Diwali Eve, 2006 - Vizual springs a lovely surprise!

And I continue blogging again...

This is a report that was supposed to go out last year but as they say it's never too late.

Many could have hardly imagined that the employees of the company would spring such a beautiful surprise as they did on Diwali Eve, 2006 when it was declared as "Ethnic Wear Day" coinciding with the Diwali festival. Departments competed with one another to win the prize for the Team with the best ethnic theme. Boy was it a day to remember! The ladies were in with some very pretty and colourful sarees, jasmine flowers, colourful bangles and et all really making it difficult for me to decide who the best dressed one was though I could narrow to a handful of them after some difficulty and some tips from friends. As for the men, with traditional Dhoties many of them looked like prospective grooms.

As the smallest team in the competition we opted for a simple design, Rangoli, painting on a chart and decoration with lamps and decorative lighting. I think we did best without our important performer, our Manager who had to take off that day due to personal reasons. Our neighbours the Technical Suppport team were the noisiest of the lot but for good reason. No one could match their zeal. They had a bigger Rangoli done, elaborate decoration with Banana shoots, Mango leaves and even a game for visitors. I think they deserved to win for their enthusiasm.

The developers (.Net) were the only guys who had a solid theme. QA was the other team with a theme and they did well to decorate their very big department well but fell short of their performance. Maybe their theme just didn't click with the judges. However I wish (like another friend said) QA had received a consolation prize for their ladies who had come dressed so well.

But the PST team was the one that took everyone by surprise. What they did was Surreal! Located in the basement they creatively set the stage for winning the competition, jointly with the Tech Support guys. I wish I had captured their display exactly how it looked with a manual setting on my camera instead of using the flash. Their their theme might not have been the best but the ambience (lights, music) and hospitality were what I guess got them the prize.

The prize finally went to both the PST Team and the Tech Support team. Here are some pics. All these snaps from my SLR were scanned from prints so if the clarity is less
adjust your monitor's brightness and contrast settings. Click on the image or open it in another instance of the browser to view it bigger. In any case I have provided a link at the bottom of the article to download the entire original set.

Starting with the people who made this happen, Pallavi and Vivian, who also partly judged the competition.



Next the guys who made the basement a "romantic" getaway. The PST Team.



Of course who could forget the vociferous Tech.Support team that day.



Another pic of the Tech.Support team without their star "cheerleader", Sathya.



The ever-growing QA team.



Don't they look a bit over crowded? So let's split them up. The ladies first.



..and then the gentlemen.



The Developers team.



Front desk, Accounts/Finance and IT Hardware teams.



And finally not to forget my own team, the Fab 4 from Technical Writing.



If you need the original sized pics you can get them at the following link.
Vizual Ethnic Day, Diwali '06 Pics
You will need Winrar from www.rarlabs.com to open the .rar file. It is similar to Winzip.

Vizualites, I am not with you guys but I hope you have a rocking Diwali this year as well. Best wishes!