The Great Outing (Trip to Anandadhama) Day 2 - Part Four

The next activity was Tarzan Swing, this time there was a twist in it. This is not a single swing this time. It was a double swing that we are supposed to make. Start from the stand take the first swing and reach back the stand again. It was a tough one of course and there was a preliminary elimination for this round on safety precautions. We had to jump from the ground and had to touch the stand with our two legs to qualify for the double swing. We were all given two chances to qualify. My first attempt was a failure didn’t quite make it and I made it in the second attempt. Our hero crocodile hunter didn’t qualify even after taking four attempts. We all found it difficult to do that but somehow I managed to complete the double swing. Crocodile hunter came to the stand saying he is gonna take single swing and he surprised all of us by completing second swing, Man he has guts. Most of our guys didn’t make it and Ponnanna was the fellow to complete double swing thrice I guess. [Picture 1 Ponnanna making his Jump, Picture 2 Crocodile Hunter in Action]

We then moved to the next activity archery and it was amazing and the arrows were a little bent I guess so our fellows found it difficult to shoot it at the bull’s eye. Everyone was given three arrows and those who hit the yellow circle gets two more arrows and those who hits the inner red circle gets five more shots. Most of the guys didn’t make it and Ponnanna hit the yellow circle twice. Then since to cut off the delay we all agreed that we will hit only three arrows each. We finished it off and few people who finished archery went for the ditch jump. I stayed back at archery decided to take the chance at the end so that I can get few more hits I thought. I didn’t fire any arrow even near the yellow circle, I also took one more arrow and tried but the results were the same. Then I rushed to the Ditch Jump. It was like Tarzan Swing, only difference was there was water between the areas to be crossed if you don’t make it correct you will drench yourself with water. No one was able to cross us other than one person, the person who crossed it successfully was our Crocodile Hunter and of course there was other person who too crossed it successfully but it was the demo given my Madhesh, who works there in the resort assisting Santhosh. We felt good by drenching ourselves in the water. I think I fell six times into the water and Srikanth was leading us all he dived in some eight times I guess. [Picture 3 Crocodile Hunter in Action,Picture 4 Ditch Jump]

We didn’t have gun shooting session but we guys took lot of pictures with the rifle (it was almost like a miniature rifle). Nagarjun, Dhanasekar, Vijay, Sudhakar, Prasadth and of course myself were the top guys with guns. [Picture 5 Dhanasekar in Action]

Then we all rushed to the river bank got our Life Jackets and jumped into the river. Only few of us knew swimming and the others were with the confidence of having life jacket jumped into the river. We all were enjoying it and it really went for a long time. After around some one and a half hours, we got ourselves out of the water and went to our rooms. We packed our things, came to the dinning room and had our lunch. We then boarded the bus and everybody dozed off immediately. The return journey didn’t take too much of time we reached very early than what was planned. There were few great photographers Jegan, Manoj, Nikunj, Srikanth and Santhosh. They did cover near to a hundred pictures totally. Jegan, alone took 522 pictures. It was the most unforgettable outing I ever had or I should say we ever had. [Picture 6 we guys in the water, Picture 7 having Lunch]

The Great Outing (Trip to Anandadhama) Day 2 - Part Three

The alarm that we kept yesterday night did ring on the correct time. I was very sleepy but was interested in trekking. I woke up Dhanasekara Pandian who was lying next to me he said he is not coming as he is so tired and then I switched to Nagarjuna and he too had the same answer. Somehow I convinced these fellows and asked them to get ready by 6.15 AM. We went near the Dining area and had our Tea and there were few other members there. We started our trekking at 6.45 AM and we went into the forest. Few of our guys used nature’s gifts and Sudhakar was leading us all. He broke a small stick from a Neem tree and started brushing his tooth, few others followed him there we were back on the path to Stone Age. There were some amazing spiders in the forest, they were huge in size and I never saw any spider at that size. I realized that I was not the only person surprised by the spiders all the others were in the same amazement as I was in. We went to the waterfall nearby and there were even bigger spiders. People were busy photographing the spiders. We spent a long time capturing spiders in the camera and missed the real trekking. Then we took a group photo there and started heading back to the resort for breakfast.

We reached Anandadhama at around 8.45 AM and had our breakfast. Our breakfast was Idly, Vada and Kesari Bath. We also had bread, butter and Jam. Santhosh came and said that we will spend some more time in the Jungle Gym (Tarzan swing, Ditch Jump and Archery etc.) then we will get into the river for sometime he said. We finished our breakfast and went back to rooms to keep our shoes in the room and refreshed ourselves and assembled back for the Jungle Gym activities.

The first Activity was balancing beam, there is a short bamboo kind of beam on which you have to walk and cross it to the other end. We all tried balancing for sometime and few made it and few of us failed. Then we were split into two teams one under Kiran Vinay Babu and another under Sudhakar. Both these fellows selected their team members and after the team selection Santhosh swapped the captains of the two teams. I mean Kiran was captaining the team chose by Sudhakar and Sudhakar was captaining the team chose by Kiran. I was on Sudhakar’s team. The rule was the teams will start from the opposite ends and have to reach the other respective ends. The teams should crisscross only in the red zone.

