Party Gate crasher

Well, there was an incident at work yesterday that has woken me up from my slumber in the blogosphere. Here goes.

The current Business Unit that I belong to, had wanted us to conduct an event for the 700+ employees in the Unit in Chennai. As most of you would be aware, such employee engagement events are conducted by different Units at different locations quite regularly at various points in a calendar. I was appointed as the head of the Organizing committee and the D-day was yesterday, the 19^th of September. As a precursor to the event, we took out a rally within campus last week, with a professional marching band and holding banners.

We had hung up banners at many places on campus advertising that the event was on 19^th September. The tag line for the event (courtesy yours truly) was “Family. Friends. Fun.” During the course of this week, we had informed our Unit employees that they were allowed to bring their family to campus, but with a pre-registration. Family members were allowed to enter the campus after 3 PM.

Yesterday, while we were running around with the arrangements for the event, we got a call from our Security desk that there was an employee who had brought in some family member and wanted to be let inside. The time was just about 11 AM. As mentioned earlier, we were allowing family members only after 3 PM and so the Security guys had called us to see if we had any special permission for early entries.

So, we went around contacting the HR and other senior people who run the Campus to get approvals. That seemed to be running into some delays and the Security officer called us again. Finally, we asked the guy to find out who was the employee who had brought in his family. The Security officer gave us the employee number and we looked him up in the Office Directory.

Guess what? This employee belonged to some other Unit altogether!!!! He had seen the Rally last week; saw the banners around Campus and also some of the video displays we had run in Buildings. The dude assumed that this event was a free-for-all and happily brought along his family! We were literally ROFL and the one speaking to the guy had to put on a straight face. She asked some one simple question as to whether that guy got an invitation by mail and he said no. We then explained to him that what we were doing was just a brand-building exercise and the event was only for our Unit members.

After we were done with the welcome laughter at a stressful time, we also felt pity for the dude who would now have to cut a very sorry face to his family. God knows what he suffered back home.

And BTW, the event was awesome!

An outing with my teams

With the economic crisis supposedly changing directions, my company has resumed the provisioning of our quarterly project party budgets. I decided to utilise the same before they change their mind and so, yesterday, my teams had our project party.

This was in fact the first party for quite a few of my team members and also the first one for all us in this account.

We pooled in sponsors for the event in the form of funding from our team members at onsite, one person who was leaving and also treats from select few who had their birthdays in the recent past.

We first went Karting at a center along the ECR. After a really good time on the track (I drove twice, with the second round witnessing me bump out two karts who didn't allow me to pass), we went to a resort near the Mahabalipuram Shore Temple.

We had a good lunch, but must admit that we've had better ones. The dessert in the form of Gulab Jamun and Strawberry Ice Cream, was however, quite good. I must have had 3 helpings I think.

After lunch, we spent the afternoon playing the usual silly party games and when the patience of the crowd was reaching testing levels, we headed outdoors. The guys started playing cricket as usual and also as usual, the girls moved a little far away to play Antakshari! If this is not a fundamental genetic difference, I don't know what else is.

We rounded off the day with bajjis and tea and left the venue by 6 PM.

The effect of spending 10 minutes on the ridiculous contraption called the Kart and the one hour I spent playing cricket in the hot sun, has left me a little exhausted. Also, feeling a little pain in some regions of the body that I cant see! Hopefully, a good sleep should help me "recover"!

Hectic weekend

This weekend - Oct 27-28 - has been quite a hectic one for me.

On Saturday, I had to go to a resort near Mahabalipuram for an official project party. I had a lot of fun there, especially playing cricket.

In the evening, I went out to dinner with Raghu, Madhu and Nilu. Was meeting Nilu after almost 4-6 weeks I think.

We had a pretty good dinner at Wang's Kitchen in Adyar. Nilu and Raghu conspired to make this my birthday treat in advance. While booking the table (and occupying it first, buy virtue of arriving a few minutes earlier than us), Nilu had apparently told the staff there that he would be joined by a birthday boy and asked them to do something special.

So I was surprised when a place of salad was brought to the table. There was a carved capsicum in the middle and inside it was a small candle. I humored these guys by blowing out the candle. One of waiters had even come to enquire about who the birthday person was and after being pointed in my direction, he even shook hands with me!!!

