Reliving the Lonavala bliss - part II

4-7-2005:This day was by far my best one in Lonavala.Highlights:
The assault course: 5 random groups of 10.5 outdoor activities.Incessant rains.Slipping all the time while running around for these activities right at the top of a hill.Totally drenched and shivering all through.Getting an incoherent no-one-known-anyone-else team to work together to beat records.Cleanliness and delicate-darling norms thrown to the winds.A whole lot of physical activities that always kept me on my toes.In short, absolutely thrilling.Be it building a runway of pipes continuously to catch a rolling ball into a target container or fishing out 7 floating rubber balls from one bucket into another using thread control or passing people carefully through holes in a cobweb or building a tent completely blindfolded or crossing a river on 2 narrow planks of wood, it all felt like Crystal Maze come true!KM,A and I were the only braveheart women to accept Dwarika sir's challenge of trekking a round-trip to a far-off bus in less than 5 minutes.....I clocked 2 mins,15 secs!!!

The trek:After something as stimulating as the assault course, the trek was a cake-walk.Having trekked on terrains that are atleast 10 times tougher and longer,this one was nowhere close to exciting.It was enjoyable nevertheless.A panoramic view of the foggy Dutchess' nose was what greeted us from the peak of the Dutch's nose.Exchanged some quick mountaineering tips with Tanmay and headed back to our bus, only to find it stuck in knee-deep slush.(OK,accepted that knee-deep for Chutki means a lil more than ankle-deep for everyone else:) ).Cheered our heroes to push the carrier outa the slush and landed back at Shahani to a game of TT and endless gup-shup that went on upto 3am when the profs came down n quietened us down.

5-7-2005:The treasure hunt:5 teams co-ordinate to find clues and unlock one treasure.The idea that all 5 teams were in pursuit of a single treasure occurred to me when we were less than 5 minutes into the game but my group leader n everyone else that I voiced my two-paisa-worth opinion to, played it down as a very improbable thought!Finally a whole 45 precious minutes later, they arrived at the conclusion that it was indeed just one treasure and got working on the clues.Talk of openness to ideas!Treasure hunt was amazing fun and the locale was extremely filmi lush-green.The clues were way too simple though,requiring some compass and measurement skills.This activity brought back fond memories of my days at the Bharat Scouts and Guides Camps.I miss them very dearly....th activities,the spirit,the crowd and the learning.Hope to get back to it soon.The sudden rush of activity while unlocking the treasure is astonishing.If I were to draw a graph of the activity and enthu levels of people from the beginning to the end of the treasure hunt, it would look like this:

Drat!!!The BE-MBA attitude of graphs is catching on really soon now:)

Just two days into the trip, I had run out of my entire stock of dry clothes,thanks to the incessant downpour.Spending the remaining two days in wet clothes was awful to say the least.

The rest of the day was spent in event management.I was on the 3-member core committee of our group.Having to deal with screening and selecting programmes to be presented in our half-an-hour-slot,oraganizing talent pools,co-ordinating amongst the different functional wings,making posters,providing funny headlines to flash and a zillion such shouldered responsibilities ensured that I skipped dinner and had precisely 3 minutes to prepare for my compering for that evening.The stress that came with this muddle of event-management activities coupled with my bad habit of skipping meals over the past one month took a heavy toll on me that night.My close brush with the eternal hush that night deserves a separate post,for the myriad of emotions that gripped me for those crucial 8 hours are impossible to pen down in 2-3 lines.

6-7-2005.All good things must come to an end and so too the bliss I lived in at Lonavala.We had a "Paint your future" activity.I personally didn't find it too useful coz I have strained my brain with precisely this for the past 6-8 months and Iam now at peace with the direction I have set myself on.It would've probably helped those confused souls who are in as confused a state as I was a few months back about what I want to do with the rest of my life.This activity was followed by another one where we had to package 2 eggs with some given material in such a way that they do not break when dropped from a height of 16 feet.This last group was the most challenging one that I got to work with and the one in which my thoughts on group dynamics were reinforced the most.A classic show of ego clashes,Iam-right-u're-wrong attitudes,lack of direction.....it was all there.The negative result was the only thing that was predictable about this group :) It did reinforce a lot of my thoughts about separation of personal relationships from task-based ones.Overall, Lonavala was a lot of fun packed with a lot of learning too.Like the seniors say, it is one of the best things that happen to you at SP after the first 5 days of absolute bliss.

Quote for the day:To be able to spread cheer around,you first need to be happy from within.