They came, they saw, they danced! From celebrating holidays and events to creating awareness about social issues or just for fun, flash mobs have become the in thing at Technopark. Today at Bhavani building in Technopark, it was Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) turn to rock the dance floor, to promote ‘Fit4Life’, the company’s in-house fitness campaign for its employees.
At around 12.30 p.m., the atrium of the building was abuzz as usual with hundreds of techies milling around during their lunch hour, listening to music. Suddenly, the opening drum roll of Shakira’s FIFA World Cup 2010 anthem, ‘Waka Waka, It’s time for Africa’, boomed out of the speakers. Two young techies, appearing out of nowhere, did cartwheels onto the middle of the atrium, accompanied by raucous cheers, as the crowd caught on to what was happening. Shortly afterwards, a bunch of other techies, all dressed in black, all of who were until then part of the crowd, also jumped into the game and soon a 100-strong flash mob was on! For the next 10 minutes, the techies danced to a medley of popular dance numbers such as actor-singer Dhanush’s ‘Why This Kolaveri’, A.R. Rahman’s ‘Rang De Basanti’, Somali-Canadian singer K’naan’s ‘Waving Flag’ and of course, the rest of Shakira’s ‘Waka Waka’. At the end of the demonstration, while two of the dancers mimed various sport such as football, cricket, and basketball, a few others displayed banners and placards that had messages like ‘Stay Fit, Be Happy’ and ‘Sweat, Inspire’, and so on that exhorted the viewers to look after their health!
Says young techie Apoorva Dasari, a keen dancer, who came up with the idea for the flash mob, along with a few others: “All of us are trainees at TCS, who joined the company on August 6 this year. And around one-fourth of us studied at Sastra University in Tamil Nadu. So we often hang out together. Many of us play badminton together and are actively involved in the Fit4Life campaign. We thought a flash mob would be a great way to get the message across. We’ve been practising the routine after work for the past two weeks.”
TCS started the Fit4Life initiative at the beginning of the financial year and it is meant for its employees across the world to encourage each other towards fitness. “It aims to improve health and fitness and also develop camaraderie among the employees,” says P. Suresh, Global Training Head, TCS.
The event was organised by the Initial Learning Programme team of TCS and Maitree, the employee engagement forum of the company.
