Memoirs of my Goa Trip

If you don’t know what this blog contains, in one line I would describe it as an in-site (insight) on my on-site experiences on the Goa offsite.

The schedule of the day was that we would fly to Bangalore via Indigo Airlines, and then to Goa in Air Deccan from there after 6 hours. So it was decided that a trip to Synopsys office at Bangalore be squeezed in as well.

5 AM of 18^th September, I am on the verge of starting what is my first ever offsite and like most people, I too am really excited. Also since the Paryushan ended last week and it is just yesterday that I came to Hyderabad from Ahmedabad (Home!), I am all the more excited at the prospects of a further 4 days of extension. The fact that we will be staying at the esteemed “Holiday Inn” just made the trip more and more fascinating. But, reality soon bit in and heavenly is not the right word to describe after the day’s events unfolded.

Dhaval and I meet up with Aditi and reach the airport at 6:30 AM, the normal queues and the checkin procedure which always bore me persist due to the confusion set in by people, but I am still too excited to really worry. The flight is on time and we reach Bangalore airport in time. The rest of the trip from airport to the office is made in Airconditioned buses but the Bangalore traffic ruins a lot of time. The way is just about 15 minutes, but we take 45 min to reach the office and 30 more min to just turn at the entrance of the building. Now, starts the confusion, no one ever told us how much time we have here to spend, nor do we know, what we were to do. As a result, we ended up moving around the cubicles in that office. Compared to our tiny office, this Bangalore office is huge, cause all facilities got relocated into the same building, but the culture is completely different from our lovely Hyderabad office. The cubicles are almost 50% bigger, but higher are it’s walls as well. People just get into the cubicle and lose themselves to work unlike all the hiphop and over-the-cube wall sessions we do have at our place. Nevertheless, we met Lata (Padmalata i.e.) and then Aditi and I move around the cubes trying to find all the people we have had assigned over the span of the short 4 months we spent at Synopsys. The facilities are pretty lucrative and the huge and beautiful auditoriums and band and all attracts us, but there is somehow an eerie in the environment and there somehow, I felt, that people lack socializing, without which I probably would not be able to live.

This is followed by lunch, for which we have to go down and select from a lot of food joints, I took a Pizza from Dominos and Aditi took some Subways, at Avtar’s or should I say, my expense ;-). Dhaval, the good guy he is, took some meal combo. The lunch was followed up by more confusion as we did not know what to do and then finally, we boarded the buses again, this time with people from Bangalore to go to the airport again, and next stop was supposed to be Goa....

Go Goa, isn’t that what they say, well, in all the probabilities of making a huge “Dil Chahta Hein” we reached the Goa airport in full splendor, with a whooping 100+ people from SNPS on board, it was more as if it were our flight. Reaching Goa, we encountered the rains, ofcourse it is rainy season in Goa and evenings are drenched with showers. We ran to the buses and then reached Holiday Inn after another 90 minutes drive in airconditioned buses and all. Reaching there, the lazy people Dhaval and I are, we rested our selves well, some dinner, followed by a session of cards.

Well, I forgot to mention the room, the one Dhaval and I shared, it was a wonderful room, a couple of really warm and cosy beds, airconditioner, mini-Bar (hehehehe, we never used it though), TV, a tiny Fridge, some dry fruit packets, one of which we ate before realizing it costed Rs. 50, right Dhaval? ;-) But, the thing that Dhaval and I were really interested in, in the room was the Bath Tub, yeah yeah, we’re lazy bums, but then, who doesn’t like a lazy lie-in-hot-water session?

Day-2, this is supposed to be a day of presentations and I would have attended the one at 8 AM, had I not been so-informed about the realities by our esteemed seniors who have had the prior experiences of such offsites, but then Ashish woke us up at 9 AM and said that the presentations were to start at 8:30, sounds dumb? It is dumb :-)

Nevertheless, neither Dhaval, not I would be missing the bathtub, so we got ready at around 10 and reached there, probably the last few to enter, but the environment was really boring, even in the luxurious tables and nice ambience of the Holiday Inn Conference Hall. We reached our group, the usual back-benchers and then had a session of Sketch-me if you can, Hollywood Bollywood, Tic Tac Toe, Dot Game and whatever such other mind-sharpening activities you can think of to avoid siesta. This was followed by lunch and more presentations and more presentations. (This is not an over-exaggeration, ask any fellow Synopsoids!). The evening had our show “Bheja Fry”, which consisted of our short skits, some comedy drama and the wonderful singing by a few people. This show took a lot of preparation and some “nice” video shooting as well, some wonderful memories which I will cherish for a lifetime. Anyways, this event was enjoyed by all those people who were still in their senses after all those free visits to the drinks counter. The session was followed by a Gala Dinner and the DJ Dance Party, which was bunked by Dhaval and me to go to the solace of our room and watch India take on England in the Twenty20 Worldcup. I guess Aditi missed a lot of fun dancing for not going even after being invited by so many people, multiple times. Right?

