When ITC announced a nationwide talent search competition a-la America's Got Talent, the usual inertia led right upto the last date. There was not much inspiration for a solo act and so we decided in favour of a team effort. The 'we' came almost instinctively from a close circle of colleagues who are also close friends.
About 2-3 topics came up when we decided on a skit. There was immediate excitement when we thought we'll go for a 'Plan Review by CMC' as the theme. The first hurdle was the quarteers - as we started putting together songs from Bollywood, little improvisations came along the way and a 10 minute skit script was ready. When the date for the quarters was announced, it was a shocker that it coincided with a crucial DMC meeting to be held on the same date. The initial thought was to give the event a skip and face the DMC. With some support from a few quarters, we managed to slip out to the venue for an early morning event. What a surprise it was to find out that Sudha Raghunathan and Srekala Bharat were to be the judges for this event. The performance went so smoothly that we sailed easily into the semis.
For the semis, it was necessary that we follow the rules and cut the script down to 5 mins. Once again, some creative thinking helped chop a few numbers, make alterations here and there and get ready. For this event held at Park Sheraton, the entire top brass from the region were invited and it was bound to be tough to present such a tongue-firmly-in-cheek skit to them. With 12 such teams participating from the Chennai-Mumbai cluster comprising of Chennai, Kovai, Ernakulam, Mumbai and Nagpur, it was clear that the competition would be tough. Once again, we clearly did better than any of our rehearsals on the Big day and it was a relief to see that the top brass more than enjoyed the show. In true ITC style, the event was organised in a grand manner and it was very satisfying to emerge on top in the team category.
Now for the Grand Finale! Here's where it got really BIG!! We felt straightaway that many in the audience would have seen or heard about our semi final performance and since the skit only had a novelty value, we better do something different. There were divided opinions on this - some clearly felt that it is better to stick to the winning performance and repeat it in the Finals. I was quite keen to develop something different and abort at a later stage if we didn't feel it came out right. The theme was retained - only the contents needed to be thought out afresh. Once the contents were developed, with improvisations right till the last moment, we knew we'll go with the new version at the finals, whatever the consequences.
There were hiccups - practice schedules couldn't be kept up as some of the team members needed to travel on work.
Corporate Communications team made a pre-event publicity like nothing before. Everyday there were exciting mailers with sneek previews that it got the entire company excited. We were sponsored to travel to Kolkata and stay at Sonar (even if it was the Company's own property, there was the opportunity gain of having other guests staying at the same time to be taken into account).
With everyone coming together for the final rehearsals only at Kolkata, the initial practice sessions gave rise to serious doubts whether we would be able to compete. There were varying levels of enthusiasm - one jet-lagged colleague was hardly in the mood for such puerile rehearsals, quietly confident that he would be able to pull it off at the final. God gave us patience and there were thankfully reasonable levels of tolerance and understanding within the team.
The final day. Somehow the team decided to practice in the lawns of the Sonar! This practice session which lasted all of 45 mins was really the turning point. Everything went according to plan - there was good enthusiastic participation. We knew then, that even if we didn't win, we'll truly have enjoyed ourselves. Much to our surprise, one of the guests of the hotel came to the lawns, saw our performance and gave a few tips on how it might be improved - which we took note of.
For the Big Event, the entire ITC top brass from all over ITC were invited. Chairman, Executive Directors, Corporate Management Committee members, CEOs, Corporate functional heads, the whole setting was one that the Company had never seen before. To add to it, the webcast went right round the country with a special webcast on Facebook for the families to catch up.
I wouldn't be writing this if it hadn't come out very well in the end. We put up a wonderful show and had the whole gathering in splits ! There was immediate feedback and we knew we could finish amongst the winners with some luck. Sure enough, we finished second - there were several others who perhaps felt more deserving, but then judges clearly felt otherwise!
It was wonderful to shake hands with Chairman, Mr. Deveshwar and two of our Executive Directors, Mr. Vaidyanath and Mr. Grant along with ace danseuse Tanushree Shankar and actor Ananya Chatterjee who were the other judges when accepting the trophy along with the team. It was even more dramatic to arrive at Tiruvottiyur factory the next day to a hero's welcome what with garlands and sweets from none other than the CEO himself who is normally quite restrained in his emotions.
What an event ! Never thought I'll be a part of such an event in my corporate life !
