by Mallika Sriraman, Manager-Internal Communication, AMP Sanmar Life Insurance Company Ltd
Steve Waugh picking out the best entry at a graffiti contest held by AMP Sanmar during his recent visit to Chennai. S Subramanian and B Natraj look on.
How does one welcome a man whose deeds are written down for posterity? What do you tell such a man whose quietude springs from confidence, focus and balance? A man, who is ‘never satisfied’ while striving for excellence, who has had no ‘tugga’ wars where ethical practices are concerned? The Australian of the Year, torchbearer for Olympics 2004: Can mere words sum him up?
Yes, AMP Sanmar, Chennai, rolled out the red carpet for Chennai Stephen Rodger Waugh last month. The company’s brand ambassador was, as always, a big hit with the employees, pumping up their adrenalin with his inspiring presence just like he does when he is out at the paddock.
A highlight of Waugh’s latest Chennai visit was ‘The Wall of Fame’ graffiti contest, thrown open to all employees at the Sanmar corporate headquarters. The theme was ‘Life, Cricket & Steve’. The response was tremendous. In all, five boards got filled with ‘graffiti’. Steve picked the five best entries. The numero uno pick was:
“Steve, you may conceal from your left hand,
The good deeds you do with your right hand,
Yet we all know about your charity (alas not in cricket)
Except once, at Chepauk, when you ‘handed’ over your wicket!”
Cricket fans elsewhere in Chennai were not to be left behind. Winners of a contest conducted on Steve Waugh jointly by AMP Sanmar and Radio Mirchi got to meet him one-to-one. Qualifying star advisors of AMP Sanmar also met with the champion of our insurance products. AMP Sanmar staff had a short meeting with Steve as well.
The young blood at AMP Sanmar surprised him out of his wits by breaking into a rock number, ‘Stevie, We love you’ sung to the tune of Queen’s ‘We will rock you’. The ‘Band Ambassadors’ said it all in their song. Addressing the employees at Chennai, Steve said, “I can see that people at AMP Sanmar are a happy lot. Happy companies are successful companies.”
Steve’s trip covered Madurai, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Kolkata.The photographs and autographs, media coverage, lunches and dinners, cheers and adulation were nothing new to our celebrity visitor, but what provoked the mind at the end of the visit, are words of a true leader- “If you don’t stand up for something, you will fall.”
One of Steve’s young fans wants to know when his kids will visit India.
Graham Meyer and N Sankar share a relaxed moment with Steve Waugh.
The Sanmar quiz duo of A H Kesari Prasad and Ramkumar Shankar won the Ad Club-Business Line Quiz 2004, held in Chennai on May 7, 2004. The top six teams made it to the final from the regional rounds held in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. In a nail-biting finish, there was a three-way tie for the second spot, clinched eventually by the Cipher Consulting team.
The I-Flex team came third. The round on marketing jargon and management-speak was where the Sanmar team established a clear lead over their rivals. N Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, gave away the prize to the winning team, which included a cash award of Rs 50,000. Suresh Kumar, a marketing professional, was the quizmaster.
The going has been great for the team this year, placed third in the national final of the National Management Quiz- after finishing second in the regional round, sixth in the final round of the Business Line Rotary Quiz, and third in the IIM Calcutta Alumni Association BizQuiz. The lone blemish in the record was its failure to qualify in the Brand Equity quiz. Last year, Sanmar emerged third in the national final of the National Management quiz after topping the southern regional round. There was a fifth place finish in the FACT (Free a child today) - CRY Quiz and a third place finish in the Indian Express Finance Quiz.
Some wins from the past
Teams from Sanmar have performed well in business quizzes held in Chennai over the years, in fact, right from the time they started taking part, in 1999 or thereabouts. The seeds were probably sown in the Inter Business Group Quiz competitions launched within the group around the time. Even then the high level of general awareness and quickness of uptake of the participants and audience, made up entirely of Sanmar employees, and occasionally their families, had been very impressive.
Besides the current star team of Ramkumar Shankar and Kesari Prasad, S M Sundaram and Yashwant Saran (both no longer in the group) and V R Venkataraman have been some of the leading Sanmar quizzers of the past. The most creditable part of the success Sanmar teams are increasingly enjoying in the circuit is the fact that they are homegrown talents, and people who were not hard core quizzers even before they joined the group. FACT-CRY Quiz, 1999: The presence of The Hindu’s ace quiz master V V Ramanan amidst the contestants could not prevent Sanmar from winning commandingly. Brand Equity Quiz, 1999: In the regional finals, Sanmar could finish only fourth, despite a brave rally in the late rounds. It was a creditable show, though, considering the high quality of the competition.
