This week John (HeyMath!’s first ever intern from way back in 2001 – this pic is great – and current HeyMath! consultant who spends half his time working from home in the UK and half his time here in Chennai) decided to move from one of the other company guesthouses that he was staying at by himself to the spare room that Matthew and I have had in our guesthouse since Simon left.
In honour of this excellent decision, he decided to throw an Olympic-themed housewarming party – Chennai 2012!
Welcome sign on the front door.
With Mandy’s delicious cooking on the menu (onion and cheese pakoras, white mushroom sauce pasta, and rajasthani curd rice) and glittery hand-made medals to give out, it was bound to be a good night!
Mandy’s yummy food.
Event #1: Archery
The aim of the game was to kiss the poster of the (scary) lady as close to the centre of her lips as possible. Lipstick added some fun (especially for the guys!) and of course you were blindfolded and spun around on the other side of the room first.
Reeth applying his lipstick.
John touching up his make-up.
John blindfolded and ready to go in for the kiss!
Nikhil’s turn with the lipstick.
Aw, what a nice sister! Mandy helps Anant with his lipstick application.
Of course, things got sillier and sillier as each contestant attempted to hit the bull’s eye. First of all, we all totally thought Nikhil was peeking because he kissed the EXACT middle of the lady’s lips so we hassled him about that – turns out he did kinda cheat by looking at which shoes were on the ground beneath the middle of the lips and then aiming his kiss right above those shoes. Each contestant also got heckled with incorrect directions as they walked across the room – “what are you doing? further to the left!”, “up up up!” etc.
Then we stuck a box lid in front of the poster for Jyotsna to kiss, and did the same thing with Mandy and a big hairy coconut (haha!). And probably the funniest was that Nikhil stood right in front of the poster when Priyanka (his wife) was going in for her kiss!
And the winners are…
Kisses labelled.
Bronze: Varsha
Bronze medallist with the Chairman.
Silver: Priyanka
Gold: Nikhil
Nikhil, gold medallist at archery! (Cheater?)
Event #2: Athletics
Next up was a good old-fashioned race for the Athletics event. Each contestant had a cup with a polo (small donut-shaped mint candy) tied to the end of 1.5m string. The winner was the first one to get the polo all the way into their mouth using only their mouth.
Polo-eating athletics race.
And the winners are…
Bronze: Reeth (after a re-challenge to the initial bronze winner Nikhil)
Reeth won the bronze medal re-match for polo-eating (athletics).
Silver: John (the Chairman awarded himself his medal)
Gold: Priyanka (blew us all out of the water with a record time!)
Event #3: Gymnastics
With Mandy as our DJ, we partnered up for the final event of Chennai 2012 – the pairs version of Paper Dance. The goal was to dance with a partner on a sheet of newspaper until the music stopped – then the newspaper was folded in half and the next round began. If at any point any part of anyone’s body touched the actual floor, that team was out.
With only four teams participating, I thought for sure Team Canada would earn at least one medal in Chennai 2012. Sadly though, John and I only got through one round of safe dancing until my heel slipped a millimetre off the paper (what can I say, I have big feet!) and eagle-eyed Nikhil spotted it. Sigh.
Bronze: Varsha and Anant
Bronze medallists Varsha and Anant, with un-sportsman-like gold medallists Reeth and Jyotsna giving them the thumbs-down.
Silver: Priyanka and Nikhil (how many medals did this dynamic duo walk away with, eh?)
Gold: Jyotsna and Reeth
Gymnastics gold medallists Reeth and Jyotsna with the Chairman.
An Indian Adventure 
