The day dawned bright and sunny. There was a festive season in the air as FCS geared up to celebrate the Festival of Lights, Diwali. The Employees Welfare Task Group organized the mega event, FCS Deep Mahotsav. Filled as it was with music, masti and suspense, the employees at FCS brewed up their own potboiler.

And by all accounts, it was firecracker of an evening reverberating with the sounds of instruments, songs and a lustily cheering audience. 

The fun began at 6:30 in the evening on a musical note with what can only be called a mini concert by the trio from OSG who performed under the moniker of the ‘Three Ss.’ The vocalist and guitarist for the troupe, Shiv Kumar, took the audience on a nostalgic trip when he opened with the retro Dum Maro Dum. He was very ably supported by Sukhvinder Singh on the congo drums and Sachin Gupta on the keyboards. The half an hour performance culminated in a medley of songs. The audience thoroughly enjoyed this performance singing along with Shiv and clapping in time to Sukhvinder’s beats.

One of the more interesting parts of the evening was the ‘Just a Minute’ or Jam competition. This competition had some rather interesting rules. Each participant drew a slip from a common pool when he or she came on. The slip mentioned the topic that the participant had to give an impromptu speech on. Participants had to speak for exactly one minute, no hesitations, no pauses to think. The downside of the event was that there were only four participants. 

Mayank Jain gave a brief commentary drawing parallels between marriage and the ‘Highway to Hell.’ Ashish Sharma from COE elicited quite a few titters from the audience with his speech on Dieting Hippos. His eloquent effort won him the first prize. Roma Jain of the OSG marketing team came a close second with her monologue on ‘The Stick that Walks.’ Third place went to Alok Das who spoke rather valiantly on ‘Careless Love’. 

The evening of the 18th also saw FCS unearthing a wealth of talent within its ranks. The talent hunt that followed the JAM session uncovered several singers and poets. Eight ladies from COE kicked off the show with their own rendition of the latest chartbuster ‘Pal Pal’ from the movie ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai.’ The MC Ramanan immediately dubbed the group as the FCS Spice Girls. 

Kishoreda ruled the evening with a number of participants opting for his songs. Shiv Kumar of OSG had the audience singing along with him as he strummed on his guitar and belted out several rocking numbers. His efforts won him the first prize for singing. Kapil Kohli from HR might not have had a guitar to help him but that didn’t stop him from securing second place. He decided to go the karaoke way and crooned two kishore songs. Third place was secured by Gagan Yoge of PSG.


But the highlight of the evening had to be Neha Chandna and Animesh of COE who gave their own rendition of the masala number ‘Beedi’ from the movie ‘Omkara.’ The audience reacted predictably with catcalls and whistles cheering the couple on. Then there was the performance by Bipin and Tushar of COE where Bipin sang, again, a kishoreda number ‘Pal Pal Dil ke Paas.’ The performance stood out due to the fact that it was accompanied by Tushar drumming on a table. There was also a consolation prize given to Gaurav Batra of OSG.

There was a separate category of recitation for all the budding poets in FCS to showcase their efforts. Atul of OSG wove magic with his words when he brought out the big guns and took the audience to the battlefields of the Mahabharata. His composition in Hindi recounted the thoughts and emotions of Subhadra as she awaits the return of Abhimanyu. His rather literary work won him the first prize in this category of the talent hunt. 

There was also a quiz that provided the suspense element for the evening’s proceedings. There were six teams vying for the grand prize. There were in all 5 Rounds, which included two visual rounds and one audio round. Three teams were running neck and neck till the final, audio round. The COE IDs team gained the crucial points needed to win by identifying a recording as John F. Kennedy giving his famous Berlin speech. There was a tie for the second place.

There were also awards handed out for the best traditional outfits worn by employees. Rakhi and Tushar of COE won the first prizes for the best dressed female and male respectively. Second place prize went to Nupur and Dheeraj. Third prize went to Shammi Verma and Atul.

The evening was extra special for the FCS’ Helpdesk team. FCS took the occasion to honor the team for its valiant efforts in keeping track of and resolving the issues that the employees face on a daily basis. Special awards were given to individual members of the team. Dipti made it clear that the only difference between the sighted and the visually-impaired was that of sight and not skill or talent. Raman brought that point home when he sang a popular Sonu Nigam number while playing the keyboards.

Of course, no celebration is complete without the traditional ‘Tambola,’ and FCS Deep Mahotsav was no exception. So while the quiz was being hosted by Ramanan in the courtyard, Roma Jain was hosting the Indian version of ‘Bingo’ in the Canteen. Also part of the celebrations, just to spice things up was a lucky draw. All employees of FCS were eligible to participate in the lucky draw. Indeed entries also came in from the company’s Panchkula office and several prizes went there. 

Employees had filled up coupons earlier and the filled up coupons had been collected in a drop box. Several times during the evening’s proceedings, people from the audience were asked to draw coupons at random from the box for prizes. Participants in the draw came from every department.

The evening’s festivities ended with the announcement of the winners of the first three prizes in the lucky draw. Vikas Mittal won the first prize, a Nokia mobile phone, while Amit Bansal won the second, a DVD player. The third prize, a popup toaster, went to Ajay Kumar.

People sang, some danced, everybody enjoyed, and quite a few lucky ones walked away with prizes. The general consensus was that thanks to Kumud Mehra, Ramanan and other members of the Employee Welfare Task Group the evening was a resounding success. Of course, it couldn’t have been done without the participation of the FCS extended family.

Contibuted by:
Ahnand Mani