Business Line Ad Club Quiz, 2000: There was excitement aplenty at the event, eventually won by Team Parijata. In a tie-breaker to decide the third placed team, Sanmar pipped Mudra at the post by answering the second question correctly, after the first one had failed to break the tie. National Management Quiz, 2000: The team did one better by clinching the second spot.
by A H Kesari Prasad Vice President- Marketing, Sanmar Engineering Corporation Ltd
This piece is being written in the backdrop of the Sanmar team consisting of my colleague Ramkumar Shankar and yours truly winning the Ad Club- Business Line Quiz, the final of which was held on May 7, 2004. Before I start relating my experiences in the quizzing circuit, I must tell you a little bit about Ramkumar. He is the quintessential quizzing guy-with a terrific sense of humour-and a great favourite among the quizzing crowd and quizmasters. Audiences love his habit on stage, when not sure of the answer, of thinking the answer through aloud, when everyone can hear his (mostly!) logical thinking process.
He is a voracious reader, but by his own admission, his passion for quizzing has diminished his enjoyment of reading since he looks for quiz trivia in everything he reads. I have not yet reached that point, but I know that I’m getting there fast! My entry into the quizzing circuit in Chennai was rather late. The first competition Ramkumar Shankar and I entered was the National Management Quiz 2003 conducted by AIMA in March 2003. As soon as we reached the venue, Ramkumar was hailed by one and all like a long lost friend. Ram introduced me to some of them and I soon learnt that they were all “quiz junkies”, i.e., people who were crazy about quizzing. How crazy, I was to learn soon enough.
Anyway, this was the first quiz contest in which we topped the regional final. Soon we winged our way to Kolkata where we came third in the national final. Our quizzing career was now well and truly launched! The next quiz we entered was the CRY quiz held in April 2003 at the Vani Mahal auditorium at T’Nagar, a Chennai suburb. The quizmaster was the inimitable Derek O’Brien. We finished 4th in this quiz, which was memorable for a different reason.
My wife Sudha had accompanied me. As soon as our name was announced for the quiz final, Sudha let out a “Wow” that could have been heard in distant Mylapore. Derek stopped in his tracks and wanted to know who was the lady who was so enthusiastic. Pretty soon, every correct answer from us elicited the same “Wow” from Sudha, till Derek could no longer contain himself and wanted to know how long we had been married. Her “27 years” had me squirming in my seat. I squirmed a little more when this episode was reported on Page 2 of “The Hindu” next day.
Preliminary rounds
Just as interesting as the main quiz rounds are the preliminaries, comprising a set of questions (usually some 20 to 30) answered by all participating teams and used to select the top 6 teams for the finals. It has often struck me how knowledgeable we become five minutes after the prelims when we start exchanging answers with the other participants.
This is the period when there is much groaning and forehead slapping when you realise that the answer to a particular question is wrong or that a correct answer was first written, then scored out and substituted with an incorrect answer. Then comes some Hitchcockian suspense as we wait for the names of the finalists to be announced. The adrenalin surge you feel when your name is announced is an unforgettable experience. For some odd reason, we usually find that we are one of the last groups called on stage. On second thoughts, it may not be so odd. It could be due to the fact that we just about managed to qualify! Ramkumar is our internal scorekeeper whenever we get to the final and his scorekeeping decides our strategy in the various rounds of the quiz final. I realized the importance of scorekeeping during the regional final of the AIMA Quiz-2004. We were lying third and less than 10 points separated us from the team in second position. It was the last question of the last round and a buzzer round at that.
We knew that we had to go for it and Ramkumar pressed the buzzer even before the question was completed. The question, thankfully, was a sitter and Ramkumar’s “Konkan Railway Corporation” was the correct answer to the question “Which organisation has come up with the Sky bus, a train that runs on suspended rails?” That’s how we came second in the regional final and then went on to bag third place in the national final!
Quiz junkies
The quiz that really brought us a lot of publicity and made us Page 2 celebrities was the Ad Club-Business Line Quiz I referred to earlier. It was nice to receive calls from places as far apart as Pondicherry, Kodaikanal, Bangalore, Mysore and New Delhi, after our mugs were splashed in “The Hindu”. Back to the “quiz junkies”. This is a band of people who eat, live and breathe quiz.
They are aware of all the quizzes taking place all over the country and some of them usually fly down to the quiz, take part, win enough to cover the cost of their travel and have enough left over! They also religiously note down all questions and by next day, post these questions (along with the answers) on the net for the benefit of other quiz junkies. There are even Yahoogroups called Quiznet and Quinkies (short for quiz junkies, what else)! One team that came fourth in the Bangalore round of the recent Ad Club-Business Line quiz, flew to Hyderabad but didn’t have any luck there. Finally, they flew down to Chennai also.
Talk about dedication! Talk about craziness! I have always maintained that this is a rather incestuous crowd since one keeps meeting the same people in every quiz event. The interesting thing is that it also includes people whose only interest is to attend quizzes, not participate in them. What makes a good quizzer? For starters, you have to enjoy your reading. Read whatever comes into your hands. I remember one winner of the Landmark Quiz stating that he used to read even the paper wrapping the bhujjias he bought on street pavements. However, if reading were the only factor, all voracious readers would be good quizzers. The ability to dredge up information from the darkest recesses of the mind in the given 15 or 20 seconds is what really separates the men from the boys. Some logical thinking and a fair bit of luck and there you have it. Happy quizzing!