EPIC took birth this year and first instance “EPIC 2016” took place on 16^th January, 2016.

Introduction

As per “google”, EPIC means “a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the past history of a nation”. In this case the event “EPIC” was an “Entrepreneurs’ Picnic”, but the actual meaning of the word “EPIC” was not lost.

The life across the world has become more impatient, unstable, violent, stressed, unhappy and boring day by day. The business trends are changing, the situations are becoming more competitive. The small businesses will be not able to scale-up, sustain, growth without the hand shaking, collaboration, co-existence and harmony. The same is applicable for life as well. The oppositions (dark forces) are putting enormous amount of money and energy to divert people from “Freedom of thoughts” with the influence of religion, gradation and caste. Those are eminently visible and increasing day by only due to the lesser availability of “Good Culture”. This is the space which will deal with human mind, psychology and intend to focus on cultural movement through creativity.

Preface:

We have started the movement in our small way. Our first initiative in the series was “Wordcon”. With the success of “Wordcon”, Two other siblings took birth as well “Quality Matters”, “StepOut”.

StepOut focuses on activities outside office for the entrepreneurs. Stepout yielded three of it’s children (EPIC, OffBreak, Outside).

EPIC 2016 is a creative experiment with one known institution of our lives in winter – picnic. But more precisely this is meant for Entrepreneurs of Bengal and it is assumed to first of it’s kind in the fraternity.

EPIC 2016 is different in a sense of latest trending where there loud noise, hard drinks (devoid of 2Ds – DJ and Drinks) were explicitly restricted. It was designed to have a sweet mix of family, kids apart from the entrepreneur him/herself. The daylong picnic was meant beyond any target/pressure, rather to devote time with wisdom, philosophy and restart the journey of entrepreneurship with greater spirits of Positivity.

We, entrepreneurs meet in business events and trade fairs where we all acknowledge the contribution our families have had in our journey. However, we seldom meet together – even socially.

Architecture:

Date: 16th January, 2016

Venue: “Bagan Bari”, Block I, off Jessore Road, Michael Nagar, Kolkata 700 133

Agenda:

8.00am: Welcoming all Guests

8.00am – 10.00am: Morning Tea and Adda

10.00am: EPIC Cake cutting and formal Inauguration

10.00am–12noon: Breakfast, Tea/Cofee with Snacks (Unlimited)

10.00am–12noon: Children Games/Sports, Adult Games

12Noon–1pm: Relaxation and Adda, Mixing

1pm–2.30pm: Lunch

2.30pm – 4.30pm: Performances on “Anything Creative”

4.30pm to 6pm: Tea/Cofee with Somosa/Nimki and Mixing/Adda

Activities	Anything Creative	Food
Football, Cricket, Volleyball, Badminton, Sports	Music, Dance, Drama, Recitation, Reading etc	Breakfast : Peas Kachuri with Chana Dal and Sweets Munching : Veg/Non-veg Snacks with Unlimited Tea/Coffee both morning and evening Lunch :Fried Appetizers with Salad, Vegetable Fried Rice, Cauliflower Roast, Fish Dumpesta, Chilli Chicken, Chatni, Papad, Rajbhog, Malai Chamcham, Ice Crème, Pan Masala High Tea : Evening Tea/Coffee with Samosa, Nimki

Apprehensions

The agenda was beyond picnic, rather to connect spirited souls over a cause in the midst of nature. But people had apprehension like follow:

It is a marketing trick to earn some money, some glory.
“No DJ and No Drinking” might be a show off, rather it will be more prevailing there.
Behind “EPIC” some other masterminds are playing to have some different agenda altogether

Actuals

We, the organizers assembled in the venue before schedule by around 7.30am. Gradually, our designated officers took charge in arrangements like holding flexes, setting up chair, tables, making up fields, accumulating all props needed for the games/activity.

As planned, guests started joining in 8am onward and off course our morning tea was ready by then.

We were feeling fresh with the shiny morning in a rustic Bengal environment. The bungalow had three lawns fully filled with winter seasonal flowers with lass green trees. There were cows, birds, squirrels to act as toppings to add flavors of natures.

Freshly prepared peas Kachuri, Chana dal and sweets were part of our breakfast and followed by inaugural cake cutting.

By this time majority of the participants joined in. People started freaking out as planned in casual mode. Football, Cricket and badminton kicked off in three of the ground.

With some time when people got little tired due to be on field after many days, snacks were ready to be served. Apart from Veg Pakoda and Chicken Pakoda, Green Coconut was ready to serve people thirst with nature.

Gradually children activities got started. Sit and Draw, Dropping balls to the bucket etc.

