Blues

This story was contributed by Piyush Jain. Piyush heads Business Development at Blue Bytes.

Who won The Blues?

The second installment of The Blues happily coincided with the second and final offsite of the year. Also, given that the Blue Lotus group was celebrating its fifth anniversary year, the degree of excitement went up several notches.

The Blues campaign began well in advance with a series of teasers. This was followed by posters, danglers, e-mailers… the works, all adding to the excitement. The visual motif was that of a masked person followed by the caption: “Who will win?” Everyone wanted to see themselves or their nominees behind the mask of the persons in the teasers. Little did we know that the Byters would “take it all”; well most of it anyway.

The winners are decided by a system of nomination, a completely democratic process wherein everyone nominates their favourite candidates, at the same time forwarding arguments to that effect. The jury then sits together and decides on the nominees, based both on numbers as well as the quality of endorsements.

The Blues was held on the night of the 15th, the day being devoted to a gruelling session involving horses and dogs. An elaborate stage—complete with backdrop, screen and spotlight—set the mood for this most awaited of evenings. Sitting in the second row, I was as excited and nervous as the rest – young men and women all turned out in their evening best. A rousing speech by Mouli followed by a crisp introduction to each award by Soumitro preceded the announcement of the nominations. The beautiful lady draped in a gorgeous silver sari then announced the nomination for the first award category.

One after the other, three names were announced as nominees for the ‘Spirit of Entrepreneurship’ award. I was thrilled to find myself amongst the nominees. In true Filmfare awards fashion, the nominations were announced and with a pause (I skipped several heart beats) the name of the winner was announced. I would be lying if I said it did not matter. Yes, I was thrilled and elated; so much so that my well rehearsed speech went for a toss when I walked up to the stage to receive the award.

Then came the moment of glory for Prabalika - adjudged Best Debutant. The award for creativity went to Laxman, while the Amol won the award for ‘turnaround of the year’.

The most awaited award of the evening, the ‘team spirit’ award, came at the very end. Bishi announced or rather hinted at the winners and this was enough for all, especially the Byters who realized collectively that this was their moment of glory. Congratulatory words flew all around with the Byters hugging and back-slapping each other. Some of us had our voices choked as a surge of emotion overcame us all.

It was indeed a very proud moment to hold aloft the trophy. It is humbling to know there are others around who care and appreciate all that you are doing. The beautiful trophy brings along not just recognition for past efforts but also builds up an expectation for the future.

Each one of us is a future leader, the award simply is a way to recognize and inspire everyone towards that. Next year it could very well be YOU!