Sami Labs Utsav 2009: My V Day dayout!

When the organizers of Sami Labs Ltd Utsav 2009, approached me with a request to be one of the judges for their inter-unit competitions, I had one more reason to smile. Beating recession during turbulent weather like this and celebrating company day is something amazing, and to be a part of such an event will be great I thought. I gladly obliged to be one.

The Sami Labs Utsav 2009 marked with several sports and cultural competitions among their different units. The sports competitions culminated last week though, and I had been part of the one-day cultural fest which they rightly named Sami Labs Utsav 2009. The event fell on the 14th day of February 2009.

Traffic jams at multiple places took the car that picked all 3 of us (all 3 from our DOS Housing colony went as competition and event judges) a little late to the venue and as soon as we occupied the three distinguished seats, the Sami Labs Utsav 2009 began.

Sami Labs Ltd., should take pride in the wonderful and spontaneous MC they had in Mr. Jayaraman (I guess I recall his name right). He started the day’s event with an invocation. He rendered it so well, let me honestly confess, he surely invoked The Almighty, and I could feel presence of The Divine for a while at least inside the auditorium (Its the Bunt’s Sangha on the Vijayanagar Road). After invoking God/s the event kick started with lighting the lamp and Sami Labs Ltd., Board of Directors helped with the proceedings.

The first event we watched had been the Group Song. The participation had been quite enthusiastic with several teams (as I recall Organica, Corporate, Corporate R&D, Edkal, Kunigal, Hyderabad…..so on so forth) group rendering folklores to some spirited patriotic songs. I earnestly waited for the Hyderabad unit’s group singing, but they’d disappointed me. After this event, there had been a small kitkat break (and kitkats were not served but yes we were served some hot coffee and cookies). I looked around the inside of the auditorium, and it’s a huge one jam packed with the staff and is generous enough accommodating about at least 500 members. What impressed me the most is the wonderful acoustics inside.

After the coffee break, it was the solo song and the solo dance events, and there had been a mixture of good and bad performances. What I liked again is that the MCs (and believe me, they are no other than the company's own personnel who looked adept at MCing as well) were so spontaneous and they never allowed monotony to break inside the auditorium, they threw some quiz questions every now and then and the spirit was all the time with the crowd. The solo dance ended with Sami Labs Ltd own MJ performing some cool number. Boy Oh! Boy, he tried to bend every bone( although his costume looked slightly mismatching).

This was followed by a lunch break and we were taken care of very well by the staff there (Did I thank them individually?). Sravanthi, my 5yo told me she’d been having a nice time (she indeed had been trying hard to bias me saying, “Amma! 5 marks for this person and 3 marks to those she felt not all that nice....and of course with her own reasoning).

After lunch, the competitions continued with event being group dance (I liked maza kali choreography, where three people danced or rather mimicked as birds, but god knows why they had to accessorize themselves with flowers around their necks and also they seemed to dance with consciousness) I love to see people dancing to losing…err did you get what I meant?…Losing themselves in the world of dance, enjoying their dance rather than consciously move around.

The group dance was followed by fashion show. I was so apprehensive about this event for obvious reason. I have brought my 5yo kid with me. But it was kind of refreshing and a lovely event that I thoroughly enjoyed having not seen in live ever in my life.

Let me appreciate through this post, the enthusiasm sported by Kunigal team whose theme is simplicity. They all walked the ramp with so much of guts, but other teams were too good for them. Inner light theme did lack clarity, but their costumes and presentation outclassed others. Our obvious choice was the team that represented that theme.

End of the day, my feeling was that Sami Labs personnel are not just research scientists and operators of factory equipment. Nah! These are not mere nerds; they have loads of talent and given an opportunity they might become musicians, and dancers and wonderful event organizers at least Utsav 2009 proves to me so!

Before we left we saw people cheering to the results, and it had been a satisfying and purposeful day out for me and my kid with people of Sami Labs Ltd. I wish and pray that the company grows big generating more and more employment to Indians as well as making a big name for itself in the field of cosmoceuticals and nutraceuticals as well as research. And ah! I ignored to mention that we three judges were sent off with some lovely Sami Labs Ltd Utsav 2009 momentos. We came home with those momentos as well as some good memories!

If you happen to be a Sami Labs Ltd., employee who is reading this post, accept my hi :-)and you people rocked really!