Bacardis cooled us off, by the end of the show, we were sweating it out shouting for more.

Anil goes poetic

Anil dazzles with his Urdu poetry  

First of all, Anil Gupta took us by complete surprise. Whod've ever thought that the man of numbers had a romantic streak as well? So here's the punchline. The poetry he chose did a somersault at the end, with words. He portrayed a hapless lover with a statutory warning up front- it's ONLY the man in love, so watch the fun.

Dance, baby dance! 

And the fun did not stop after that. I for one never knew that my neighbor in my Sun cube could don leather pants and jive to the music! Well, see for yourself!

 Shakalaka shake a leg!

Skit-ty Party!

Sun managers usually have a hard time as work gets piled on in their homes, er, sorry, office. The wannabe managers land up from all over the globe at any odd time. The average US -returned aspiring manager has to be gently 'broken in', sorry, 'taken in'. He or she needs to learn what it means to really 'kick butt and have fun'. This skit managed to teach SAM, the new joinee manager who made a long journey from Indiana to IEC.  By the end of the skit, he had a lot of food. Sorry, that should be: food for thought. These are butt a few frames caught here for your happy viewing:

 

HMT or............................................................ .............SMT?

And the winner is... 

Bollywood bites

For those of you who do not know the Indian filmscape, Bollywood is the equivalent of Hollywood. IEC folks decided to sprinkle some stardust into the glittering occasion. And how!

We had our very own 'apan' Munna Bhai who compered the show with his sidekick, Circuit. Bollywood movies cover the entire spectrum of human feelings- from the lovelorn hero, the lovesick heroine,  the angry man, the macho dude, the bad girls and the not so good boys. They had them all out here, to entertain us. Will the real actors somewhere in Mumbai please stand up and take a walk?

Apan bole to- Munna and Circuit

         Piya bole- hero meets heroine                             Let's play, says A dot Khan

I'm a macho man- Says Sunny Salman 

Hallo, who's this? The KNR Effect 

Walk the ramp

You gotta have a fashion show to complete an event like this. So, under the kaleidoscope hues and the smoky aura, guys and gals sashayed on the ramp, to rocking numbers. From demure saris to chic skirts, it was time for East to meet the West. They had it all- the looks, the moves and the clothes to sizzle.

Gimme hot, hot, hot! 

Karate Kids 

There were some pensive moments too, as the audience watched a IECian Karate master and his lady student demonstrate some Karate moves. A few of the frontbenchers moved a bit back to avoid any, er, mishaps.

Take a deep breath and... there you are! 

Lilting moments

The audience had to take a breather, after all this activity! So out came the guitars and a bunch of folks got together belted out our very own favorite tunes- a wide repertoire of Hindi, Kannada and Tamil numbers. The oldies to the latest, we enjoyed it all.

We are family!

Shadowtunes

What with Sun shining so brightly, the shadows had to be around. The lights went out, all was quiet and we were treated to some brilliant play of shadows. Looks like when the night descends the alter egos come out to play...

IPG framed!

Some snaps of my IPG family...

                           Ready, aim... write!                               No writers' block here!

Those brave men- Credits for all these great photos go to Vasanth Vaidyanathan and Hariharasudhan Reghuraman.

For more photos of the IEC employees event, click on: