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It's
murder most foul and the list of suspects is almost endless. Aishwarya
Rao, the has-been Queen Bee of the movie industry has been stabbed
in broad daylight at a movie audition and everyone at the scene,
including ex-husband Farukh Khan and swindling secretary Mary
Popemin, is a suspect. The onerous task of catching the culprit
falls on the dull and lethargic cop Murkh Khan.
The ageing-yet-beautiful Aishwarya was all
set for a dream. While the culprit has managed to stab the starlet
and escape, commotion ensues at the venue, with Khan seeking to
calm down everyone at the scene, suspects and witnesses alike.
Then, the veil Aishwarya is wearing (the scene requires one) is
lifted to reveal that it isn't her in the first place; instead,
the corpse turns out to be that of a common thief, Devanand, impersonating
the actress at this audition. Even as this unfolds, Aishwarya's
daughter (actually, the actress herself in disguise) appears at
the scene to check things out herself.
Now, before you suspect that this correspondent
has been wandering in the summer sun, let me tell you that this
isn't a dramatically-written crime report, but a clever piece
of dramatic innovation by perhaps India's first mystery services
company. And before you think Scotland Yard has followed UK's
train reservations centre to India, allow us to tell you that
this is just a role-playing game for India Inc. devised by Bangalore-based
journalist M.D. Riti, who was inspired by detective games and
puzzles she played with her nine-year-old daughter. Riti has already
devised half-a-dozen variants of her murder games and her growing
clientele includes tech companies that need to infuse a sense
of team spirit and belonging among an otherwise insular bunch
of code-jocks.
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Engineering a murder: Code
jocks of Symphony Services try their hand at a different vocation
as they unravel the mystery behind the "murder"
of a movie star |
When Business Today was allowed to 'witness'
one of the murders, it was an assortment of 25-35-year-old inductees
of the Palo Alto, California-based Symphony Services, divided
into two groups to enact the 'crime'. Each techie was chaperoned
by a real-life theatre actor. Only the murderer knows that he/she
has committed the crime and the other players have to find out
who it is.
The idea behind this exercise, Riti explains,
is to get otherwise introverted and shy engineers to come out
of their shells and interact with strangers to solve the mystery.
Each of the players begins the game with a small pouch containing
a basic theatre prop and a note with a brief description of the
character they play along with clues that they inadvertently drop
along the course of the investigation. At the Symphony session,
the geeks crowd together, laughing and giggling embarrassedly;
the pros have to push them hard to 'perform'; once they get into
the groove, however (everyone does), things coast along. "That's
part of the process and why we think this concept will be popular,"
says Vijayanand Krishnan, Head (Learning and Development), Symphony
Services. "This group hasn't interacted earlier so the challenge
is to make complete strangers collaborate on solving a problem."
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| Mystery mastermind: Bangalore-based
M.D. Riti (left), a former journalist, has devised a unique
way to create a sense of bonding among employees of software
companies by getting them to participate in plays based on
murder mysteries |
Some companies use Riti's game to help employees
understand how functions other than theirs work in the organisation;
others, to just help new employees get to know each other and
older members of the team. This bunch of recruits at Symphony
is just coming off two days of induction, spent listening to lectures
("Like going back to school," laughs one employee) on
the company and its values. The murder is an escape valve, a diversion
of sorts. "We had a game involving our support staff like
hr, administration, finance and networks," says Uma Sudhindra,
a senior hr exec at iGate, a Bangalore-based software services
firm. "Three batches of 24-25 employees were part of the
programme and it helped everyone understand the role and challenges
of each unit." Riti herself sees (as she should) a larger
role for her murder mysteries. "We can see that some games
help unearth good problem solvers," she says. "And as
some games progress, we discover employees with leadership and
motivation skills."
Meanwhile, investigations by the less than
able Murkh Ram have progressed rather quickly and for outsiders
such as this writer, most bizarrely. The 'detectives' have even
taken a 15-minute breather to assess their situation at hand.
Then, the two groups re-assemble and each one tries out its theories.
Here's how it finally unfolds. Aishwarya Rao knew her secretary
was robbing her blind, so she planned to catch her in the act.
Instead, she finds a jewel thief Devanand in her house about to
make off with her valuables. Rather than raising the alarm, she
blackmails him into appearing as her (Aishwarya) at the screen
test. When the embezzling secretary stabs someone, it turns out
to be the petty thief rather than her real target, who is watching
all this unfold, disguised as her own daughter!
How's that for a twist in the tale?
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