6th February, 1998 (Fri)
The one day picnic of our Section (System Technology 2, ST2) was to Green Valley Resorts, around an hour and a half from Bangalore city. It was held on Friday, 6th February, 1998.
Around 110 of us participated in the picnic. It started from HP. There were three Sathya Sai Tours luxury buses to take us to our destination. As and when a bus got full, it started off (not waiting for everyone to turn up). I was in the first bus, which started at 7.30 AM, and reached the Resorts at 9 AM. The second bus arrived just behind ours, followed in a few more minutes by the third. In addition to those from our Section, a few members from Finance, HR, Admin, etc. were also present (to add colour?) Almost all wore the T-shirt and the cap released for the occasion.
Before entering, each of us were asked to pick a ribbon from a box. There were ribbons of four colours - yellow, red, blue and green. The idea was to divide the entire group into four teams, for holding various competitions.
The picnic started with breakfast, after which we roamed around the resort. There was a lovely swimming pool. There were a few cottages for people to stay overnight. There were also lots of plants, trees, a tennis court etc. in the resorts.
The competitions started off with 7-a-side tennis ball cricket inside the tennis court. There were four teams (one for each colour) Each team had to have a lady member. The matches were eagerly contested. Occasional running (and expert) commentary was provided through a mike. There was much cheering, for every ball.
It was followed by competitions in tug-of-war and pyramid formation. I missed these two indulging myself in some Babewatch in the swimming pool. (A group of eight girls had decided to spend their day in the pool, and what better thing to do if you don't know swimming than, watch those who can?)
I managed to catch up with the balloon-blowing competition. There were some TT, carroms and chess matches going on inside and I managed to play a few games of carroms, before lunch.
The post-lunch session had more interesting events, a competition on who can wear the most number of shirts and T-shirts in a given time and which team can go through the most number of hoops. Then it was Dumb Charades, which included a round of mangled film names (Men in Bermudas, Tomorrow Always Lives, for example!) 20 questions followed, one of its rounds being to identify members of our Section itself!
After tea, there were the finals of cricket and camp-fire, music and dance. These I missed as I had to take the first bus out at 5.30 PM, having further plans for the weekend. (For the records, the "yellow" team, whose member I was, came first among the teams!)