Adults went spending time over cricket, badminton etc. Few entrepreneurs were busy in philosophic discussions, business trending, new ideas in a casual relaxed mind.

By this time Lunch was ready. Kids were very hungry by this time and rushed for lunch. Lunch comprised of Egg Devil, Vegetable Fried Rice, Cauliflower Roast, Fish Dumpesta, Chilli Chicken, Chatni, Papad, Rajbhog, Malai Chamcham and Pan Masala. Ice cream with chocolate and strawberry Topping were served in the counter.

Post lunch, people were not ready to waste any time on relaxation. They went ahead on games and freaked out in the wide garden with the charming winter flower.

Sun was about to set at around 4.30pm and our evening snacks were ready. It was hot Samosa with nimki along with Tea/Coffee. But stomach was still full and everyone was reluctant to have it. We packed it for everyone to take back.

Winter evening were nearby and we started our live performance. Kick-off of such activities are always challenging as “who is going to start?” Shibangi initiated it with the theme of of Titanik. Debolina, Anupam, Hrishikesh were next to perform. Kids performed rhymes. My daughter performed a folk dance. My wife also participated in Rabindra Sangeet. Priyam played violin. BN Bhattacharyya and Shampa performed Recitations. I was forced to perform and I took the challenge even though the throat conditions were bad.

Few of the glimpses of the performances are available in the below youtube channel: Epic YouTube

More photographs can be seen under official OutSide Facebook Page: Facebook Album

We had concluded the day by lighting a Diya in the evening. EPIC will act one of the stepping stones on the cultural movement of Bengal and World. Like Wordcon, we will comeback in the next year as well. Dates will be published soon. Stay tuned for Offbreak and Outside as well.

“Wordcon 2015” was organized last Saturday of November(28-11-2015). This was first time the same took place in Kolkata, India with larger vision, viewpoint in mind.

This year it was themed as “Freelancers International Conference” and it was one of it’s first kind in the country as per our knowledge goes. Yes, it is neither a typo mistake nor an over ambitious statement. There are plenty of business meet-up, events in various domains everywhere, but those are meant for corporates (even upto SME). There used to be renowned speakers and people in the audience intended to be a patient listener.

Our objective was intended towards a small gathering (max 30 to 35) where people can take part in discussions of real life problems instead of just listening. More precisely freelancers (individuals who works for themselves instead of an employee in a company) were meant for participants who feel themselves “very small” to the big business meetups to get engaged with the speakers/agenda.

But why the name is “Wordcon “. You are right. It is having relationship with “Words”. Wordcon aspires to find out keywords of life which balances between business and life. “Peace”, “Delight”, “Spirituality” are few of such words to have harmony, resonance, positivity of life.

The event was initiated with the inaugural lamp lighting and speech from Sri Kritarthananda (Pradip Maharaj), the monk from belur math. Apart from his inaugural pitch, he sang a song as well post lunch. All participants admitted that they had never experienced a chief guest continued almost till the end of the event with his blessings.

Then Pritam Bhattacharyya initiated the session on behalf of the organizers. He briefed on his journey of transition from government employee to translator, teacher, author, entrepreneur off course a wordsmith.

Arindam Chatterley (alias chats), a professional trainer, life skill consultant, elaborated ten commandments of entrepreneurship with real examples from life. He explained how everyone can learn from even taxi driver to shoe polish person.

Next was Pinaki Mazumder, founder Anubadak Lingo Services. With his life experiences, he stressed of relationships with customers. By his personal touch he bonded with his customers and in effect yielded much larger revenue base. Not only it resulted orders with premium values, but also stickiness was with years.

Subhas Mukherjee our good old friend joined us from Bhutan. He narrated his life story to demonstrate the importance of the alignment with the cultural heritage of the geography in order to get success in business.

Then it was the time for the desired break to drive into the Bengali traditional cousin through the traditional Bengali lunch.

Post lunch, I had initiated the discussions with the importance of attending meetups. Off course there was few recitations as well. “Depression” by Srijato was more of a relevance to the event as it has dual meaning (Depression can be applied for Weather or even to Mind). Do you know the poem? If no below is the same:

Gobindo Roy, founder of Lakshya Foundation, present researcher at IIT, Kharagpur presented on scopes, opportunity, platform in global arena for freelancers.

Next was live interactions with Matteo Preabianca from Australia. He briefed his experience as freelancer. Desire from Germany further illustrated through recorded webinar on “How to manage your time in global time zones with work/life balance?”

Anindya Kumar Banerjee (alias AKB) joined us from Bihar. He was instrumental on his session on vertical reading. The session was focused on reading a 100 pages book in 90 minutes and the philosophy was inspired by Swami Vivekananda (he was farm believer and practitioner for rapid reading)