our official team trip

Now many of you might not feel related to this writeup, but just for records as well as to share what we went through..i m posting it here!!
COMMENTS STILL AWAITED



29th October 2007, a remarkable day in our history. Sensex touched 20k, Mr. Ambani became world’s richest man, it didn’t rain in Bangalore and not to forget ZTRANS team went for a team outing with most of the team members making it successfully back from the trip, all those who didn’t make it back actually didn’t go and missed the fun!

The planning started days ago, or may be months ago or must be more than an year, if you count the excitement of team outing as one of the components of planning for the outing. This time Mr. Solaiyappan PICCHIAPPAN and Mrs Divya Praksh were given the reigns to organize the event for us and they finally did it. It all started with ZTRANSites getting aware of the fact that each one of us deserves Rs. 1200/- for extra-PMRicular work and as expected things happened - discussions, meeting, planning, meeting, finalizing, meeting, postponing, meeting, multiple teams joining, meeting, rage, meeting and finally outing.

The destined day came, as decided there were 2 pick up points, EGL 6:30am SHARP and Mantri 7:00 am CUTTING EDGE. A huge SRS bus came and we all got into it but by the miscalculation of the aura and entropy of the people in the bus, some of the most mischievously fun loving people got in the last couple of rows of the bus. One question still goes unanswered, why were all of them from ZTRANS? The party started with the first rev of the bus. Heading on the smooth, straight Kanakpura road the organizing team took command and decided to reshuffle the seats so that everyone comes to know each other. For all those who don’t know, the outing was for 3 teams, ZTRANS, HPC and Solutions. So it was pretty logical for all to pick a chit from the pandora’s bowl and sit with a person who has another chit with same colour name mentioned. Step two was to introduce your partner. Most of the people obeyed the rules and played pretty well except few. I recall that those people were called hooligans or indisciplined but ignorant world, they were just color blinds. Despite this they played pretty well and everyone in the bus was introduced. I just remember meeting a new guy called Solaiyappan Pichhiappan and one rollicking gal, forgot her name though. The bus meandered through the hills, serene landscape, along the river and with the burps of our Food court idlis and wadas we landed at Bheemeshwari.

Part two of the trip starts. Excited bunch of people started taking snaps, all over the place, from the welcome hut to the mouth watering welcome drink, from the rafting boats to tree branches. Time to rock and roll arrived, the guide announced the commencement of rafting. People changed into their casuals, got into the life jackets, guarded their heads, grabbed the oars and posed for the photographs. They knew that hardly they dress up like gladiators. Some great instructions were given by the guide in a very interesting way. After some warm up exercises in the raft the whole group of strong hearted and well insured people set off in 3 rafts, one guide per raft. Drifting along the river, we were following the instructions of the guide. Forward, backward and stop were the three instructions and it was enough for us to meander the boat. The guide guided the boat well enough to ensure that we get a great feel of the rapids. Some of the rapids were huge, huge enough that the first person saw a 4 feet water-wall whereas the last guy was in air for couple of seconds. For all those who feared drowning and hence never got into the water, there was the special activity where everyone on the boat got down in the water and couple of us swam as well. I personally found swimming against the current to be the second toughest thing, first one being arranging the team outing! We saw a baby crocodile and an elephant on our rafting trip. We pulled our anchors down at a point from where the open air geep ride to the base camp was another enthralling experience. Many of us used it as a good opportunity to dry ourselves off.

Now what, sitting and thinking, we got on a net hanging from the tree branches and had a great time swinging there. Time for lunch, we had the super spicy but good food. Post lunch, we were planning to relax on the hoards of hammocks, swings and nets over there but to begin the series of heart breaks, we were told to finish off the coracle ride! Hurried into the coracles, the herd of coracles was set off on the same rafting route. Though coracle came nowhere close to the rafting experience yet it was a great experience. Just imagine putting an ant in a bowl and sending the bowl down a small stream. Poor ant, analogously but ironically we enjoyed! Back to the same anchoring point, we set back on the same open air jeeps. Post shoe-wearing ceremony, we all set off for the amazing trek. What was called a trek was actually a site seeing activity combined with a walk through the jungle. Anyhow, at the top of the hill there was a tower that provided a pretty good site of the landscape, got some snaps clicked. It was only 4:30 and we reached the base camp. Post tea we planned to spend some time with each other playing football or some other game as we were all scheduled to leave by 5:30. The lightning struck again and due to some unavoidable emergency conditions, we had to take our steps off. None of us felt bad, I am not kidding, seriously, none of us!

Back in the bus, we started the world famous, Dumb C. Dumb’ed by the tweaking of the return plan, we all played it pretty well. The game was pretty amazing with people going through a set of E –MO-TIONS, from laughter to embarrassment, from anger to helplessness! The back benchers were loaded with joy and the tyre could not take it any more…fisssssssssss….puncture! Post tyre change the hooligans started dancing! Who says you need a floor to dance, its just a mood to grove that can make everyone shake a leg or two. The hunted talent of the night was Sowmya, personally I never thought she could dance so well. With the party rolling we reached our destination and tired but not exhausted we landed. Time to shutdown the engines but only to give a double rev next day. We all enjoyed the trip and I know there are some grudges, but I will not say that no rose comes without a thorn because I love sunflower, with always sunny side up!
On the whole a special thanks to Sridhar, Rajesh, Solai Pichhi, Dipraksh, Pidad and Shalet for taking all the pains and making those efforts to ensure that we all enjoy to the core. Don’t you think we should have more events of these kinds! Hail ZTRANS, the core of fun lovers on EGD-6/7th floor!