Sun India started off the Sun Financial Year with a kickoff at Amby (or Aamby) Valley, a township that aims to become one of the top five cities in the world, presumably sometime soon. The setting is perfect for that ambition - it spreads across 10000 acres amidst the Sahyadri mountain range, 150 kilometres south of Bombay. The Sahyadris are themselves testament to a spectacular event in the Indian peninsula - they and the Deccan Traps were apparently formed some 65 million years ago by volcanic uplifts following a huge eruption soon (relatively in geological time) after the Madagascar broke away from the Indian plate. The eruption laid "down" stepped layers of basalt lava - up to a 1000 metres in height.

I love mountains much more than, say, coasts or beaches. Since the kickoff was in late July and the rains had set in, the countryside sported a magnificent mantle of green. Our timing was perfect since quite a few of the mountains are bereft of vegetation in the summer.

I hitched a ride with colleagues driving from Bombay and we were bid farewell just outside the office by a rather imperious cat. It seemed like all the hustle and bustle that humans impose on ourselves was beneath its attention, but it did pose obligingly for a photograph.

The drive was uneventful, most of it on the Bombay-Pune Expressway. The entrance to the township is framed by 45m wide arches. Over 90% of it is open space with several natural and artificial water bodies, a profusion of gardens and, nocturnal golfers hold your breath, an 18 hole floodlit course. Drummers welcomed us at the Kickoff reception.

The Sun India office has grown dramatically over the last few years, in terms of every possible metric. We do meet most of our colleagues over the course of a year, but the kickoff is obviously the one opportunity to see them all in one location.

The event was themed on Formula 1, a subject pretty close to the hearts of several of us. We even had a Panasonic Toyota F1 car (a full scale replica I suspect; I didn't have the heart to examine it closely and make suspicion certainty) in our midst. True to the theme, a treasure hunt culminated in a race that had drivers sitting in dummy cars propelled by the drivers' legs. Judging by the hilarity occasioned by the running (quite literally) of the race, it was a case of the engines being willing but the legs treacherously weak.

The three regions in Sun India band together to assiduously kick butt through the year, but try to outdo each other when it comes to having fun at the Kickoff. We had amusing skits performed by the regional offices, and some of the wordplay should have warmed the cockles of the compere Cyrus Broacha's heart (his brand of humour is best sampled at The Asian Age column he writes). They (and the actress Simone Singh who participated on the second day) were all upstaged by an entertaining sequence of dance put together by women - colleagues and the wives of colleagues. The kids must have had the most fun - do not be deceived by the photograph alongside, Tejas was boogieing the night away and only interrupted it for forty winks.

We also had a booze and brains quiz conducted by Mitesh Agarwal. My team squeaked in second, with Rajesh Rege and Seetal Iyer providing the brains "half" (which explains why the team was called Jack, Jill and The Pail of Water), and yours truly answering a few thanks to the liberal consumption of beer. One of the languages used in The Great Dictator was Esperanto; I cannot explain my knowledge of this other than through a feeling in the gut induced by the presence of ale.

The Marathas are known for having contributed significantly to the religious, artistic and cultural make-up of modern India, but they were no slouches when it came to military stratagem. Exploiting the mountainous terrain, they built near impregnable citadels across the region, more than 300 of them, one of which is the Korigad (or Koraigad or Korigarh) fort that forms the backdrop to Amby Valley. The fortification on the plateau-like mountain top is still largely intact, and we saw several trekkers making their way up the 900 metre high mountain. The origins of the fort are shrouded in the mist that frequently envelopes the area, but it was taken by Shivaji in 1657, and remained in Maratha hands until it fell to the British in 1818.

We hosted members of the Sun APAC leadership - Denis Heraud, Ken Buchanan, Jerry Ashford and Andy Srinivasan - and they and Bhaskar Pramanik spoke of how the region as a whole, and India in particular, is poised for a shift in the use of network computing infrastructure to fundamentally alter society. Some parts of the APAC ail from divides that are deep rooted and anything but digital in nature. In fact, one of the promises of the products and technologies that Sun develops is the subversion of these divides, and the Sun India management consciously continues to look at ways in which we can further our cause. As we headed back from the Kickoff, and stopped at a restaurant for brunch, I saw this kid at another table whose demeanour was begging to be photographed. I cannot speculate on the life he will be experiencing twenty years hence, but I am willing to bet that the people at Sun Microsystems will continue contributing to it in essential ways.

The five red lights are out, and this year's race has begun.

PS : For what it is worth, the photographs I took of the event are at Flickr.

Tags : Sun India Amby Valley