The broadcast read somewhat like this:
Hi All,
The much awaited Sports Day is being held on 21st April 2007.
The venue remains the same, Nehru Stadium.
Venue: Nehru Stadium
Periyamedu
Behind Rippon building, adjacent to Chennai Central, Chennai - 600 003
There are certain changes to the schedule and timing of the sports day.
In order to compensate for the bandh on 31st March 2007, we will be working on Saturday, 21st April 2007, from 9 am to 1 pm.
In order to escape the heat and save you all from getting sun tanned, the sports day has been scheduled under flood lights. We will commence at 3.00 pm and will go on till 8.30 pm. Those of you who do not attend either work or the sports event will be marked off for the day.
In order to add to the Spirit of the Game, we cordially invite your spouse and children to join the first ever sports day of ( ).
Note: Parents/friends/siblings not allowed.
The house keeping staff will come around with a new list. Please sign against your names and also confirm the number of people accompanying you for this wonderful event.
The house keeping staff did come with a list and I obviously signed none in the column which asked for the number of people accompanying me. I felt that the whole sports day thing would end up like a flop show and didn’t really wish to get embarrassed by asking anyone to join me. One look at the mail and yes I had decided to go for the sports day. Of course I couldn’t take off and needed to save every leave of mine for obvious reasons which I will explain later in the forth coming posts. Actually I wouldn’t blame my company for making a rule that if an employee misses the sports day attendance, he/she will be marked absent for the whole day. After all the HR dept knows how much the ( ) ‘ties would like to escape and enjoy the afternoon after attending office in the morning. For instance, I would never even have thought of attending if not for that stupid clause.
The D day soon followed with me cribbing to my own glory about how much I hated the whole sports day idea and the fact that I have to attend it. Anyway, the morning passed after which I hoped out with my colleagues for lunch trying to ease our minds of the sports day function. I made sure we went to my favorite Chinese restaurant in the town. After all, I needed some incentive to feel ready for real sports. :P
We enjoyed the scrumptious lunch and drove to the so called stadium. Now when I first read about the stadium in the mail, I never realized how big it could be. I was wonderstruck when I entered the Nehru Stadium.
Thats the view from where I was sitting
I could see a lot of red tee shirt audience....
All preps for the 100 metres race!
Isn't that snacks he's carrying? Thats me wondering what could be inside the cartons. :P
Its getting dark, time for the flood lights!
The stadium looked rocking with the lights on...
All I could say is WOW!
Here are some videos to get a hold of the fun I had.... The winning relay team So what if I did not participate I cheered for everybody. Also, didn’t K win wearing my shoes? :P So all in all it wasn’t a bad sports day, don’t you think so?
Women's Backwalking
Women's 100 metres-heats
Women's 100 metres-Final
There was this girl (K) sitting near me, who was very enthusiastic about 400 metres race. She went on talking about how she could have done well if that item also was included for the day. Finally when the time came for the 4x100 metres relay, one team was in shortage of a girl. Seeing the opportunity, D (another friend) and me persuaded K to participate and pushed her so hard onto getting into the track. Finally, when she told us that she was wearing floaters and she couldn’t run, I chuckled to myself. I really thought she was just making excuses. I soon offered her my running shoes saying that I will wear her floaters. After a while she agreed and she really did prove me wrong. Her team won the relay and whoever saw her running that day would have agreed to all her boasting. Just take a look.
Relay 1st Part
Relay Last Part
