All about "posturing"

We never realized that the changing sponsorship fortunes would have such an impact on all our decisions. One of the worst hit, of course, was the poster. We had these grandiose plans that we would have the posters ready well in advance this year; and that we would display them at every nook and corner, and also hand them out every time we contacted an organization for participation.

To be honest we did have the first cut of the poster ready rather early, thanks to Deepti and the other Sid. We, of course, didn't do anything about it. About a month back, once the diamond sponsors were confirmed, we started to look into it. We didn't really like the first draft too much, so a lot of changes were asked for. And of course, the logo of our sponsor had to appear as well.

Just as we were finalizing this, we got more sponsorships and media partners. One of our sponsors came forward to pay for printing the poster. More changes - so that we could get their logo in as well. At this point, Deepti and Rashmi came up with two designs. The more the choices the more difficult it is to make a decision, isn't it? We had the same problem. We just couldn't decide which one to choose. We deliberated, discussed and ruminated before we finally settled on one.

The final poster? Of course, that wasn't it. This is when we started to work on our media partners. We met Radio City and NTV. And then we waited for them to confirm. Radio City got back to us with an affirmation rather quickly. So the poster changed yet again.

This should have been the final one, isn't it? Not to be. This is when out of the blue Ludwig staged a coup - convinced Odyssey to step in and support us. Space was a major constraint on the poster and we weren't sure how we were going to put in all these logos. There was still NTV to confirm they would support us. We also started to get worried about the time left - did we have enough time to put the posters up?

Well, we had to do the best of the time we had left. So, with just two weeks to go, thanks to Ajit, the posters were finally ready.

Before I sign off I should, of course, express my heartfelt thanks to Deepti and Rashmi, who quietly put up with our continuous demands for changes and patiently delivered all the time. You guys truly did a great job!

For those interested, this is what the poster looks like now. Not to worry, there won't be any more changes done to this.