Out-bounded at Garudmachi!

It was 5 am in the morning when I woke up to my surprise. We were supposed to check-in by 5.15 am to board the bus. Counting every minute from then, I and Vikas managed to reach our institute campus by 5.20 am. We were given breakfast packets that morning a water bottle for the journey. I immediately sneaked inside the bus. There was a small problem. The second bus did not come on time so our departure got delayed by around 40 minutes. Few of our batch mates played football. I was just cursing my luck to have known this delay. With this initial delay, both buses left the campus around 6.15 am. It was pleasant and quite Mumbai. I could few flower vendors to have occupied footpaths reminding me of valentine day. With less traffic, we could move out of the city in good time.

People in our bus opted to make up for lost sleep. I was bit uncomfortable in the initial part of the journey, with a blaring movie sound, upset stomach and passivity in the ambience. Most of us did not have any idea about the location of our destination - Garudmachi. The total distance was around 5 hours. The buses took diversion from main highway towards Mumbai-Goa highway. My batch mates resorted to Antaakshri finally to see the rest of the journey.

We reached our training abode just before noon. It was scorching hot as we stepped our way" in. My initial reaction was dull to see the place.

Nevertheless, after an initial brief about the place, we checked-in to our tents. We were asked to drink lot of water to avoid dehydration. The tents were nicely done. It has 6 beds with 2 toilets. It was cozy inside the tent away from the hot sun. We were not given enough time to refresh ourselves. We had our lunch in the open and asked to assemble for the session. I am sure nobody would have liked it. Anyways, we started with our micro-lab sessions. We were splitted into 2 groups for the sessions ahead. The first session had big five locator discussion and a instrument to assess yourself. We were served tea soon after the first session. The mood was getting better and sun was setting down. Our sessions continued to around 8pm on the first day. After dinner, people got together and had gala time. Few performed and others enjoyed. I had a wonderful discussion in the tent back with my tent mates. The nature was getting on us and all of us were excited about our next few days.

Second day morning, we were asked to start by 9 am. I woke up early to enjoy the nature. I had a brief early morning walk and some yoga to start the day. All of us began the day by mediating and reflecting previous day's learnings. Rest of the day was filled with micro-lab sessions, instruments and discussion. It was kind of reality check getting harder for many of us to believe. We located our internal locus of control and motivation needs. We also had role plays to depict our emotional quotient learnings. It was fun to act and learn. People could bring out their work life experience to the foreground. I just went back few months in office watching those plays. We ended our day's learnings about group behaviors and NASA exercise (Lost on the Moon). We had outdoor trek and assault exercises in the next day of our schedule.

First group started with a brief journey to the trek base. The trek was bit steep to begin with. We were made to move in the line without overtaking each other. The trek was smooth with not much toil on our bodies. In about 90 minutes or so, we were at the peak. People were busy capturing the shots in their cameras. We could see our tents and camp site from the top. We had apples, biscuits, water and taadi on the way. The descent was mentally tiring. It was steep. Few people slipped without any injuries. We motivated each other and reached our camp site back before noon. We got a debrief to reflect on our learnings during trek. We were given good time to catch on sleep to start our assaults. I found these assaults very useful and good. There were 6 games. We were splitted in 6 teams. We started the exercise with a total blank out. Team formation, strategy and execution were the major learnings in these exercises. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Though we lost the race, these assaults keep getting reflected many times. The other group was lucky to catch a glimpse of sun set on their way trekking back from mountains. We had bath and dinner. A camp fire was arranged to get soaked in the fun and entertainment with no loud music. Songs, musical performances, jokes, mono-acts took center stage once we all sat down around the fire.

Next morning was the last day of our sojourn. We were served Poha in the breakfast. I had heavy doze of them. We mediated and reflected all of our learnings. We jotted down our instruments scores and took feedback from our group members. Finally we made presentations depicting our entire learning experience at Garudmachi. Team work was the theme in most of the learning charts. We realized that complex tasks and organizations essentially bank on teams to perform. “A” frame work assault was the choice of many teams to reflect their thought process. The lunch was arranged bit early and we slowly boarded our buses. Garudmachi, tents, mountains, Mala ma'am, Keith sir, exercises just keep buzzing my mind all the way back.