It has been 7 months since I joined UXC India aka White Labelled. A small company taken over by Australian giant UXC Oxygen. Still it's Bangalore office has only 45 people. There were talks about team outing from past 4-5 months, and it happened last weekend, 13th-14th March. I postponed my leaves for a week to attend it. Going to a nice resort for night stay, that too on company's expenses, who would miss that! ;-)
After that horrifying ride, we reached the river bank. We played some team activities there. I will skip the details as it may bore you down to death. I'm not saying that the activity was boring, it was fun! [Have to be diplomatic sometimes ;-)]. Then we went for a swim. It was relaxing! With the life jackets, we floated here and there, enjoyed the sound of river. No one was willing to come out. But we had to! I wasn't wearing my spectacles, so one off my senses was of no use at that time. All I could do, was to listen to a voice which was commanding us to come out of the water. I remembered watching Mahabharata/Ramayana when I was a kid. In one of the episode there was a voice coming from the sky, threatening the people of the earth. On your TV screen you will see only clouds and thunders. Soon after the announcement, the innocent people on earth start running in all directions, to save their lives! I though if we don't listen to this voice, we might also face the same fate! That's how we came out of the river. We took the terrifying truck ride back to the resort.
Then we heard the most depressing 2 words of the world, "Daaru Khatam!" (booze is over). But it was followed by some more words, "only Vodka is left". As no choice was left, some started drinking Vodka. In no time, we all were involved in a team building activity. It's called "Take Him To His Bed". No one had any idea that in next 2 hours we were about to witness so many things that we will remember for a long time. Yeah, it took 2 hours for 8 dudes to take 1 guy back to his bed. We can explain if you are not convinced. :-)
After the non-official team building activity, we had dinner and went back to our rooms to get some sleep.
Next morning I woke up at around 7:30 am. I came out of the room at around 8 after freshening up. I saw Nikhil and others, they asked me if I want to join them for the trek. I took my cam and joined them. It was a good 2 hours trek. Initially we went into the mountains along with a small stream. After an hour or so, we reached the river bank and then we followed the river back to the resort. I shot some selfie videos. We also found a snake near the river. Exactly at the same spot where we were swimming the previous day.
By the time we reached resort, it was already 10:15 am. I was thirsty and hungry. We had breakfast and then we had to checkout from the resort. There was some time so I played couple of songs on guitar.
We boarded the bus and started at around 12 pm. On the way back, there were lot of things to talk! Specially about the late night team building activity. We shared our experienced and laughed our asses off! We entered Bangalore at around 7:30 pm and reached Marathahalli at 9 pm, perfecto! When Goutham and I were walking back to our flat, Goutham said, "It feels like we are coming back after 4-5 days. We have seen a lot of things in last two days". I nodded with a smile. :-)
The plan was to start early and reach the Shanti Kunj Resort by 12 pm. The bus was suppose to reach at 4:45 am at Marathahalli. But, as I expected, it reached at 5:45 am. We were around 20 people when we boarded the bus. Soon we picked up rest of the people and we hit the NH-48 at around 7:30 am. I was familiar with this highway as I rode on it from Bangalore to Mangalore in last December. Straight 4 lane road with very less traffic. We played dumb charades on the way, it was fun!
We reach at 1 pm. Got freshen up, went for lunch, okayish! Then we were asked to hop on a pickup truck to go to the river bank for a swim. We were excited when we climbed up on the truck. But soon this excitement turned into fear! This fucking truck's carrier was shaking the whole way, as if it will detach from the main body. All were standing on the carrier. They took us in the mountains through a rocky road. Even with one flat tyre, this truck was able to reach destination. Some were shouting "duck! duck! duck!" when a low branch of a tree was approaching. Ajit was shouting "Bolo kya karengeee..." in every 2 minutes. Which in no time became pain in the ass and he got a logical response from Gaurav "Sala niche dhakel denge tumko" (I will throw you out of the truck).
Already exhausted by the swim, we came back to resort for the next thing, The Rain Dance. In the middle of Coffee plantation, there was this dance floor, big enough to accommodate 100 people at a time. Soon the artificial rain started. They mounted 3 big hoses which were used to sprinkle water in the farm as well as for the rain dance. Almost everyone came to the dance floor. Dudes took off their shirts. No one was worried about "what people will say about my belly". You rarely see that "I just don't give a fuck" attitude! Ajit, gaon ka chora, was unstoppable! I wish Sunny Leone was there to see him dance. She would've gone crazy! And Vijay was out of the world. I would say, people will happily empty their pockets to watch him dance! I brought my sports came and shot some videos. It was fun! We danced for at least 2 hours.
After spending almost 3-4 hours in water and doing so much physical work, our "not used to these kinda stuff" body was craving for a drink. After freshening up, we went to the Camp Fire. It was around 8 pm. People were quite, calm and relaxed. The voice - "Why are you guys so quite?" No one knew at that time, but it was the silence before the storm!
The waiters started serving beer and whisky. The "quite" crowd was now turned into "abhi to party shuru hui hai" crowd. Alcohol started doing it's job! People asked me for playing guitar. I was also waiting for it! We sang many hindi songs, Give me some sunshine, Papa kehte hain, Paani da rang, Mera mann, Tera hone laga hoon, and many more. I was lost in playing guitar and singing with the buddies around me. After some time I observed that there are not much people left. Only 10-12 guys. I checked the time, 9:45 pm, ahhh.. we still have lot of time.
Then we heard the most depressing 2 words of the world, "Daaru Khatam!" (booze is over). But it was followed by some more words, "only Vodka is left". As no choice was left, some started drinking Vodka. In no time, we all were involved in a team building activity. It's called "Take Him To His Bed". No one had any idea that in next 2 hours we were about to witness so many things that we will remember for a long time. Yeah, it took 2 hours for 8 dudes to take 1 guy back to his bed. We can explain if you are not convinced. :-)
After the non-official team building activity, we had dinner and went back to our rooms to get some sleep.
Next morning I woke up at around 7:30 am. I came out of the room at around 8 after freshening up. I saw Nikhil and others, they asked me if I want to join them for the trek. I took my cam and joined them. It was a good 2 hours trek. Initially we went into the mountains along with a small stream. After an hour or so, we reached the river bank and then we followed the river back to the resort. I shot some selfie videos. We also found a snake near the river. Exactly at the same spot where we were swimming the previous day.
By the time we reached resort, it was already 10:15 am. I was thirsty and hungry. We had breakfast and then we had to checkout from the resort. There was some time so I played couple of songs on guitar.
We boarded the bus and started at around 12 pm. On the way back, there were lot of things to talk! Specially about the late night team building activity. We shared our experienced and laughed our asses off! We entered Bangalore at around 7:30 pm and reached Marathahalli at 9 pm, perfecto! When Goutham and I were walking back to our flat, Goutham said, "It feels like we are coming back after 4-5 days. We have seen a lot of things in last two days". I nodded with a smile. :-)