Ok, Day-3, Dhaval and I realize, two days into Goa and we still haven’t been able to do justice to the beach and the sea, so the 3 of us, ofcourse, in our version of Dil Chahta Hein, the 3^rd character is a girl, or as we say, the modern 3 Musketeers went for a Morning Walk at the sea shore, which eventually led to a sea bathing session, from the leg wetting one, by Dhaval and me after we were joined by Amarji, Rajnish and Ashish. We returned to the room, got ready and for the first time, reached breakfast on time. We also planned to go to the beach early morning the next day to relive these moments and have some more of the beach before we bid final adieu to Goa. This day had a couple presentations followed by a sightseeing tour, which took us to some old-temple first. This was followed by the visit to Francis Xavier’s Church. I would do injustice to the blog if I fail to mention the amount of entertainment we got on the way, by people playing Antakshari in Telugu and ofcourse, Dhaval and Aditi went on some sting mission, getting pics of people drowsing (including myself). This was followed by a shopping spree at Panjim, which for us was not-so-much of a spree and we ended up buying some cashewnuts and Dhaval played some what-is-your-weight game.

This session was followed by cruise, the name sounds lucrative and since I have been on one of these before, I tried to lower the expectations of others, but still, the cruise experience in one word would be “Disastrous”. We missed the evening cruise, so had to go on the 7:30 cruise, hence the skyline of city was not visible, the dance was at most pathetic, cannot use other words on the blog. The sitting was @$#$@#!!#, need I say more? To top it all up, I felt sick, feverish and totally frustrated and the discussions that Aditi and I did on the 90 min way back to the Hotel, are few which would really show our true frustrations, but nevertheless, we’ll remember them for a long time, won’t we Aditi?

I skipped dinner and slept early because I was too tired, India won against South Africa, and South Africa, my favourite cricketing team after India was thrown out of Twenty20, Murphy still Rules, doesn’t he?

Day 4, all that rest helped me and the morning thawed a lot of new energy, new hopes and ofcourse fun. Beach at 6:30, we collected shells and stuff and went on a long walk. Finally. We settled with Dhaval and Aditi making a tunnel where as I started with a temple, remembering those wonderful days of childhood. Ofcourse, Aditi and Dhaval left the tunnel at about 80% and went off to face some music of the sea, when I completed the tunnel and then got pics to prove the same as well. This was followed by another session of bathing at the sea and today, Aditi bravely came with us. It was fun, shallow waters and we all went gaga... Then the kiddie boys we are, we mimicked all those dancers of the cruise in knee deep water and Aditi was giggling and taking the video and snaps. We had a wonderful time at the sea and then, looking at the watch, with a heavy heart, a little sadness to get reminded of the fact that all good things come to an end, we went towards our rooms with happy memories which we will all cherish for a long time. I thought we were done with the trip, but some of the surprises were yet to come, like Dhaval choking the bathtub and stuff. Once ready after the last cosy bath at Holiday Inn Resort, we went on the photography path, moving around here and there, trying to capture a lot of pics which would remind us of these beautiful days for a long long time to come...

The final lunch was pretty normal and then with another long trip to the airport, the tired guy, i.e. me, slept off in the bus only to be published onto another set of pics :-D.

We flew back to Bangalore and this time were to spend a few hours on the Bangalore airport, where we desperately tried to find a free Wi-Fi network and failed. The dinner comprised of a sandwich and a “Devil’s Own” from CCD, which was later reimbursed by Synopsys. I know, Devil’s Own always tastes great, but if it is FREE, doesn’t it seem more wonderful? Like they say, all good things come to an end, so did our beautiful trip. The flight from there brought us to Hyderabad at around 10:30 and we came home around 11, tired but happy, exhausted but contended, and then with a smile, we lovingly looked forward to the soft nice bed at home, which though not as luxurious as the one at Holiday Inn, was still very inviting.

Slipping into the comforts of my bed, I went into sweet slumber telling myself, Dude, it is Weekend Resting Time!!!