Infosys Jackpot....A Curtain Raiser!

August 1, 2005

It was a glorious sunny Monday afternoon, balmy and hot, after a heavy meal from a friend's treat, it made you want to lie under a tree somewhere and look up at the sky slowly dozing off watching the clouds roll by. It was definitely not an afternoon to indulge in the mundane coding routine. Reluctantly I was returning to my work desk in one of the isolated conference rooms in Infosys headquarters, still not able to make peace with what I was giving up.

It was one of those seasons in Infosys when the account's work force was way higher than the building seating capacity. To mitigate the situation all seldom used conference rooms were converted into shared cubicles. I was more than happy to volunteer for the office space in the conference room which only meant I would be having more souls to talk to and less monitored:) With Yuvan's music in full swing filling the background, I resumed work and it was when I was googling for a software help that I accidentally stepped on the application form for the Most Viewed Game Show in one of the leading Tamil channels today, Jackpot.

I couldn't resist my temptation to download the form and see what details were required. The form was very simple and I decided to fill it up after finding my partners. This was one of the easiest tasks in the whole process. All I had to do was turn around and ask my team mates to spell their names. Without questioning they did the needful - not sure if that was their nature or my seniority had an effect. If the roles were reversed, I am not sure I would have been as easy as they were to me. I would have bombarded the person with my thousand questions:)!

The only stumbling block in the application which I felt would delay the mailing out of the application form the same day was the photographs. Fortunately we had an instant photo studio within the office campus which took care of this need. Yes, Infosys headquarters was a mini town in intself!!The next stop was at the courier desk which was also within the campus. Before sealing the envelope, I had a brain wave...I opened the application form and printed the letters "INFOSYS TEAM" right on top of the form and gave it to the courier personnel.

Though we were not too positive about being acknowledged, somewhere in the corner of my heart I was a little hopeful heavily banking on the Infosys tag!! All of us had sworn to secrecy - we were not going to discuss this with any of our kith and kin’s unless something came out of it. This was a safety measure just to avoid being objects of ridicule knowing our families well!!

August 4, 2005

The Thursday of the same week my doorman greeted me with a postcard I had received when I returned from work. In the cyber world where emails are ruling and everyone is going paperless, these old-fashioned post cards definitely look very cheap. My experience with these post cards are only advertisement usage and hence I was least inclined to even see the “From” address. I kept my plans for the post card simple - dump it in the trash bin after reaching my apartment.

When I walked up the stairs, the post card slipped my hands and fell into a small puddle of water collected near the stair case. I thought of ignoring it and proceed further but then my short stay in the land of milk and honey woke my social consciousness and I picked it up with utmost disgust only to leave it at its well deserved destination.

Water was dripping from the post card and there were kids running up and down the stairs. Just to avoid embarrassment I decided to dry the water on the card when I noticed the word "Congratulations". I was still thinking this was some fake notice with sycophancy terms calling for investments.

Curious me decided to read through and couldn't believe my eyes. The "Infosys Team" as was mentioned in the card, was selected for the Jackpot's elimination round in Salem on the Sunday of that week. I was too thrilled that I kept climbing the stairs until I realized I was in the wrong floor - I was 2 floors above my house.

I was extremely desperate about sharing this information with V and my partners in crime. We got into a conference call, shared our excitement with woos and coos, appreciated each other almost as though we had already won the 1 lac cash prize. Slowly we became conscious that all that had happened till then was just a plain invitation to the selection rounds which could go either way and our over excitement was unnecessary. Clueless on the details of the elimination round, what to expect, what not to expect, except for the venue - a famous hotel in Salem, we decided to trust our spontaneity and oratorical skills and got busy with the preparations for the trip. Our secrecy was still maintained at work though not with the immediate family.

August 7, 2005

On Sunday, the 3 of us with a dedicated escort boarded the train from Bangalore and the fourth musketeer was going to join us directly at the venue. We reached the hotel pretty early - I should say 2 hrs ahead in time. To kill time, we wandered in the streets of Salem, had a good brunch, made new friends at the venue, chatted with the members of the other teams and took enough tensions awaiting the last team mate who managed to get there only a minute before our scheduled slot.

There were close to 500 people gathered in the small reception area of the hotel. When we enquired around, we were pretty impressed to find that we were the only team who had managed to get through within 6 days of applying. The longest wait had been close to 2 years and many were in the range of 8 to 12 months. Though this was something very pleasing, we were not sure what was in store for us in the evaluation.

Our appointed time for the meeting was 12:45 p.m and when we were called in, it was quarter to 2! We were not surprised considering the mind-blowing Indian punctuality we are all so used to, but were enormously worried about the delay directly impacting the availability of lunch in one of the most famous hotels in Salem that we had eyed on, the minute we knew the venue for the prelims! It was a shame to miss lunch in this restaurant after being in Salem since the first blush and well past the lunch hr!! We were keeping our fingers crossed and during the friendly discussion with the panelists we did say as much!! The interview did not scale up any more than a friendly discussion and we were told to expect the results in 2 weeks.

We waved a quick bye to all our new pals, rushed to the restaurant just in time for their last batch, had a hearty meal and returned home late in the evening.

August 9, 2005

The Tuesday of the following week, I received a call on my cell phone when I was in the middle of a meeting. The key panelist broke the news that we were selected and were expected to report to the studio in 2 weeks for the shoot. I was completely unprepared for what he told me next. He startled me when he mentioned our episode was going to be a special program which will be telecasted on the New Year's Eve.

Taking our claims as dancers and singers seriously, he wanted us to come fully prepared for a live performance - to quote his sweet talk "special performance on a special occasion”! His elaboration was more than appropriate for me to get thoroughly convinced that ours was indeed a New Year day show! I never understood then that this was just their tactful move to keep us in good spirits during the shoot - more of a faux pas. God only knows how many teams they went around promising the special status.

We made a big announcement to the whole account at work beaming ear to ear including the "New Year" joke - to us it was not a joke then. We trusted them sincerely which now I feel very funny. With the permission of our managers we started practicing for the event. We were so much carried away by the "special" tag that we focused very little on the strategy for the game show and were busy working all the time on the "special performance"! We were going to dance to the devotional Song "Bho Shambho Shiva Shambho Swayambo", a beautiful composition by Sri Swami Dayananda Saraswati in Revathi Raaga set to Adi Taala.

Our singers, singing years of experience was a remarkable spectrum - one was close to a professional with 24 years of lessons when she herself was 26 years of age then and the other was a month old in the world of Carnatic music. But both of them perfectly complimented each other and their act was nothing short of a slick. A special mention to the novice who scaled up so effortlessly and the duo definitely stood out!

We dancers made our earnest efforts to match up to the singing and we sure did not let them down. With a major burden of the lack of necessary instruments to back up, it was a real challenge for our foot work to bring out the same effect as it would in a proper show. We still managed to take the best shot and were apprised during the dry run at work!!

We brainstormed on each one's introductory speech, acknowledged all critical feedback for the betterment of the recital, finalized our costumes and the order in which we would be standing on the Diaz, settled several logistics, paid attention to the minutest of all details as it was an event to treasure forever and we did not want to be anything lesser than perfect. All said and done we still hadn't spent a minute drafting the plan of action for the main game show!! Our prime focus took a full 360 degree turn - thanks to the organizer’s fair words on the exclusivity he painted for our entertainment. With abundant support from our family and friends, we were all set to face the camera on August 27, 2005.