“VERVE Life and Beyond”

element of seeing each other in real was the talk of the town for most of us when we met at the resort for the very first time. Yes, it did take us a bit of time to get into the moment, getting ourselves adjusted in the allotted rooms, some ice breaking among the people and in no time we found ourselves having breakfast at the dining area of the resort on Sunday Morning. The delicious food with a lot of variety was served, the only problem was it was difficult to accommodate all those food items on one plate, but still, we managed, making space for everything that was available, as we all belong to the “भुक्कड” community.

After the heavy breakfast, Teams in VERVE got onto something which they had never done before. Any guesses? You have to make a wild one! Now, before I tell you what was the thing the VERVE-IANS were up to, let me give you the context first. This Pune Workation wasn’t the regular one for VERVE, as a big event was planned wherein the list of guests was invited. Of course, the purpose of this Get-together wasn’t only fun, food, and meeting people. VERVE, being in the business for the last two years has come a long way, marking exceptional growth, be it in the context of employee count or client count internationally. It was important to make people aware of the journey so far, the modus operandi, and the VERVE vibes, and what was a better option than hosting an event to pass on the message. However, running a PPT explaining numbers, and charts was never an option we thought of to convey the message. Message तो covey करना था but VERVE Style मे……जरा हटके |

अब ये जरा हटके क्या हो सकता है इसके बारे में काफी brainstorming हुआ | Finally we decided that we will make a video wherein all the Key Features of VERVE like Virtual Office, Workation, PAN India Hiring, Cultural Diversity, VERVE Values, Performance Management System, Transformational Stories, How did we get the idea of VERVE ; will be addressed through a small video by the respective teams who would also be acting therein picking any one topic from the list above.  Now, for acting, you need dialogues, for dialogues you need a script in the first place. So all those people who are excellent with numbers and at decoding financial statements were given a task to write a script for the video they would act in, which of course wasn’t their cup of tea. Scriptwriting was fully on and that was the only thing getting discussed at the” Hi Tea” on Sunday afternoon.

Stepping into the shoes of a scriptwriter was tough but what was even tougher was acting.  This script and the acting thing were ongoing along with Monday’s routine office work. Being in the workation, fun activities were always on the cards. We started off with the Musical Chairs. Roaming around the chairs with the energetic music playing around was fun. The childlike energy among the VERVE-IANS to grab the chair when the music stops was a thing to watch for. Political Leaders भी इतनी दौड भाग नही करते होंगे कुर्सी के लिये जितनी VERVE-IANS कर रहे थे, ultimately it was Mona who won the game. There were plenty of games we played together throughout the workation to set the mood for the day. डोंगराला आग लागली पळा पळा पळा, अंताक्षरी, दमशेराज.….Sheer fun it was! But among all these activities, what we really enjoyed, from the bottom of our hearts was Garba Night. Dj Chetan with his rocking music and VERVE-IANS with their unparalleled energy just set the dance floor on fire. काय तो dance, काय ते music, काय ती energy….सगळ ok मध्ये होत. The second most loved activity in the workation was the photo shoot. The Drone view of the VERVE-IANS forming a VERVE’s Logo was a picture that will last in our hearts forever. What a picture-perfect moment it was!! After the photo shoot, we all gathered in the Banquet Hall where the Directors had an open conversation with us. All the questions related to policies, rules, regulations, culture, and work ethics were thrown at them, and without getting ducked by any of these bouncers, the Directors answered all the questions to make the dialogue clearer, transparent and impactful.

While all these activities were happening in the full swing, the struggle with the scripts and acting was pretty much on too.   The “lights… camera… and…action “scenario was full of drama, action, and comedy but behind the camera. The retakes, the fumbles, and the location hunt were tiring, exhausting but hilarious at the same time. Literally, the Actors, DOP, and Directors laughed their hearts out. Just to give you a glimpse, a particular scene had 22 retakes. Imagine the level of perfection we were trying to achieve. Each one of the actor’s streams realized that Accounts and Finance is a much simpler thing to do. But honestly speaking, the kind of efforts all these actors put in, simultaneously handling their routine office stuff was commendable.  Shubham, Geetha, Soham, and Yogik, Kudos to you Guys!! By the way, if you think that only the actors were on their toes while the video was being shot, Hold on, that is not the case. The technical team Nikhil, Ben, Sujoy, (the night owls), literally worked day and night to get the job done. Hats off to you Guys!! Kudos to our voiceover artist Juhi as well who always showed up whenever needed. Last but by no means least, the Project Head, Gaurav, (one of the Directors of VERVE), actually speaking there is no point in me talking about his experience, better hear it from the horse’s mouth.

All the teams of VERVE including the exclusively formed Creative Team, everybody were putting their best foot forward to make the Event named “VERVE Life and Beyond” a success. Time just flew and there came the Big Day 23rd September. The creative team has a final walk through the video before they head onto the Hotel Ambience Excellency, the venue for the Event. VERVE-IANS got ready with their special attires for the very very special event. In no time the auditorium was full of guests, Clients, VERVE-IANS, their family members, and Ex-Verveians. The auditorium experienced electrifying energy as we started off with the event. The interactions with family members, Clients, and a few of the VERVE-IANS by the Anchor Muskan were fun. As the Cultural Diversity part was played on the big screen, a huge shout-out from VERVE-IANS was made especially for Ganpati Aarti and our very own Bihari Babu Amit Singh. Incredible Scenes! माहोल तो बस देखते ही बन रहा था | Listening to live feedback from the Clients,family Friends of VERVE-IANS  and Ex-VERVE-IANS  about their association with VERVE was exhilarating. And mind you, those feedbacks were genuine and not scripted. We agree that we did a lot of scripting at that point in time but not for Clients Feedback.

The show went on smoothly, the anchoring, video, in between interactions, everything fell in place. We concluded the event by thanking the guests, friends, and families of VERVE-IANS, the Anchor, and most importantly the backbone of the event “The Creative Team”, followed by Dinner and a grand photo shoot. An urge to capture these evergreen moments was flying high, clicking tones of photos. Without a doubt, all of us were tired and exhausted as we put every ounce of energy to make this event happen, but the post-event fun refreshed us. At last, the directors had to call pack up to control the over-enthusiastic VERVE-IANS and we started our journey back to Sorina Resort. The next morning, 24th Sept, Saturday was a bit lazy morning for us, most of us preferred waking up late, and some with their cricket kit were already on their way to the field. A few of us were having fun in the swimming pool and before we could get over with the post-event discussions, it was already time to see off most of the VERVE-IANS. The handshakes, hugs, smiles, and “See you soon” kinds of moments were all over the resort. Goodbyes are tough! The discussions about the next workations were already building the heat. As all of these things happened around me, I again heard that song….which one? अरे वही अपना….. “बाबुल की दुआए लेती जा,जा तुझको सुखी संसार मिले” , this time I also joined the group singing this song.

Being a Content Writer of VERVE, I don’t have to work much hard to write my content as these ever energetic VERVE-IANS with their everlasting मस्ती वाला nature never make me run short of content material. Amazingly wonderful it was to be a part of this experience!! See you all soon in the next workation!