Celebrations @ Infy

It was 25 year celebration time at Infy, Chandigarh. The celebrations had started in a grand way at Mysore. And they have moved on across all DC’s. Chandigarh DC being a small DC, had been allocated a lesser budget.(May be even lesser than what we used to have in college annual functions). So where we had KK at Mysore, Shaan at Hyderabad, Sonu Nigam at Bangalore, it was lesser known Parikarma here. May be it was the main reason I and may be many others were not very excited about it. Still my friends and I were there on time to witness the celebrations. And it was a rare occasion where the Chief Guest, Mr. K. Dinesh, one of the founders of Infy, arrived before everybody else. It was real sad to see the event having been poorly organized. The stage was there only for the Parikarma. The other performers, who were instrumental in balancing the affect of poor organization, had to showcase themselves on the same ground level as audience. ‘Daris’ were put on at the last moment (in fact after the scheduled start time) and that too sporadically. I imagine, the performers, many of them who performed bare feet, must have had a real tough time in the freezing cold out there.
Another goof up happened, when the announcement was made about a Bhangra performance but the participants were no where to be seen. It was a goof up which can be a part of any big event such as these. But it brought forth a chink in the armor of the Anchors. The male anchor, seemingly poorly prepared was absolutely out of sorts and confused about what was happening all around. His female counterpart was, thankfully, a saving grace.
Things started improving once the performances started. The Bhangra which as the DC head also later pointed out is generally the last to be performed, rocked and made up for the awkward situation that had been created earlier. After the performances, it was time for some speeches by the DC Head and K. Dinesh. The small crowd was not interested in the stuff that was being said but Mr. Dinesh showed why he is there at the head of a colossal company. In few minutes he was able to catch the attention of the audience with his captivating stories which he and his colleagues had experienced on the journey to make Infy where it is now.
Parikarma followed after that to a rousing welcome but I guess they didn’t had the appeal to keep the audience in front of them. They belong to a particular genre of music that is rock and I guess that didn’t match with the taste of majority of the audience. We just had the appetite for 2 songs after which we went inside the food court to satisfy our other appetite. The food I must say was excellent, though we enjoyed it more because we were the first ones to start. The ones coming later had to stand in long queues which incidentally have become a standard in Infosys. The bad start was brightly and colorfully compensated at the end of the show. As all of us were heading were heading to our vehicles, the street lights suddenly went off and there was an extended display of fireworks lighting up the night sky – thus ending a rather average day with a feel good factor.