Spelling Bee

Brooke and Suman helped to organize the words for the Spelling Bee and general knowledge contest. Emily was one of the people who read the words to the younger children. It was so cute to watch her saying the words, the little kids repeating it, spelling it and repeating the word again. At one stage Lakshmi came up to me to say they don't understand Emily's English pronouncation! Imagine that!! It's all relative!! It just makes me appreciate diversity so much. We are always saying we have a hard time understanding the Indian English accent, well, in their eyes (about 1.1B of them), we are the ones with the accent!!

So a teacher was assigned to repeat what Emily said :)
All is well at the end and it was a great day for the children!

Computer Lab

I got Cisco to donate 10 computers and a bunch of the Cisco volunteers went to setup the computers into a lab. For a school that didn't have any technology or books as of a month ago to have a pretty complete library and a computer lab (well, still needs work)! It's pretty amazing! The Cisco team is fabulous and the key person making it happen is Brooke. We got Chandra, our Cisco Distinguished engineer and Kamal from my CMO team to lead the installation..

Indira Gandhi Library

One of the projects Brooke and I are working on is building a complete library for Indira Gandhi International Academy. We are asking Cisco folks to donate books. Emily and a bunch of Cisco kids are also going into their classrooms to ask classmates for books! Here's Emily helping Brooke and others to label and put up books!

husband and wife

This is when the priest says: "Now I promise you husband and wife!" There was no kissing or hugging though. I heard the bride still goes back to her parents home that night and it's the next day (after more ceremoneis) that she gets to live with her new husband to start a new life together. It must've been an exhausting thing to be partying for a whole week and not get much sleep!

The coin and the coconut milk

This is my favorite part - the blessing. The bride and groom held their hands together holding a small coconut. I put a 1 rupee coin on top of the coconut, pour coconut milk over it to bless it and then get to put rice on top of both of their heads! I'm very happy for them as I believe they will have a wonderful life together as husband and wife. They met each other at work and not through arranged marriage. Not that I am against arranged marriage, I just like the sound of the other kind of marriage which is referred to as "love marriage"!

Garland and Rice

The bride and groom put garland on each other and then they shower different color rice on each other. This symbolizes abundance and a colorful life together. There was rice everywhere! The groom then puts two rings on the "pointer" equivalent of the bride's right toe. All the families (we were with the families instead of the guests so we can get to see the ceremony close up) were invited to individually bless the new couple.

Wedding decoration

The umbrella

Yeshewini's brother opened the umbrella (it was filled with flowers when he opened it) and the groom's entourage then walked towards the wedding hall following the marching band.

A new beginning

At the start of the ceremony, the bride's brother washed Anil's feet. With the blessing of the Hindu priests, he put different color powder on Anil's feet after he washed them. The groom then put on a brand new pair of shoes (signifying a new beginning) and then he offered a present to Yeshewini's brother (it was a suit and shirt).

The wedding ceremony

The next morning sharply at 8am, the groom and his family arrived on a white horse. Leading the pack was the bride's brother. One of the groom's brother in law explained everything to us. It was very festive and beautiful.

Yeshewini and Anil's wedding

I brought Brooke to our first Indian wedding. Yeshewini who is our pretty lobby ambassador married Anil who is our WPR project manager. These photos were taken at the reception. The whole thing started two hours late but once the bride and groom showed up they went immediately up to the stage and we were one of the first ones to go up to wish them well and to have the photo opp with the bride and groom. Yeshewini looked beautiful with all her gold jewelry. Anil had a silly smile on his smile the whole time.

John Chambers' visit 2009

The launch was a smashing success and as was the employee all hands and the company meeting. The most memorable event was actually the party at Wim's at 11.30pm after the company meeting. Wim invited a bunch of people to his home to celebrate as John left on his jet. About 40-50 people showed up. I went to the kitchen and saw Kate in her robe. She was sleepy-eyed and apparently Wim told her he would invite a few people over for drinks and so many showed up. She had nothing in the fridge. I ran home to pick up the Tostito chips Brooke brought from Costco, lots of microwave popcorn, salami, ham and cheese which I just bought the day before. I also picked up all the leftovers from our fridge plus all the bread I could find. Kate and I chopped up all the apples we had (to feed the vegetarians), we had left over pizza, chicken wings, pasta...etc.

People continue to pour in as more people texted others to join. At the end we were completely out of food, alcohol and even water! It was a really nice evening though - we were all so happy the launch was successful and it was so fun to collaborate with so many people to do this. I was the last to leave and helped Wim to move all the glasses and plates into the kitchen.

Launch of Intelligent Urbanisation

We launched a new industry vertical called "Intelligent Urbanisation" during John Chambers' visit and our marketing team worked on the campus branding and the architecting of the messaging. The chief guest was the Chief Minister of Karnataka and there were several other ministers who also came to visit our beautiful campus. We also held a few press conferences and the first global company meeting outside of the United states via Telepresence!

The snake that could

We have a lot of snake in our yard. This one was one of the longest. The last one was a spectacle cobra found in the open garage. I posed our dog Kodi next to it and his legs went limp out of fear! Mine did too! This is the 11th snake since September 2007!