TrusTrace at the ITC Fortune resort, Ooty

TrusTrace turned 3 a few weeks ago and this was to celebrate completion of yet another glorious year together. I don't remember after how many years I went for an official celebratory trip. Regardless of that, the wait is worth it. I write this as a dedication to people who joined the trip and the ones who couldn't. Kora, Kiruthiga, Loks, Kadhambari, Shameek - we missed you all. 

"@channel We will leave from office tomorrow at 7.30. Please be on time." was the message from Keerthi on Friday. Sadly for her and us, the travels’ person was not part of the channel and was not listening. And that means only one thing - just like every other trip, the start was delayed, luckily by not that much. 

We picked up Suresh and Thiru on way at Mettupalayam and shortly afterwards we took our first break. No idea what energised everyone, a hot seat got created and nobody was spared. I'm not sure how many of those stories were fabricated but the quicker they spoke about their crush, the quicker they got away from being crushed. Madhav kept everyone on their toes and many didn't have answers to his questions. In all probability, Thiru would have started wondering why did my parents even allow me to join this trip? I was asked to narrate my story if any, but I resisted because the boredom generated by those would have put everyone to sleep. 
We reached the hotel just around the noon mark, everyone checked-in in pairs to freshen up before we gathered for lunch. Such a beautiful hotel and super facilities, my wholehearted thanks to the organising team. We settled down for lunch on a large board room like table, vegetarians one-side and non-vegetarians on the other - the latter comfortably outnumbered the former as you would guess. Saturday, margazhi maasam etc helping our (Vegetarians) cause a little bit. Few Rotis, fried rice, curd rice, noodles and desserts afterwards we decided to play cricket. (Just before lunch, Hrishi, Saravanan, Madhav and me played some TT, while the others engaged themselves with carroms and chess.)

Surprisingly, the crowd was less for Cricket. Hrishi and Saravanan did the team selection and it ended up a bit imbalanced. Hrishi's team ran out comfortable winners for the first few games. We switched teams for the final game and it looked like going the same way until I intervened with the ball. Needing 12 to win on a tough wicket, with Suresh on strike, I bowled a poor last over and conceded the required runs - A great finish nevertheless. Have to mention Keerthi's contribution for the match while bowling. Her analysis read 0.1-0-4-0 (Cricket followers will understand) and during this spell, one ball was lost. This delivery was expertly captured by Regu's 1.5 lakhs phone. Or was it 2.5 lakhs, guys? Few played badminton for sometime while others took a round near the rose garden and clicked a few beautiful pictures.

Standing from left: Dinesh, Indhu, Shubham, Mounika, Divya, Madhav, Keerthi, Sudhagar, Bharathi, Regu, Vignesh, Suresh, Manish, Thiru, Saravanan

Sitting from left: Babu, Hrishi, Shilpha, Raje, Prathip, Karthikeyan, Navya

We gathered for a meeting around 6, to speak about how the year went and what we could look forward to in 2020. There were glowing appreciations passed on to each other, deservingly too. We have grown significantly as an organisation in the year 2019, for which a lot of credit should go-to every team - business development, sales and marketing, product management, engineering and design, in no particular order. We only have to remember, we should continue to look at each other as part of the family, continue to work hard, share genuine feedback, grow as a team and achieve all our dreams as a company. Hrishi signed off shortly afterwards as he had a travel agenda - not before entertaining all of us with some glorious Hindi numbers. We loved your singing, Hrishi.

The bonfire that was arranged was perfect for the chilly weather. The wireless mike was just the need of the hour. It got passed on like a baton, with some people narrating past funny incidents in their lives, while a few of us chose to *sing*. One of the highlights of the trip. After a few minutes of dancing (jumping around), we moved to dinner, which was a lavishly laid out spread. Shortly after dinner, without being content with the fun we had through the day, we decided to play dumb charades for sometime, assembling in one of the rooms. No regrets about the choice, we had an incredible amount of fun. Some of the clues and actions were outrageously brilliant, shall explain a few of those in the latter part of this passage.

Crashing down at around 1 o'clock, some of these guys did really well to be up by 6:30 for a morning walk. Credit to them. Unlike dinner on the previous day, we had breakfast at different times, based on hunger and brunch preferences. We checked out around 1130 and headed straight to the boathouse - well almost. One of the height control barriers was too low for us to get through, we took a reverse and planned for a different route which was a bit steep for our comforts. Right behind us we had traffic going two-ways, our bus made the slope look like the Everest - almost going back to ram on to a Government bus behind. Without a moment of hesitation, we all dropped off quickly and decided to walk - the desire to live long is too strong.

In the boat house, we struggled a bit to identify who goes with whom for the four-seater pedal boats. Second day of the trip and we didn't trust our legs enough to pull it through. We settled down soon into teams, the pleasant weather making the ride very enjoyable and not as gruelling as we anticipated (or should we confirm that with Vignesh and Regu who did all the pedalling?). We had a restaurant right opposite to the boat house and we had someone checking if it can seat 25 odd people. When we went in, it looked like it could accommodate double the number and the only people who were already there were the waiters, cashier and the owner (though by the time we wrapped up, the crowd picked up well).

Botanical garden was part of the agenda from the beginning and there is no way people were prepared to skip it. If not for anything, the boomerang click - something that has been in existence for long but I knew about it only weeks ago. Just like the trip to the boathouse, we walked a bit. After a few randomly taken pictures, we assembled for a group boomerang photo. A few attempts afterwards, we got it right - at least we didn't have the energy to try again and therefore settled for it. Out of nowhere Madhav challenged if we can sit in a simple cross legged posture, get up and stand upright without placing our hands on the ground for support (for Yoga geeks, it's Sukhasana to Tadasana). Some struggled but many managed to and therefore, we didn't stop there. Next was the plank position, which I was hearing for the first time in life. We all got down doing it at the same time as a challenge and checked who can withstand it the longest. Easy to start but painful to continue. I'm glad we challenged each other in terms of fitness, because that's a largely undervalued attribute, unfairly. I truly believe, anything we achieve in life, if we aren't fit enough to enjoy the achievement, the meaning of it gets lost. 

We didn't have a great amount of trust on the driver (at least Saravanan and I didn't) so we insisted on starting our way back before it turned too dark. Under usual circumstances, sleep takes priority during return trips and it was no different this time. When we were nearing Coimbatore, we wanted to have one last activity and chose the easiest of the lot during travel - Antakshari. A lot of hidden talent got revealed during this program which lasted for around 2 hours. We reached our homes by 9:30 on Sunday, with loads of great memories and a fair amount of tiredness.
I have added a few memorable dialogues here - Mostly in Tamil, if someone is interested, you can read.

Thanks Saravanan and Keerthi for all your organising efforts. Thank you, Madhav for ensuring we didn't have one dull moment. Thanks Sudhagar for your expert guidance throughout the journey. Thanks to Shubham, Navya and Manish for putting up with all the Tamil that was spoken around. Thanks to Vivek for joining in spite of being extremely sick. Thank you everyone again for making this trip so enjoyable. This will stay in memory for long!

Full Album here