We were given five minutes time to come with strategies. We decided that our team will sit on the red zone and Kiran’s team will crisscross us there in red zone then we will move towards the end. The rules were of the available two ropes one per each team that can be used as life line and only one person from a team can hold in any point of time and another rule was if the captain of the team falls down the whole team has to start from the beginning and even if one person is not there we cannot crisscross. Another important rule was there should be no human language used for communication once the game starts. We started off and Sudhakar was in the middle and Prasath was in the lead position and somehow we easy got into the red zone and sat comfortably. Meanwhile Kiran’s team had trouble in reaching the red zone and Kiran who was leading his team from the front fell once so they had to start from the scratch again. It took us long time even to figure it out and there was one of our teammate Chaitanya falling on outside and Kiran’s team was finding it difficult to crisscross us. This was called off in between and Santhosh, the instructor told us that we guys should have crossed and Kiran’s team should have sat as we had short distance to cover to the red zone and then we all realized that, we just did it the other way around.

Will post the remaining in my next post or else it will be too big and difficult to follow.

The Great Outing (Trip to Anandadhama) Day 1 - Part Two

We had an OBL (Out Bound Learning) and there were our instructors for the day Krishna and Ponnama. They said us to have Lunch, then get ready and assemble at 2.45 PM to start the Training. We guys left to the rooms some people went to Tents, some to Log house and some to Villas. I and another two friends took a log house and it was really good. Then we went to the dining room and had our lunch. The food was not so great but was of OK type. Then we had the first activity it was forming a square with the rope given two you with completely blindfolded team members. Our team was named fruits and there were some 13 members and the other team was names ice creams they too had 13 members. We started the activity and it was really tough when we were holding it, it was in the shape of circle somehow we managed to keep it down as a square with one side skewed and it was kind of great achievement I thought. [Picture Srikanth(on right) giving feed back to the instructors Ponnamma and Nikunj third fellow from right and there is Krishna at the extreme left.]

Then we went on to the next activity which was Tarzan Swing. There was a stand above ten feet height from the ground and there was a rope given and you have to jump from the stand and reach as much as ground as you can. They split the distance into three areas the least had 5000 points, the most had 20,000 points and the area in between had 10,000 points. They asked us to write how much we can cover. Initially I wrote 10,000 limit. They gave chance to alter our targets at the last time. I said I will cross the 15,000 mark which is the boundary line of 10,000 and 20,000 area and I covered the same. The fellow in the picture (Vijay) is the only one who reached the 20,000 mark.

Then we moved to the next activity, it was Raft Making. We went to the cauvery river bank. They split us into three teams Crocodiles, Sharks and Pirates. We were the Sharks and Ragavendra was our team’s Leader. We had some expertise in our team a guy who was good at knots (Srikanth Eswaran). Ragavendra led our team and we did make a raft with two tubes at the bottom and few bamboos placed on the top of it and we did make it in time. The total time for this activity was 45 minutes you have to build the raft, make three rides in the river then carry it back to the place where you started and dismantle it. We did make the rat fast, three fellows are supposed to ride it. On the first round Sudhakar, Vijay and Ponnanna went for it. Because of uneven weight distribution the raft toppled. They got on it again and after some time the same happened. Our team toppled twice and by the time they steadied themselves the Crocodiles team finished their first ride. Then our guys did really well. They finished the ride successfully and came back. For the second ride, Ragavendra, Nagarjuna and I were on the raft and this time we had the balance quite right and we made it fast and reached back to the river bank. Then for the third ride, I along with Sudhakar and Ponnanna decided to take a go and we did cover it faster then the second ride. We finished off second and the crocodiles won it and there was only two minutes difference between both the teams. We did really achieve something after falling twice coming second is not so easy isn’t it?? (picture 1 Sudhakar, ponnanna and Vijay from Left to Rightand picture2 Raghavendra, myself and Nagarjuna Reddy from Right to Left)

Then we went back and I had a shower and refreshed myself. We had campfire @ 7 PM and then there was quiz @ the campfire and Srikanth was the quiz master. It was a brand identity quiz. Our team was team four and there were totally five teams with 5 members in each team. In our team, it was me, Nagarjuna Reddy, Dhanasekara Pandian, Vijay and Praveen. I personally found it difficult and so did our team. We started at zero points and we were to only team to finish with the same points they started.

Then we had dinner @ 8.30 PM. After that the organizer at the resort Santhosh said we can have a night trekking if we are interested and we agreed to it immediately. Right after the dinner we started the night trekking or I should call it night walking and we went into the forest and walked for some one and half hours and came back to room and fell down for sleep. They said that there will be a morning trekking at 6.45 AM and those who are interested should assemble near the dinning hall @ 6.30 AM next morning. We decided to go for that and after reaching home we kept alarm at 5.15 AM next morning and felt asleep. So we fell on the beds and there was AC in our room we tried to switch it on then we realized it was not an Air Cooler and was a SG (Sound Generator). We switched it off and said good night to each other and went into the sleepy world. [Picture Santhosh on extreme right telling Nikunj, Prakash, Praveen, Praveen (Crocodile Hunter and Dhanasekar about the night trekking.)]

