15th August Independence Day of India, for us it started on 13th August. One of those few days when I get up early for the office. I don't know what is so special about Friday, that it gets me waking up early. This Friday was not an exception. Our office HRs had planned an Inter Zone competition which involved the decoration of each zone on a particular theme. The zone with the best theme would be the winner.
In our zone, we discussed on many themes, and finally it was decided that we should go ahead with the "States of India and their Culture" theme. Each cubicle was allotted 2-3 states to depict. Every zone seemed to be upbeat with the decoration, but somehow our zone was a bit slow in starting off the decoration. The clients do not let you breathe when you are in office and the effect showed on us. :(
We got the materials on Thursday Evening. Ha ha, that seems too late for depicting all the states of India.
Somehow we managed to decorate a few states. By EOD (this word is amazing :P ), we had only managed few states Goa was alive and kicking already. But the other parts of India were totally in a disarray. Jokes were flying all over the place, Rajasthan was totally BANJAR (totally barren cubicle with no decoration), Madhya Pradesh seemed like it had been struck by Bhopal Gas Tragedy ( things kept half hazardly and thermocol all over the place), Assam with empty tea cups in which tea was drunk the whole week....etc. Only Eastern part of the Himalayas was visible. LOL!!!
Forgot to mention there was a group singing competition, leave alone the rehearsal we hadn't even decided on the song. LOL again.
Coming back to Friday morning, I took off for the office with Guitar in one hand and bag on the back. Guitar was to be kept at Goa cubicle.
Some of us had planned to reach early and take care of things. Only few people turned up, everybody else was on normal office time but late for the preparations, me included. Got some angry stares from colleagues for turning up at office timing. Somehow we managed to decorate, all of a sudden everybody was busy decorating their own cubicles. Out of the blues, we had all the states flourishing in the zones.Our zone was beaming with colors and representing the colorful India.
Suddenly, an announcement was made with that monotonous TING TONG beep. Usually the lady makes announcements for the bus pass renewal or some security incident. Maybe she also had a day off. The announcement was for the song Vande Mataram. The announcers were singing Vande Mataram today for a change. Wow !!!
It was 11am and time had come to for the celebrations and more importantly competition. Compliments were flowing in from the HRs for the entire floor's effort. Celebrations began with group singing competition and guess what we were chosen to sing first. Ha ha ha . Somehow we diverted it to other zone, meekly decided to sing second.
This is where the fun began, we joined in each and every zone's song and gave them a good chorus support. We didn't care if we had won or lost as we were enjoying the most. Singing songs in chorus, hooting aimlessly and having fun. We started singing our patriotic song and somehow began well. Everybody was singing so patriotically that nobody got an iota of idea that we hadn't rehearsed even once. After that there was an event in which we had to prepare an impromptu skit. We were given "Dandi March" for enacting. We executed this one also in one take only but this time with one light rehearsal. We managed to prepare the skit in 2 minutes. WHOA !!!
After that the judges came to our zone, they were amazed by the kind of effort that was put in by all of us for our theme. They seemed to be impressed.
Then it was time for the prize distribution ceremony. Usually, the prizes are announced from 3rd, 2nd to 1st but as this was an exceptional day the 1st prize was announced and guess what ???
Our zone had won the overall competition and there was special praise for our zone's theme decoration. We jumped with joy and continued with our chorus celebrations. We were shouting madly slogans like "Joh Jeeta Woh Sikander, Jo Haraa Woh ............, well complete yourself !!!
The cubicles which were undecorated the previous day were more colorful than ever and impressed the judges. Rajasthan which was totally BANJAR was decorated with puppets and colorful bangles, Madhya Pradesh seemed like it had recovered from the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and displaying the Kanha National Park and specialities of MP, Assam was displaying the Kaziranga National Park and the tea baskets. Complete Himalayan range was visible now with snow and five rivers flowing down in Punjab. ;)
The unrehearsed song had won us the prize in singing and what's more the person who depicted Gandhi in the Dandi March skit won a Special Prize. All in all a total team effort and example of Just in Time (JIT) compilation, maybe everyone is inspired by Java's JIT compilation. :P
And yes forgot to mention what was the prize, it was huge box of chocolates !!! Mmmm!!
A totally enjoyable day with lots of fun. Wish we get paid for more such days !!! ;)
