It was a hectic week filled with late night football matches and birthday parties. Waking up at 6.30 am on a rainy and cold Friday morning wasn’t exactly how I wanted the week to end.
And yet I found myself waiting for the Picnic bus at Deccan opposite KFC at 7.30 am. Now, I had been part of corporate picnics before, but this one was my first in TIBCO and there was a certain sense of excitement in me, to meet and interact with new people and colleagues freely outside of the work environment. I somehow knew this day was going to be a pleasant one and so it did.
7.45 am, the bus was delayed and I waited on the road in front of Auto Wallas and routine commuters who looked strangely at a guy wearing track pants and holding a box containing…well , let’s just say cans of “Jeera” club soda. Even a dog stopped by and looked at me, at the cans and back at me again for 2 minutes. It was an old looking dog with tiny eyes. I am sure he must have wonderedfor a moment “This is exactly what is wrong with these young people”, shaking its head; and strolling along the pavement ahead.
The journey was filled with excitement and humor. “Last benchers”; seemed thrilled at the prospect of sharing early morning Jeera soda. “I finally found the purpose of my life” said one, “after 6 months, it feels like heaven” said another. As the bus started navigating through hillocks of Mulshi, we were greeted with breath taking sceneries. Witnessing a tiny plateau-sque area, someone whispered “Let’s forget the activities and place we going, a true relaxation point is amongst this hill with jeera by my side”
Reaching at the place, a resort amidst the jungle, not everyone was pleased with the surroundings initially. But as we explored more and more we found it huge, surrounded by jungle. The silence of the place and fresh air seemed heavenly, a welcome change from city’s polluted air and we were in for a twist and bucket load of fun. Breakfast was good, they served quality food.
The activities weren’t rigorous, at the request of majority, a group called E.Sense was invited to conduct some light team-bonding games. They were just a group of four, a husband and wife; accompanied by 2 more to make videos and click pictures. And it was commendable the way they conducted all the activities with meticulous planning while delivering a special message aligned to corporate life events.
We began with a tiny Jump-in, jump out and counting games, however small and irrelevant it seemed at the beginning, it did get a lot of smiles and laughter on our faces. There were twists in between “Now, you follow my instruction and do opposite” said the lady while someone joked “Just like your husband does perhaps?”
In between they asked us to discuss our happiest/saddest or the most defining moment in our life. And I was amazed to see how comfortable people were, given the platform to share their deepest secrets. We were exposed to various moments in everyone’s life from coming first in class to travelling outside India. That pride on the face after getting first salary post engineering struggle to the beaming gratitude of winning a TT championship despite not owning a TT bat. From coming out of shackles of night shift and joining TIBCO to becoming a responsible wife of a guy without mother. Someone spoke of struggles and how “the secret” book helped her with it while someone took a moment to share his involvement in family business. The shared secrets and closest moments did bring the kind of closure in the group. Perhaps, that’s what the E.sense members tried to achieve and they did succeed. Their story was appreciable as well. The girl leaving a well-paid job in an MNC to chase after her dreams and get into the world of theatre and creativity with husband supporting her amicably, it’s such a rare thing in this country.
An egg-break creativity game was organized and fort defending game was played where in people shouted “valarmorghulis” and “valardohaeris”, our group did manage to defend the fort owing to extra person. 20 questions and chasing the person while following right instructions were played as well. Luckily I managed to catch hold of person I chased as he slipped and fell. Well, good for me, bad for him, I thought; but a tiny secret I wish to mention here which only me and the girl who handed me the eye mask knows is that if you roll bottom part of mask a little up, the ground is visible, which helped. Sorry about that. I guess little cheating is fair enough. :P
Another interesting game was that of creating script with random words. Previous 2 teams had presented nice tiny acts with fleeting laughter. The list of words which we had got was totally unrelated, but owing to my past experience in Goa assisting and directing screenplays, I knew we could cook something up, but being always the writer/director and never an actor, toughest challenge for me was that of acting and that too of Salman khan. Needless to say I sucked at it, but happy at the fact that our script made audience laugh a bit. It was a team effort to be honest. The background score was entirely the girl’s idea and she was very witty and her songs were spot on as per the situation. So were others in their respective roles. I have worked with seasoned actors at times and improvising is something which is very difficult. We had just run over the flow, but overall dialogue improvising was perfectly crafted by fellow team members. Kudos!!
Special thanks again to E.Sense for conducting the session brilliantly and keeping us engrossed throughout.
I would like to give them a big shout out. We often go for trips or some outings together and we often struggle to get the team bonding going. Not all groups have some leader who can say “hey let’s do this or do that”. This is exactly where outside group like E.Sense could be called in, to get the conversations going, to lead the activities, to add that extra bit of fun so as to not make your trip boring.
Lunch was amazing. As we boyzz sat in the garden under the shade of tree (sipping JEERA soda ofcourse) someone asked “what is happiness?” We all had our varied answers, from travelling to doing what you like. What I felt was happiness is being in the right place at the right time. I could have been someplace else at that moment, and I couldn’t have been happier, but I was sitting right there with them, relaxing, bonding, interacting, making new friends. I was right there sitting on a swing and enjoying the cool breeze which flew amidst the jungle which surrounded us. And for me, that was happiness. Happiness may not always be a state of mind. Happiness is being in peace with yourself; it’s about finding it in tiniest moments, moments like this, moments like that.
2 treks followed, one down the resort towards the river. And one up above the mountain seeking peacocks and rabbits, we didn’t find any but deducing and tracing them based on animal voices was an adventure in itself.
Few games of TT, pool, badminton were played and ofcourse how can I forgot the cricket match. Probably the first time in the history of this sport, Cricket was played with background music of Mehdi Hassan and Jagjit Singh’s ghazals. As one guy was clean bowled Mehdi hassan sang in the background “tum nazar se gira” and an ironic run out at the tune of “apnon ne ghamdiye to” while the winning team was greeting by Jagjitsingh with “tum itnakyumuskurarahe ho”.
Barbeque and dinner followed as the relaxed evening slowly drifted into a night of tranquil silence. Customary Antakshari game was played, with boys winning ofcourse , tired and drowsy people sat in the bus but the excitement amongst the last benchers (me included) was still evident as someone danced at the tune of zingaat, hats off to the performer for bringing a life into a boring return journey. The party songs slowly shifted to the silent soulful music and everyone relaxed and waited to reach their stop.
Back home I asked myself, what is happiness? And I had the answer ready. This may not be the best trip I ever had, or I will ever have. But this trip;with me just joining TIBCO, came at the right time, and this was my kind of happiness at that moment on that day. And it was certainly a cherish-able one at that.
Pic Credits : E.Sense.
