Sungrace Picnic

It was a bright crispy morning that Team Sungrace (TS) set out for Girivan. Though Yogita had e-reminded us to be there (where…at Sungrace of course!) at 8 am sharp, barely a handful of us had gathered there at such an unearthly hour. Surely nobody is expected to be awake at this time on a Saturday morning. Almost criminal! After waiting patiently for an hour for the canteen to open…honestly nobody can expect us to start our journey without a Welcome Drink (a cup of garam chai)!?! People dedicatedly checked their emails in the meantime and nobody could resist pulling the Jr. SysAdmin’s leg about how they could not get mails! The poor chap was half divided on whether he should go check the server or join everybody for the picnic. After photo sessions with welcome drinks and (the usual) standing in front of the bus, the bus finally started with most of us at 9.15 am IST.

This being the first picnic ever in SCPL, people were in rather high spirits and songs and wise cracks broke out even before we had climbed up the Sungrace Ghat. Amidst various stops en-route, on special request by Pushpak Phule (for dubious reasons), we finally reached Girivan at around 11 am. The Girivan Ghat was really picturesque and gave one the feeling of being in Lonavala. I suppose the monsoon weather had a big hand in bringing about this feeling!

By now everyone was ravenous with hunger…poor us venturing out with empty stomachs! There, amidst Rohit trying to count the number of people and us scattering all over the place like school children in an interval, we managed to get a ‘guide’ to take us to our breakfast site. Yes the ‘Breakfast Site’ was actually a different place on a different location (almost 3 Kms away…no idea if this was true or a wisecrack) from the main office where we had stopped. The way curved through a jungle with flower names for the different roads and side-roads like ‘Chapha Path’, ‘Jui Path’ etc. Hunger makes distances seem large and we sure started wondering how many more flowers ‘Paths’ were remaining before we finally reach the canteen! Finally after adding substantially to our flora-knowledge we reached the canteen site. The ‘Canteen’ was vast and airy, surrounded on all sides by various shades of green. It even had a ‘Waterfall’ in the neighborhood though at that time there was hardly any ‘water’ falling down it. With a hearty breakfast of Idli-Sambar and fresh tea/coffee the warriors (Ooops I mean Team Sungrace) were quite ready for a rough-tough, fling-in-the-mud football match. So back we marched (I mean went in the bus…nobody wanted to burn out the calories walking three Kms) to the battlefield…nee football ground.

The match began in high spirits. Yogita and I stood/sat watching the match for we didn’t want to dampen the guys’ spirit by joining in. Incidentally did I mention it just us two girls against two dozen guys?! Hmmmmm. The guys seemed to kick off their sandals/shoes/glasses more often than the ball but they did manage to get a few goals through…even if it was against their own team.The ball was rather tiresome and rambled off in the valley more instead of through the goal post.Anish was multi-tasking as a goalkeeper and a fielder for some 2^rd party cricket match. Tired of all the bawling and baby brandishing after a while, we…Yogita and I wandered off to ‘view’ the premises. We shamelessly enjoyed all the games for children like swings, trampoline etc. It felt nice jumping on the trampoline and a huge relief that it could carry our collective weights! Not hearing the guys’ brawl any longer we hastened back to the ground fearing the guys and the ball were rolling down the hill. But no! There they were stretched out on the grass…tired and sweaty! SysAdmin Jr. had scampered up a tree, Rohit was feeling his way around without his glasses (the guy had actually sat on his glasses!!), and the rest were scattered like a flock of sheep. The match began again with renewed vigor and continued the same way…with the ball running off in the valley more often than not. What a mischievous little thing it was! Tired (for the time being), the guys and us girls ambled back to the various ‘huts’ to rest. People scattered to ‘refresh’ (to be read as smoke and..) themselves and for photo-sessions. Some took pleasure in reliving childhood pranks and practices…hanging on the banyan tree roots above the valley. They probably were scared hanging out in the valley afraid to drop down but then men can’t afford to look scared with a couple of girls watching…can they?

After the various photo sessions and drinks (most soft I think) we were ready for lunch. Back began the journey to the ‘lunch’ site. Lunch was a sumptuous Punjabi affair and football had made people very hungry. It started raining just as we were having lunch and the environment couldn’t have been more enchanting at that point. The ‘Waterfall’ at last sported a small trickle of water.

People were too lazy to play any more games post lunch and though a few adventurers ventured out for mini-treks, the rest of us were quite content to sprawl along in the chairs watching the rain outside. After a small debate on whether to play dumb-charades or housie, we all seemed to settle on dumb-charades. The next two and a half hours were jam-packed with both teams trying to outwit each other with their ‘non verbal communication skills’. Boos followed bravos in much the same spirit. It was at last time to turn back home. Most didn’t want to and it was with heavy hearts that we started on our return journey. There was the traditional antakshari played on the return journey…no journey however big or small would be complete without it. Jokes, Shayari had their turns too. This day-out (Lets name it Sungrace Day Out…sounds so much fun) had opened up people like never before. Hidden talents be it in football, dumb-charades, singing…you name it were popping out surprises no end!

We reached Sungrace at about 7 pm and with fresh vows to keep up the Team Sungrace spirit by watching a movie as the next ‘activity’, departed to our respective homes!