Mouthfull of Mousse. Review on Afaqs

Foreword

This is the description of the Buzz Award night organized by the owners of this website as a grand finale of the conference and thus not exactly much off-topic.

Award Giver

I confess that I have never gone up to stage to give any awards ever. Thus, when I got a call from MS asking me if I am okay with “giving” awards to corporate brands I was bemused.

The guy who called me(lets call him Safe to be on the saifer side) explained that there is a annual  ‘Buzz Award’ thing organized by “Agency FAQs”& they want few ‘distinguished’ MS members to represent the consumer-blogger-netizens & take part in the award giving ceremony alongwith the Corporate brand czars.

Few more members have been safely contacted too. I was also allowed to bring my wife(the day being Valentianes). A car was organized for pick-up & drop. Meantime, I also received intimation from few other members who had received similar calls, but to explain how inconvenient the event was wrt timing, location, distance, astrological positioning of the stars & planets, vastu-shastra etc. So I was left alone. But friendly & Safe calls helped boost my confidence(to convince my wife to join. How I did it is substance of review under “General advice to impress wife for specific purpose”).

Venue & Attendees

On reaching the venue exactly 5 mins before 7:30pm, the official time of reporting, we found ourselves standing inside the main lobby of ITC Grand Central, where two larger than life red hearts were kept on a central table alongwith colorful exotic flowers. I give a ear-to-ear grin to my wife(which translates to ‘see? Those hearts are kept specifically to welcome us’). Safe direction was given through phone. Just then I heard a “dada” from behind & lo & behold- there comes someone who recognized me in spite of my best efforts to stay dhundla. We exchanged pleasantries & she introduced herself as Doveye. The other lady accompanying her was Vaibhavi(vibzi in MS) & her husband. While I was walking towards the restroom I saw one gentleman walking down the corridor who looked familiar. Knowing Rajasagar would come, I confidently walk upto him. Now, I must say profile pics however obscure & bad, if real, it works. It was Rajasagar indeed! The final member who joined the group was Balasubramaniam(I missed his ID). The CEO of FAQs personally came to greet us too.

The Event*

The event was organized at the Ballroom & a round table closest to the stage was reserved for us. We were requested to take our seat & without any rehearsal the event started at around 8 pm. The annual Buzz awards for various categories for the best consumer brands, which was selected by the Agency FAQs jury. Now the jury comprised of the who’s who of the advertising & consumer industry, out of which I recognized Prahlad Kakkar. After the nominations were shown through the audio-visual presentation Cyrus Broacha was called upon.

Cyrus spoke spontaneously & incessantly about Valentine’s day & its relevance in India, the recent epidemic called MNS in Mumbai, branding examples of Kapil Dev, Tendulkar, Parsi distortion of Hindi language & some other hilarious topics which resulted to multiple LOL moments! Imagine, how the lady blushed to violet when Cyrus assured her that ‘soft-toy’ is curable by Doctors these days, upon she voicing her preference of Valentine gifts. Her husband tried to hide under the table. Another falling from the chair moment was when he narrated the story of the Parsi lady, who after reaching the threshold of her tolerance while traveling in a car, asked the Punjabi driver “ mujhe susu ka jagah dikhao”!

Before we could completely recover from the laughter-effects of Cyrus, we realized the award function had started. Our names were called along with one corporate biggie to present the award to the winners. Vibzi & Bala presented the “10 young Buzz” & Buzzy brands award. Raja, Doveye & myself was called for the top three brands i.e. Bronze, Silver & Gold awards. I presented the award to Airtel. Detailed information about the awards would be available in the subject website.

During the ceremony, I noticed Faisal who silently stood beside the table. Once the function ended with thanksgiving, there was a gentle pat & I saw him greeting us with a warm cordial smile. He looked like his profile pic, but contrary to his quietness on MS, I found him to be quite vocal in person. We introduced ourselves & described our real life jobs. Probably, the most uninteresting part of my interaction was what explaining him what I do in real life. Then he horrified me by asking my wife “ so, how long exactly this guy spends his time online?”

The man who builds a glass house shouldn’t throw stones at the inhabitants.

Our discussion ranged from the new look of MS, the points & virtual gifts, how people are trying to hack Lyla’s account(clicking forgot password link), what are the interesting features, how the single review in each category handicaps a member, my much scribbled T-shirt & the plan of auctioning the same to Faisal, how to acquire the plane for me etc. Few snaps were clicked & the moments were captured forever digitally. It was quite interactive & animated discussion(refer pictures in my album), which made us  thirsty.

While I had vodka, I found others restrained to juices. It won’t be radically wrong to expect some juicy comments from them.*

Dinner*

There was elaborate arrangement of salads, nonveg & veg delicacies, Chapatis, rice & dessert harmonizing the five star ambiences. As usual I did not have the willingness to venture the veg section. All I remember now there were 5 non-veg course I enjoyed, out of which the baked fish was the best in taste. The juvenile looking chapatti-maker, besides serving us hot chapati’s, also acted as photographer on my request. 5 of his snaps came exactly the same even after my elaborate instruction to him on zooming!

Baked Gulab-jamun in rabdi, Chocolate mousse and black current ice cream featured in the dessert.

Organisers*

I must mention the Agency FAQ guys Sourav & Gaurav(not brothers), who coordinated on the logistics & made sure we were comfortable throughout the event. Then Saakshi was extremely cordial explaining the selection process of the top brands. She also gifted each of us a 1000 bucks Crossword gift voucher for our benign presence:)

Endnote

Unlike other MS meets, this event was distinguishable in many ways, like

~None of the 5 members knew who else are coming, so there was enough suspense & drama.

~There was the CEO & few other MS guys(look-alikes of present day Sashi Kapoor & Ranjeet)

~There was booze!

Lastly, thanks for tolerating the diary teaser & keeping your patience till here:p

ps: more photographs uploaded in my album.