Diwali Bash at HSS

I've moved to http://tech.shantanugoel.com, http://blog.shantanugoel.com and http://www.safercode.com/blog/
Shantanu's Technophilic Musings
Never Knew I Was Living In The World
Programming Safer Code (Secure Coding In C \ C++)

Diwali Festivities at my office are over (Diwali is celebrated at my office a week earlier than the real date cuz then most of the people have gone home).Well, the celebrations started on 1st of november and continued till 5th Nov. So it was a whole week of fun and frolic.
The celebrations were named Phooljhadi 2004.
The week began with daily events like crossword, who dares wins, etc. Good fun games there. Especially the dare to roam around the office dressed like Superman. Alas, no one came forward to try it.
Then we had a quiz contest, in which I also took part. My team outshined all the others in the prelims. We were the top team amongst the finalists and that too by a huge margin. But then, our luck ran out, and we failed miserably in the final round, finishing last. :(. Our claim to fame lasted for a very short time, I think.
We had a talent show, which had to be stretched over two days, from the initially planned single day event, due to the large no. of entries. With everyone vying to show their talent, rangin from poems, mono acts, songs, instrumentals, and all, we had a fun time cheering them on (read hooting ;-) ).
Then came the antakshari, one of the major events. It was an interplot event. (My company has offices on 9 plots in the same area). The scenario was very competitive, with participants on their toes for each and every second of the game. The audience was going wild cheering for their respective plots. My plot led the game till the end but due to a small mistake (both on the part of our team as well as the compere), we had to settle for the second.
The last event was Plot Decoration Contest. Again, an interplot event. We collected about Rs. 40,000 for this. The theme was ramayana. It took us two days to deck up our plot as "Treta Yuga". We showed the ground floor as Ayodhya, the land of Rama and the first floor as Lanka, the city of Ravana.
All the small events of ramayana were also depicted with our cubicles being made to look like jungles, rivers and all. (Will post a few pics soon).
We made a person Rama, there were two women depicting Sita (one in Ayodhya and one in Ashok Vatika) and tthe best part was Ravana. I became the dwarpal(the door keeper to the treta yuga) and the fun part part was when I asked our CEO (who was judging the decoration) for his ID card before he could enter the plot. :). Guess wht he replied.He lifted his glasses and said, "Is this ID okay?".
We won the hearts of the whole of the HSS (my company) with the efforts we had put in.
Fianlly, we had the Diwali Bash at a nearby place where my company's new campus is being built. It started off with excellent performances in terms of skits, dances, and songs. We also had a lazer show that left us wanting for more and more of it. It was just stunningly amazing.
To top it all, I just got a Philips Food Processor as a Diwali Gift from the company. So, in all it was my best diwali ever, and that too even before Diwali has come :)