Making life a celebration- The festivals at Inventrom
Celebrating festivals are a great way to break the monotony of the daily work life. We at Inventrom have people from diverse cultural backgrounds and thus there is no shortage of festivals to celebrate. Last year we celebrated festivals like Holi, Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi, Eid, and Christmas. I shall talk about the two festivals we celebrated after I joined Inventrom.
Diwali — The Festival of Lights
Diwali is by far the most popular festival celebrated in India. Although this festival is celebrated almost similarly through out the entire country, each region brings across unique rituals when celebrating this festival. In most of the northern states huge effigies of King Ravana are burnt, symbolising the vanquish of the evil king by Lord Rama. In eastern India, in the state of Orissa, they burn jute stems to light paths to guide souls of their ancestors. In West Bengal we have grand celebrations for the Goddess Kali. In the south, individual homes are washed and decorated with Kolam design. While in the West there are different ways we symbolise killing of the evil demon Narakasur. In Goa we burn effigies of the demon Narakasur.
Owing to the cultural diversity here at Inventrom most people had not ever witnessed Diwali being celebrated in this manner. To ensure maximum participation and enjoyment, most of these activities are always planned after work hours so that people can plan and complete all their work by early evening. Not many knew what was planned for that evening, as we wanted it to be a surprise activity for the entire team. At 6pm when we gathered outside the office it was announced that we were to build a Narakasur. Everyone was excited as we started assembling the effigy. By the end of the hour, we had the Narakasur propped up holding a mace, with a few firecrackers hidden beneath the layers for that pop of surprise when we would burn it. We lit a few firecrackers and put up the Akashdeep. After that we took our vehicles and rode through the entire city of Panjim to see the other Narakasur effigies. We were awed at the work of the people of Panjim. The city was filled with enormous, menacing effigies just waiting to be burnt. After catching a mid night snack we were back at the office where we burnt the Narakasur at sunrise.
The next day was an off, but we all gathered together in the evening for Laxmi Pooja, to pray for wealth and prosperity. Once the entire place was cleaned and set up we performed the Arti and prayed. After that we watched TVFs videos while eating all the sweets and snacks sent to us by the families from across the country of the employees.
Christmas
We moved to Bengaluru in the first week of December 2016. Christmas was the last festival we celebrated that year and we had a whole lot of fun. We share our space with other start-ups at InstaOffice therefore any festival celebration is quite happening. By the end of the day we had people travel from all the other offices around Bengaluru seated everywhere, waiting for the games to begin, sporting the typical Santa red and white hats. We started off the evening playing dumb charades-for start-ups(such a nice twist to the regular game) then moved onto networking, catching up with people, clicking plenty of pictures in the office (InstaOffice had decorated the office space beautifully) while snacking from the wonderful spread.
Christmas celebrations cannot be complete with out the exchange of gifts. Secret Santas were allotted a couple of weeks prior to Christmas so that people have plenty of time to buy their gifts. As we approached closer to the time when we would exchange gifts, people started dropping hints in random conversations what they would or would not like for Christmas hoping that it would be passed onto their Secret Santa. Through out the week we had parcels arrive and people locking it up in their private lockers with everybody curious as to what that package held and mainly for whom. Finally on the day when the Secret Santas were revealed and gifts were exchanged, people were elated with the gifts they received. The effort that people put into their gifts was evident thus proving Inventrom is truly a family.
Apart from this we do plan short outings and activities from time to time. Birthdays are celebrated with the traditional cake cutting and wishes. Once a month we do explore a new restaurant and celebrate the birthdays of that month. Early morning TT practice, runs and swimming are regular occurrences with a few people getting together for these refreshing workouts. We are a group of fun people who get dead serious when it comes to work.
If you see yourself a part of our family and if you want to join us you can check out all the available opportunities at our career page www.boltiot.com/app/career.php
