At my office, they have a Fun Committee. One of many things I love about my company is the emphasis on the social nature of work. And, presumably, happy employees are more productive.
All the emails that went out about our week of fun called it the Summer Mela. Mela is a useful word in Hindi (so useful, it has its own Wiki entry) that means a meetup, fair, gathering, etc. I see it used all the time from national festivals to sales at the supermarket. The first Summer Mela event at work was very well attended. It was a Tug of War. In Hindi, it is still called “Tug of War”.
Techies Participating in a Physical Contest
They did a good job with the rules – like making sure there were exactly 10 people on each side with at least three women and that there was enough room to move forward and back – which I always appreciate. Screams, yells, and cheers echoed all over the office, making it difficult to work, if indeed you were still trying to. An exciting afternoon.
A quieter event the next day was Tambola. Similar to Bingo. Everyone gets a little slip with random numbers on it from 1 – 100. The blank squares are free and the object is to get the five numbers across any of the lines. Then a blackout at the end. The very first time I played Tambola, I actually won! (I said “Bingo!” loudly and then I asked my amused co-workers what I was supposed to say. You say the line number like “Line 1!”) But it was for charity that time, so I didn’t actually win anything. I wan’t even close to winning this time around, but it was fun.
A Lack of Bingo
I am glad that they said the numbers in English. I think they might have anyway, even if I wasn’t there. I think, at the moment, I’m the only Westerner in the office, though a lot of people from other offices around the globe come and go. A lot of meetings are conducted in English, though I can never be sure, in those cases, whether the English is entirely for my benefit or if it is used because it is the “language of business.” I’m told, in some other offices, people use English exclusively.
Later in the week, they had a “balloon burst” race. Teams of four would walk awkwardly across the room one at a time while holding a balloon in between their knees. (If it fell, they would have to pause and wait for a team member to help.) At the end, they had to stomp on their balloon to pop it. Another loud event, though this one was off to the side. Later, there was arm wrestling. I only saw a crowd of people and heard the occasional rising level of cheer, then silence again.
The final event on Friday was a talent show. I am always amazed at these kind of things (we had one back home too) how talented my co-workers are.
Office Talent Show
The woman in the photo sung the only song I knew. Rolling in the Deep by Adele.
I took that photo from pretty close to where I sit. Which was unfortunate because I had a problem I really wanted to get solved before I left for the day. I might have ignored the bug and enjoyed the show, but then the comedy started – all in Hindi – and I didn’t understand a word anyway. I probably should have just given up on trying to work because apparently I have the funniest co-workers known to man; the people around me were bursting out laughing every few seconds. Also, the microphone was turned up really, really loud.
Speaking of loud, one of the books I read about foreigners living in Delhi joked that most Indians must be partially deaf (due in part to the many wedding celebrations which involve drums so loud they can be heard blocks away followed by music turned way up at the celebration.) The volume of the amps for this event, the volume of the music whenever there is a dancing event, and most of all, the volume of people’s cell phones, which always make me jump like my alarm clock is going off, make me wonder if this isn’t true.
Either that or I’m getting old and crotchety.
Not just the fun committee, but the co-workers on my humble team of about a dozen also know how to have a good time. It was two people’s birthday in mid-June, so someone bought a cake, ordered pizza and we had a little celebration in the office canteen.
Yay for Junk Food!
India Domino’s > American Domino’s.
Yep.
Finally, from my Videos Of Things That Are Not That Interesting series comes this: Going to work.
My Morning Commute
Now, to be precise, this isn’t really my morning commute because I usually take a taxi. But due to some alternate taxi driver pick-up location misunderstanding one morning, I hailed an auto instead. I decided a minute or two in to start filming it with my camera. You can see the auto driver looking in his rear-view mirror like, ‘What is she doing?’ The auto driver missed the final turn (more accurately, I don’t know in which “block” my office is, just which “sector”, so I had to correct my instructions) at which point I stopped filming.
My morning commute is very short (the video is not all that long). My office is practically in walking distance, if the weather were nice and there were not a narrow tunnel followed by the Road of Doom in between. (You can’t really feel the Doom crossing the intersection in the video… but I’d be afraid to cross it on foot during rush hour.) I tried to focus in on the people playing cricket on my route. Same place we played cricket earlier in the year, when I could stand to be outside for more than 15 minutes in row.
If you are using Internet Explorer to view this page… well, stop that. It’s the bane of my existence, that browser. Also, you won’t be able to watch this video unless you are in Firefox or Chrome. Notably, if your internet connection is slow, the video is probably not worth the download anyway. Though if the streaming isn’t good, you can right-click and download for later exciting viewing.
Cows!