Merry Christmas

It's 9 PM, I am still in office, trying to write this blog amidst the loud songs being played outside for Christmas party... Enthuastic youngsters are saltating outside while I am still wondering about how the party should be ? Yes, we do have a formal cultural comitte, full of creative ideas and dedicated budget from management for arranging such events. This event is also pretty much predictable for me after watching a couple in past. There would be some games / performing arts involving employees followed by some snacks. Ending notes will be all current dance numbers played by some D.J. and youngsters would be sweating matching the pace of the music with their steps. Our company spends considerable amount for such events spread evenly throughour the year.

There's an NGO in the city, which runs a hostel and school for orphan female children aged from 3 years till 18 years. The NGO is at its own for running the show. Last week, some employees from the same company visited this NGO. The purpose of the visit was to take individual photographs of these students.

I was shocked to know that having an individual photograph was one of the 'greatest' wish these students had in their mind, which was something never happened in past! It took hardly 4 hours and 6 of the active volunteers from our company to complete the task. I was one amongst these team of 6. We all were requested to be special guests for the annual gathering on the same evening. There were programs like drama, dance and all students were bubbling with excitement. Gifts were distributed to all students by Santa Clause. As a pleasant surprise, our team also received gifts.

Couple of days later, we went again to distrubute individual copies of the photos and were incited to watch the expressions on each of the girls face. I realized the importance of one piece of chemically processed 4" x 6" paper in someone's life! We are in IT, talking about all digital stuff, have latest and greatest gadgets including digital camcorders, and here I was experiencing the power of good old film photography.

On the budget side, the entire photo session would have costed less than the 'snacks' budget for today's Christmas party! On the ROI [ Return Of Investment, an corportate jargon ], I am yet to figure out a common equation for both situations... Ok, a company should have such functions, it's important to increase the 'attachment' of an employee towards his/her company, and most importantly, it is something ALL IT companies do! May be it's gratifying its purpose, may be the money spent is worth from "HR" point of view, but I still can not take the flashing past from the NGO's Christmas Part. They had inadequate lighting, limited mikes, old generation music reproduction systems but still the feeling we got would beat any concert in the Royal Albert Hall.

Interestingly, one of the drama which was performed in the gathering focused on the current lifestyle of the 'happening' generation. It just talked about our lifestyles, imprisonment of ourselves to our own devices, moblie phones becoming limbs and so on...

I am suddenly feeling the "hollowness" on my floor as the office party just got over. The silence appears as precious to me as a bottle of mineral water to one in the middle of a desert. Housekeeping guys are clearing up the party location, DJ and his Disco gizmos are back on their way. Wow, we have just had another gala celebration of Christmas.

Thou Shalt Not Covet!