A Sarkari show with a difference

Viraf Sarkari is a relieved man. Sarkari’s company was entrusted with the responsibility of managing the opening and closing ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) about a year back.

The rollercoaster ride that started at the time reached its climax on Thursday night, when Delhi enthralled the world with a spectacular display of grandeur and entertainment at the closing of the games.

Sarkari, along with his partners Andre Timmins and Sabbas Joseph — co-owners of Wizcraft International — bagged the contract for the CWG a year back, after making a pitch along with other event management companies. While his partners were busy with other events handled by the company during this time, Sarkari and his core team shifted base to Delhi in December last year, where preparations for the event to be held 10 months later started in full earnest.

“At the end of it, 1000 people were working in tandem to make the ceremony a success. This included people from the CWG organising committee and Wizcraft, labourers and those from the international community,” says Sarkari. On Thursday afternoon, preparations reached a feverish pitch. At around 2pm, the organisers were holding final meetings and poring over the plans of what was to be their biggest undertaking later that night.

With the attention the event garnered over the past few weeks preceding the games, most of which was negative, the pressure to deliver was undoubtedly high. But there was a sense of confidence and surety in the way young boys and girls, under the supervision of their senior counterparts, went about executing the final show.

“With all the negatives that the media has been highlighting in the weeks leading up to the games, the process and speed at which work was getting done, slowed down a bit. A lot of effort had gone into it by then and a few workers started feeling dejected,” says Sarkari, adding that keeping the workers motivated during that phase was, probably, the toughest part of the job. After the good press the opening ceremony received, though, the confidence of the entire team soared.

Shiamak Davar, who choreographed some of the performances on the big night, says that focus on getting the job done held the team together during the crunch period. One of the performances had Davar choreographing 400 kids — untrained in dance — from Salman Public School in Delhi. “It was a matter of great pride to see the country’s kids go out there and perform at the world stage. Imagine the good it must have done to their confidence. They will always be able to claim their involvement in one of the biggest sporting events held in the country,” says Davar.

Sarkari says the brief given to them was that the ceremonies should reflect the country’s diverse culture and be opulent at the same time. “Unlike other commercial events, we had to collaborate with the government at every step. That did slow things down a bit, because it meant going through long-drawn procedures to get the littlest of things approved. It was difficult and different, but we have no regrets. It’s the biggest and best event we have ever worked on, after all,” says Sarkari, adding that his next assignment is managing the opening ceremony of the 2011 Cricket World Cup in Bangladesh.