Thank you Wizcraft

An event manager’s life is an amalgamation of timelines and follow ups especially on the day of the show prior to the venue handover time. Typical visuals from the venue would scare any heart patient or pregnant lady. The phone never ceases to ring and the client demands undivided attention even if that invites delays. In another corner various vendors continue with their customary drills as the venue operations in charge frantically calls a few who perennially get stuck in traffic only to arrive with the deliverables just at the nick of time. The show running team usually is busy readjusting the final show flow to accommodate client’s additional request. The artist manager continues to wonder the reason behind the hostesses’ unpunctuality and the snobbish attitude of that of a self acclaimed show stopper. In the meantime the MC is on stage requesting the audience to settle down for the show to start and that becomes the reason to waste crew food that was budgeted under the miscellaneous head of the event cost sheet.

For someone who has been there and done that for nearly hundred times it was a feeling of familiarity and home coming amidst all the chaos when I stepped into Karnataka Trade Promotion Organization (KTPO) on 3rd February 2011 where the Wizzes were executing GE’s Health Care annual awards ceremony. As usual Pradeep was driving the young brigade for that extra percentage of perfection and Nadia was going around getting things done in an unassuming manner.From a distance it all looked proverbial as it was months back when I had done my last event as a Wiz but to convince myself of it would have been one of the biggest denials of life and more so when Pradeep (Jr) ensured that I was the first one among all crew members to be given food.

The last four months have not only toughened my character courtesy the fight I put up but also put a lot of things in perspective for me. Thanks to my hopes and aspiration the test of life was not about survival but about celebrating the journey in order to have stories to tell in the future. However there were moments when loneliness took over and at times the light at the end of the tunnel was nothing more than a hallucination. It all boiled down to the number of hours I dedicated everyday to paint images of a future of my choice. Among many other things I constantly simulated were scenes of being in the middle of live projects (cricket matches and other shows) piled with major responsibilities and handling them successfully. Frequent communications with the Universe had become my best pastime to remain in the best frame of mind.

I was always convinced during that phase that my imagination would become real much faster than the normal pace because my approach was upbeat all through out. Instead I had decided much in advance to cherish every moment of that day when it arrived and was patiently waiting to witness the form and shape of it. My impulsive message to Girish seeking permission to be a part of Wizcraft on an ad-hoc basis, his affirmative reply and then deciding to undergo my next stage of treatment in Bangalore were all an indication of how the moment would arrive and that is why my presence at the GE event makes it one of life’s special moment.

Ever since Nadia had put my name in the event’s manpower list I had started to feel the occasion and my Wiz T-Shirt was pulled out of the wardrobe with a purpose written all over it. At the venue when Sneha handed over my crew badge to me I accepted it with honor, looked at it with a grin on my face and wore it with pride. I felt complete and my mind joined the dots of an imaginary circle. Fascination for crew badges is one thing but to get an access to it after going through an ordeal is another thing. That very moment I felt how true the old adage of ‘Once a Wiz, always a Wiz’ is. It was incidental that I carried out my responsibility of trophy distribution with aplomb and the event was well executed. The day was well summed up when after the event Priyanka voiced out my unspoken wish of archiving the day courtesy a crew photograph against the stage backdrop, again the Universe doing its magic.



Thank you Wizcraft.

(Wiz) Sidhanta Patnaik

3rd February 2011, 11.04pm

Marthahalli, Bangalore