Will say about the activities that happened on the next days activity in my next post. And will post it as soon as possible.

The Great Outing (Trip to Anandadhama) Day 1 - Part One

Our company has planned for a team outing and it was organized for the domain wise and the trip was to a resort called Anandadhama which was 91 KM from Bangalore on the bank of the river cauvery. It was planned on 12 December 2008 and 13 December 2008, the plan was that we start here early in the morning and reach there before lunch on 12^th December and then start from there after lunch on 13^th December. There were around 30 members for the trip.

I have packed things a day before itself and was ready on 12^th December and went to Vijayanagar to be pickup point for few guys and I was one of them. There was a huge delay and the bus reached Vijayanagar one hour late. I was totally frustrated and tired of waiting and got into the bus. Then I heard the delay was due to Praveen (he was called Bijapura by our colleagues as he was from Bijapur).They were asking him to dance for delaying the trip and he was very hesitant. There was another shock on the way since the place through which we are supposed to go was in mayhem was the news. Kanakapura was the place we were supposed to go through and the government was trying to expand the road there, in this process few houses were demolished and people were stoning at buses and all kind of vehicles. So initially we thought of making a visit to the Art of Living ashram nearby but Prakash one of our colleague said he knows another way of reaching that place and can guide us and took over.[picture Bijapura (Crocodile Hunter)with his swimming goggles]

Then he chose the place where we can have breakfast not a big restaurant but a small hotel which is for “Thatte Idly” and is located in “Bidithi”. We stopped there for breakfast. The breakfast was two Thatte Idly’s and one vada with chutney and little butter. It was great in taste and then we carried our journey the path we took was a horrible one. Then we had some dancing and Sudhakar was astonishing with his moves and there were other fellows like Prasath Reddy who was also dancing with great moves and along with Prakash and Praveen (not the Bijapura, there were two Praveen’s). I too joined in for sometime. Sunil (My Manager) was also great and he got people break the hesitations and got almost everyone to dance. Prasath gave gestures of some Telugu actors like N.T.R, Balakrishna and so on. Sunil on the other side was giving gestures of some Kannada actors like Dr. Rajkumar, Shankar Nag and Vishnuvardhan. Then he finally got Bijapura into the party and he too danced. He had swimming goggles we made him wear it and dance. Everyone wore that swimming goggles and took photos. We started saying he is having swimming goggles and all so that he can see things clearly underwater. Bijapura is going to hunt crocodiles and because the crocodile hunter (Steve Irwin) died he (Bijapura) will become the next crocodile hunter and we all started calling him Crocodile Hunter. The roads were like they were built in Stone Age. Somehow we reached the place around 1.45 P.M. (Picture 1 Thatte Idly. Picture 2 Prasath Anna giving N.T.R Gesture.)

The place was totally inside forest and there was no network coverage. I looked into mobile and felt really bad as I cannot make calls or attend any calls. On the other hand was very happy since I will be disconnected from the outside world totally. This post covers till the forenoon the activities that happened in the afternoon will be continued in my next post.

The Great Walkathon 2008

I should say it was a great initiative and it had great response too and which gave a great experience, as the time I spent there was great. The timing was not punctual it was expected to start on 3 P.M but it started a bit late around 4 P.M. This was on December 6th and as I came to knew about this through a circular from my company thought of participating in it. It was organized by the Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled commemorate the World Disabled Day which falls on December 3rd since 2005. It was a walk for 3KM which starts from Sri Kanteerava Stadium and stretches through the Cubbon Park and ends in the Kanteerava Stadium. It was good to see a lot of people around, school kids, college students and corporate people. All were there and showing a lot of interest. There were people carrying slogans and all against the recent mayhem @ Mumbai and it really felt good to know that there are still people here to care for the country. I met my friends after long time, since was out of the company from August I missed these people a lot and it was good to be with them. Shyam, Vishal, Sandeep, Parag, Satheesh and of course myself were together thought out the event and I had to leave sometime after the Walkathon and I did miss the cultural. It was a nice feeling and had a pleasant time.

The highlight was the talk that Vishal, me and Shyam were involved in we guys spoke about everything. I found that I had many things in common with Vishal. Vishal was a special friend to me as far as I am concerned he was the first fellow with whom I spoke on the day I joined Tata Elxsi so he is a special friend. I just realised that we too were in same frequency and it was good to be with him. After long time I felt so and apart from my close friend Venkatesh, I guess Vishal is the fellow with whom I found a frequency match. Its good to know that atleast there is a fellow around who has the same frequency as mine.
It was good that they provided stuff like caps, T-shirt, participation certificates and also provided water and biscuit through out the path.