Minute breakers bag 150 CEO minutes

WhatsApp Image 2019-03-11 at 09.13.09 (1)

Aparna Sajeendran

Team MNP

For the very first time, the Fun D’ Mentalists organized the “Minute To Win It” competition here at Molecular Connections which was a huge success, with the MNP-WCP team walking away as proud winners. An unexpected bigger bonus for the winners was scoring a bowling outing with our CEO Jignesh Bhate as a prize for the well-played and deserved win. The outing was joined in by few of the team “cheerleaders” as we call it, who supported the team up till the very end, as well as members of the Fun D’ Mentalists.

As soon as the clock struck 6 pm on our monitors on 19th March, systems were quickly shut down and everyone headed out in groups to Amoeba arcade in Jayanagar. As we went ahead with a quick head count and routine picking out the right sized shoes, we decided to have a little healthy competition between 2 teams; one lead by Krishna and the other lead by Bharat sir. To raise the stakes a bit, it was agreed that the losing team would have to treat the winners to lunch. Hence began a thrilling and rather unpredictable game of bowling. Some of us were complete newbies to the game being absolutely clueless of how to play, while some were almost professionals and others had no idea how good they were until they actually started playing. What ensued thereafter was a lot of strategies, team huddles, shrieks, cheering, strikes, spares and naturally the most of them all; gutter balls.

The top 2 players were unarguably Chethan and Jignesh sir, who aimed either strikes ( literally echoing through the arcade as the pins were struck) or spares and settled for nothing less. They amazed us with their bowling angles and techniques, managing to score points over a whopping 100! For a good two hours, each of us just indulged wholly in a power-packed evening, in a way reliving the days of zero worry and responsibilities. The fact that we all had work the next day seemed to have completely escaped all our minds. Imagine our surprise when we realized that it was a tie between both teams! In the end, it came down to taking a vote if we wanted another game or wind up with ice cream. Quite shockingly most including the foodies of the group opted for another game, but everyone eventually liked the idea of ice cream better, to cool off. It didn’t take much thought to decide that Corner house was the best option.

The evening ended with a lot of ice cream flavors, laughs and hilarious discussions regarding our respective bowling performances. What an evening it was!

Republic day celebrations:Team MNP

WhatsApp Image 2019-03-11 at 09.13.09 (1)

Aparna Sajeendran

Team MNP

Growing up listening to stories of early India and sitting through history classes learning about our freedom struggle has built up an underlying patriotism and love for our country. Somewhere along the line, we as millennials tend to unconsciously diminish this feeling amidst a rat race. A rather appropriate chance the MNP team including CCS and WCP got to bring out the patriots within us, was the “Musical Blast from India’s Past” event held on 25th January. What started out as just an active participation eventually turned out to be one of the most memorable and cherished experience for all of us.

It began with deciding a relevant and inspirational portrayal of India’s early struggle; which after a considerable amount of contemplation came down to Rani Chennamma of Karnataka, one of the earliest queens to fight against the British rule. The next challenge was to compose an original song during which we discovered a new-found respect for music directors and lyricists out there. Following a lot of so-called Beethovan moments, out-of-box brain storming and theatrical ideas, we created a short enactment showcasing a timeline of India’s strive for freedom, up to the creation of our very own constitution. As a team we decided to polish our collective sense of creativity by making all our props from scratch including swords, shields, guns, scrolls, the constitution book and even the British uniforms.

The days leading to the 25th were packed with a series of post-5 pm art work, round table and singing sessions (few hilariously off-pitch instances), hunt for the right Rani, B.R Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru and so on, practice sessions with couple of failed attempts at maintaining straight faces alongside obvious goof-ups, inner jokes and laughter; in simple words: PURE FUN !

When it came to the “big” day, we surprised ourselves as we pulled off a performance beyond our expectations. More importantly we came to realize that having each and every person including the manager, QAs and curators be an integral part of the whole experience had unknowingly brought us so much closer as a team. The day ended with posing, photos and a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment enabling all of us reminisce and take back a bit from it.

Sangolli Rayanna and Rani Chennamma (Ashwini R and Nethravathy)
Rani Chennamma and her crusaders (Sruti, Mahima and Priyanka)
British soldiers with their handmade props (Deepu, Anusha, Keerthi, Prakriti)
MnP choir (Rashmi, Anupama. Divya, Samprada, Apoorva, Tanushree, Farheen and Anitha)
Cabinet members: Sarojini Naidu (Nitha), Durgabai Deshmukh (Jayashree), assistant cabinet members (Chetan and Vaishnavi)
B.R Ambedkar (Puneeth), Rajendra Prasad (Vinay Kumar) and Vijaylakshmi Pandit (Lakshmi Reddy)
MnP Team (MC: Aparna, Placard holders: AnushaJ, Nayana, Nisha, Anjali, Kavitha, Swetha)

2019……..Here we come !!

WhatsApp Image 2019-03-11 at 09.13.09 (1)

Aparna Sajeendran

Team MNP

The start of a new year is always an exciting time generally packed with mixed emotions, resolutions, decisions and at times inevitable changes. My resolution, however, was to embrace these changes and step out of my comfort zone to try new things. Being selected to be a member of the Fun D’ Mentalists could not have come at a better time. Meeting new people, managing events and inculcating a little fun into everyone’s busy schedule turned out to be a satisfying yet ironically challenging experience.

As a newbie to the Fun team, our very first event of the year was bidding 2018 goodbye and ringing in 2019 with a gala evening blast on 4th January filled with awards, fun and the icing of the cake is “The Rooftop January Jam”. To kick start the evening, our CEO Jignesh Bhate addressed the MC family, taking us down memory lane as to how much we have achieved and grown as a company. We then went onto our quarterly R&R award ceremony acknowledging and appreciating the immense contribution by our outstanding colleagues.

A new quotient of “Fun awards” was introduced for the first time for certain individuals and project teams who kept their energy pumped and never let go of the child within them; not to mention we managed to include a comic presence of characters well-suited to the awards.

As cheers to 2019, the CEO along with the Fun team and other members of MC cut a cake marking the beginning to an eventful year.

As we wrapped up the semi-official part of the evening, the Fun team broke into a flash mob to a peppy song; making our way into the audience and ushering the crowd to get onto their feet.

Coming down to the most awaited part of the evening, the MC crowd made their way onto the dance floor letting loose and allowing nothing but the lights and exhilarating range of music take the lead till the end of the evening.

Looking back at 4th January and the week that led up to it, I think I speak for the entire Fun D’ Mentalists when I say the process of organizing, prop making, dance practice with our blooper moments and watching it unfold into an evening of bliss bringing together the entire MolCon family was definitely the highlight; because here at MC fun is just as important.