Anyways, dinner was good, though we couldn't finish most of it. They did screw up our order of fried ice-cream. I used my negotiation skill and had one of the extra items on our order canceled out.

We had ice-cream at Arun's Unlimited in R.A.Puram. It was nearly 11 when I returned.

On Sunday, there was a small hiranya shraardham at home for my father's mother. In the afternoon, I went to Raghu's place and dragged him along to buy a watch for me. You see, my mother is gifting me a watch for my birthday and sanctioned an amount of 3k towards this.

So, I went with Raghu to Landmark at City Center. Got a Casio Edifice watch costing me 3.5K post discount.

Then, there was a dinner tonight, hosted by my colleague Rajkumar. Ganesh, Raji and Vidya had come too. The dinner was at Creame Center. The place is really good. Great ambiance. Good crowd too. However, I wont give them good marks for their Mexican dishes. It failed on all parameters - taste, quantity and price. But it was a fun evening.

After such eating binges, it comes as no surprise as to how I've managed to put on 6 kilos over the last one year and how I've increased my trouser size by 1 (pre-eating).

Why erring on the safer side is always better than erring on the not so safer side

I was invited to a party last evening. Just to make the time-lines clear, the party was in the evening and the invitation was in the morning.

The invite was from one of my friends in my previous organisation. And I knew that couple of my other friends would be there too. Didn't want to give up on the chance to catch up with them and so accepted the invitation, albeit not instantaneously.

And before you let loose your imagination about the party, let me clarify that the occasion was the birthday of this guy's second kid.

Now comes the twist. I totally forgot how old this kid was. I knew that it was a boy, but forgot the age. My friend had invited me over last April for a function and this kid was the centre-stage that time too. I assumed it was the kid's first b'day and so this must be the second one.

So in the evening, I set off to the party and stopped en route at a gift shop. Went to the section which had kid/baby play things. Scanning through the available items, I noticed that there was nothing for a 2 year old. There were thingummies for babies and toddlers. There were stuff for kids older than 3 years. But nothing in between.

I stared for quite some time at all these boxes. Since staring didn't really give me an answer, I started making calculations too. Kids these days seem to mature real early. So why not buy one of the items that says 3+ years and give it to him. That way the kid also knows clearly what society is expecting of him and the parents also don't have any doubts about it.

So I took one of the Funskool boxes and read the fine print. It clearly said that the particular toy was meant for kids of age 3 years and above, but more importantly, it also said that it was not meant for kids less than that age.

I took another box and found a similar legend. Turned out that almost all of these boxes had similar restrictions. Now I was aghast. What do I do? After some more extra work by the neurons, I finally told myself that if I get a toy that says "1+ years" (or its thereabouts), I should be safe.

I picked up a box that said "12 months and above" and had the lady at the counter gift wrap it. I reached the party and then handed over the gift to my friend. I then checked with another friend about the kid's age. What he told me almost made me shout and jump with joy. Turns out, that the kid was only 1 year old and this was his first birthday party.

Those of you who remember reading a few minutes back, about me attending some function for this kid last year, would now appreciate some additional information about the event. That function was held to mark the naming ceremony of the kid.

I had a feeling that was probably akin to Neo's when he realised what the Matrix was all about. I celebrated it by helping myself to a second round of gulab jamun and ice cream during dessert time.

Where's the party on Tuesday and Wednesday

If you are in the Besant Nagar neighborhood and in the mood for a party on Tuesday night and/or Wednesday night - then just drop in to my place.

The bar opens at 7 PM and closes at 11 PM. The dance floor will be available between 8 PM and 11.30 PM. No dinner per se, but tons of finger food will be available right through.

If you are party-worthy, then admission is free. Else an entry fee of Rs.501.00 will be charged.

Entry is open only to singles. If you are a couple, please don't give work to our Hydro Chloric Acid secreting membranes, here too - just go to your routine joints.

Smoking is prohibited within the house.

Party games include Spin the Bottle, Twister, Funneling etc.

There will be a special performance by 50 cents at 8 PM, for one hour.


If you are wondering why I am throwing this party all of a sudden, its only because my parents are leaving town on Monday night for a couple of days. I need to utilise their absence properly.