Oodles of fun @ IBM - Part 2

We had a cubicle decoration competition at office yesterday, and that was great too. It was at 11'o clock that we decided to participate and by 11:30, we decided upon the theme - Indian festivals - one festival each in 4 corners. And now came the challenging question: which festivals and how to portray? Prasanna came up with a notepad, and we all sat together and an animated discussion followed. Christmas, for sure was opted since the spirit of X'mas was all around us. And we the Mallus just could not do without Onam. Pongal - said a few and Ramzan - shouted someone. But none of us actually knew what people do for Ramzan except for the biriyani part of it, so we settled upon Diwali. So XMas, Onam, Pongal and Diwali were finalized. And off we went to get stuff. The rest is best explained with pictures.

Pongal-o-Pongal: Note the papercup sugarcanes, cow and the pot with foaming milk



Pookalam depicting Onam



Paper boats (thithithara thithithay music in background)and Mahabali enjoying the show



Diwali - couldn't take a snap with the sweets, You see, people here all have a sweet tooth!!!



Christmas in the air



Santa and his sleigh



And guess the outcome. We won third prize - few packs of temptations and Kitkat family pack - for the CTP family :)

Oodles of fun @ IBM

Just rushed back to a meeting with the client after a fun@work programme for this year, and as he is talking about an application I need not be bothered about, I thought of penning down the evening events. Needless to say, fun@work was indeed fun. Today's events were 'Voice of IBM - a singing competition', 'Dance your way', Quiz and a DJ.

After Aarthi's song(zara zara behekta hein), which was well sung, I dont think we heard any bearable music until Sree went on stage. There was this lady singing to her own 'thaala' and 'raaga' while the karaoke was going elsewhere with the crowd clapping madly, not encouraging but praying to God for Mercy and for asking him to ask her to stop! And there was this guy who was dancing in his own African manner(kaatala-bhaavam). And sorry, there were other songs in between about which I have no comments - Absolutely. Sree was the 7th on stage, and started off on a wrong pitch, but intelligently and cleverly brought it back to track. Even without the karaoke, it was well presented, and well accepted by the audience. And after this song came a dance by a lady who was soon joined by Akshay Kumar of our team, Rohit ;) He was in full josh as he swung around her and then to a side, and was really surprised to see her leave moments later. Boy, the look of surprise on his face is just beyond words - like, 'how can a girl ever stop dancing with me?' ;)

There were other performances by both IBMers and a few kiddies after which there was the finals of the Quiz competition. The quiz kind of proved that most software engineers never read newspapers(some are worse than me, if people who who really know me can believe it!). And hey, I got a pack of Kitkat goodies for answering a question correctly in 'IBM' round - what are the values which IBM stands for? (For the sake of IBMers who do not know the answer, and others who are interested in knowing about it, the answer is Dedication to every client's success, Innovation that matters-for us and the world, and, Trust and Personal responsibility in all relationships). But then, the whole fun part in the quiz were the answers from the crowd, which were just, well, plain stupid nonsensical stuff :)

After this came the prize giving ceremony where we found out that Aarthi came second and Sree was first. And the person who was the most astonished about the first prize was Sree herself who was until then asking everyone how badly did she perform. But then, she was indeed glad and even more so on seeing the big box of Ferrero Rocher that came to her as a gift (secretly, I was probably happier about it ;) After that came the DJ, where everyone slowly got into the dance-mode and got onto the floor. I was more of a silent smiling onlooker with my sore back restraining me from going anywhere near the stage. But then, how many times in life do you get to sit in a chair right in the center of people dancing and at that again, with a box of chocolates in hand? I guess that explains what I did during that part of the evening. But then watching Rohan doing the cheerleaders dance would have cheered anyone up!

And as we slowly walked back to the work floor, taking snaps along the way, we all had a smile playing on our lips, and that makes up for the few hours of work we missed(which we will most definitely have to put in later, read, now)!!!

Nagawara Signal

Traffic signal at Nagawara is at a busy junction in the Bangalore airport Road, and to add to the chaos of this junction, there are service roads joining it from all 4 sides... I have to pass this signal to go to work everyday, and for that matter, to go anywhere!

Motorists flying their bikes as if they were all Jet pilots, cars between buses looking like half-done sandwiches, and the 'we-are-so-oblivious-to-everything' lorries and BMTCs are a regular sight here. Even the people trying to cross the road wait for a bus to park right in centre of the road so that they can cross over the road.And this description will not be complete without talking about our dear autowala 'bhaiyyas' who are just not ready to negotiate about their a-leg-and-a-half rates and parking criss-cross, and squeezing in from all directions.

I always wonder about that poor dear traffic signal which is more like a silent mourning witness to all these. I mean, it dutifully blinks, changes lights and does whatever is expected out of it, but just does not gets the respect it deserves. If the policeman turns to the right, the vehicles on the left just pass by even when the signal says 'no', probably smirking. And at times when traffic is not all that heavy and there are no cops around, this signal has to witness the perfect chaos and fails in it attempt to help people with these flashing lights(since people do not even bother to glance at its direction) and end up being analyzed as the rootcause of many accidents which it had nothing to do with. Hmmm.. who cares about tri-colored things anymore, right?

Even the people make around is a subject of diversity. Ranging between professional-looking IT guys, 'am-so-cool' casually attired call-centre people, daily roti kamaane wale aam aadmi, hijjdas, beggers etc, this actually makes a perfect diversity club picture.

And moreover, this place holds a place in everybody's life for some reason. For me, this is where my chain was snatched by a thief (and my trip to police station on account of this which was the topic of one of my old blogs - Thief, my chain and Bangalore Police), the place where I have 'almost been hit - but just missed' by the most number of vehicles(owing to mine as well as others mistakes!), the spot until which I have got the most number of lifts since my teammates obligingly drops me here on their ways home, and the one place where I have fought with Auto-wallahs for the max number of times.

As time passes, probably a flyover may be constructed here to avoid the innumerable traffic jams or a seperate highway may be constructed to make the commutation to the new airport all the more easier, but Nagawara signal will always remain, dutiful like a great watchdog and flashing red, amber and green...