Everything has a beginning, perhaps this was it.

The corporate however is always quite frenzy with the happenings inside the office in the name of security. A certain someone seems to have taken a video during a birthday celebration inside the office premises and that seems to have violated a certain security rule, hence there was a strict ban on the taking of photos or videos inside the office premises. And if there was a situation when someone has to take, then they have to take permission and also they have to get a camera from the HR. But then again, as an employee of such a reputed and well-known organisation demands to have the work-life balance as they call it. And also the people do need some refreshment from the stale walls of the air-conditioned brick walls. Hence, the management thought it to be a great idea to arrange a festival-soft of within the office campus to accommodate the burning need for some refreshment.

One of the things that the corporate team decided to do was throw in a fest which would serve as something of a refreshment to the employees. The name chosen was Splash which didn’t make sense anyway. But they changed the tradition of picking the top name from the ones suggested by the employees. Maybe it was put to a vote and some genius did come up with that marvel of a name; maybe! However, as simple as finding the name might have been, this was a tedious process as they had to rope in a few too many new clients and build up the resources to mitigate the same. While there were already a few too many vendors working on the campus premises, it wasn’t that difficult of a task for the admin team to rope in a few potential vendors for a day. So, there were food stalls set up, some mediocre games that they thought would be fun, mediocre meaning the games that are usually for the kids, literally. Perhaps a list of it would keep the minds at ease. There were dart games, magnetic archery, remote controlled cars, bull-riding and the sorts of it. It doesn’t take much to understand that the people of that age aren’t really into them, but there wasn’t much of a choice either. And the employees had to make do with what was offered to them even it wasn’t what they would like to do, just like their daily routine jobs. Something that they could look forward to was that there was non-vegetarian food available. It was a rare instance. In a country that is mostly governed by the religious precedence, this was one rather-dumb move by the admin team. A presumable group of people had once complained about the plates that served the non-vegetarian food somehow got mixed with the vegetarian eating plates and that led to an unsettling stomachs and minds since the plates, however, were washed to the best of one’s abilities still left an unsettling thought in them their minds with the age-old notion of “what-if” as in like “what if they were eating their delicious Veg Biryani in a plate that once served chicken”, it would then been an abomination and no matter how much ever head-baths they take it will still not be enough. It will greatly upset the God they so much adore and believe in. The bottom line being, non-vegetarian was kept at a distance so far that its name was slowly getting forgotten. Imagine when there are two microwaves, one especially for the non-vegetarians to heat up the food they get from home because the atmosphere In the microwave shouldn’t also have anything to do with the aroma of non-vegetarian. Speaking of heights at which people go to pull off these stunts.

The big day was on point and people were swarming all over the place since all different vendors in the canteen were put on a temporary hold from serving any food that day since one vendor will be taking over everything that day including serving the non-vegetarian food. However, the options in that section were minimal yet people were excited to have something different than their usual veg/egg food. And the excitement didn’t last for long as they realised that it wasn’t as good as it should have been. It seemed more like a compromise than a refreshment to them and as something that they were a once in a year thing and they had to give it a try even if it wasn’t that good. Aryan and Neil stood in the queue for a close to twenty minutes to get a taste of that presumed delicacy only to find it not as interesting as they had expected.

While Siri was relishing the cupful of ice cream with a friend of hers, Neil and Aryan went out to explore the “games” that were set up for the entertainment purposes. They seemed okay and not as fun as they looked. Hell if they looked any interesting in the first place. Meanwhile, Siri and co weren’t able to finish the cup full of ice cream that they had taken a while back. However, Aryan wasn’t pro-icecream, but upon being forced he had to take a few bites while Neil was a pro-food and he could literally finish any food. One time they (Neil and Aryan) were called upon just so that a team in the project wanted their cake to be finished since all of them were very conscious of the food they eat and cake for one is sugar and that meant a few too many calories that possibly couldn’t afford to gain. Nah! While they took their time to finish off the ice cream and indulge in the games that were set up for the employees’ refreshment there was nothing much that could be done over there. Hence they decided to hang out at the badminton court which will serve essentially two things, one being the fun part while the other being the calorie burning aspect. People are way too conscious of how they look and one day of guilty indulgence could lead to a snowball effect, apparently, who knew? Everybody, apparently!

A game of badminton generally needed four people but Siri, Neil, and Aryan summed up to three people in total. Mathematics, duh! Neil was on a on-off game with too much work on his hands. While Aryan was literally jobless with a job and Siri, who is an expert developer was always ahead of her work. Sameera could have joined but a certain “alleged” badminton incident a couple years months ago led her to a little pain in her foot and she decided to put badminton to rest for a while until the pain goes away, which hasn’t gone away as yet. So, the rest three of them indulged in warming up until someone interested in playing badminton wanted to join them. Fridays always saw a surge of people wanting to play a game or in a streak but it was sort of odd since there weren’t any one at all. Apparently, it wasn’t that kind of Friday, perhaps thanks to the world-class badminton court and the facilities that the office campus had which forced the people to take refugee in the close by badminton court where the facilities were far better. Since there was no one else to join them that Friday, they decided to just play a game among the three of them. While their game was about to end, a couple of people descended the stairs and Aryan who was a master at getting distracted brought this distraction upon himself yet agin and missed a great shot he was so ready to play to score that much needed point.

( To be continued … )
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