Camp at Pegasus

Now the situation in IT industry seems to be improving and every company started their team building activities. My company is not an exception and decided to take us to Pegasus. I haven’t heard about this institute earlier, but it seems our group has gone to this place few times earlier. This time they planned it in the weekday so that they can avoid many absconders.

I was expecting a resort kind of a place where we can go and play some small games and then swim in the pool for rest of the day. But the guys who traveled already said it’s like a military camp and no swimming pool and all. Because its mandatory I have no choice -:(

First Day

On first-day evening, 27 of us started around 4:30 pm from Cisco campus in 3 vans. Why 3 vans? Can’t be one bus? No! Bus cannot go into that narrow roads… added some excitement!!! In between we all stopped for a coffee/tea in the road-side shop near Yelahanka. We finally reached the Pegasus after 3 hours 30 minutes journey (for 60 kms) and also10km roller-coaster ride in the end.

Place had a military look in everything... very serene, lot of tress, and all plants trimmed… including guys in the place. We were guided to our Tents... Yes! We have to stay in the tent only (8 beds in a tent)... so we occupied 4 tents. After refreshment we met the Pegasus coordinator and who set some ground rules for us for the next 2 days.

We had a dinner with camp fire (food is a highlight of this place. very tasty!) started with our introduction…each one of us has to introduce the other person. Someone started talking about my blog and it went on to the discussion of how I came up with that formula! I also got some interesting questions like 'how do you justify the love at first sight with your formula?'

Around 10.30 we went to our camp, and outside the camp we gathered to play the game Mafia (this game seems to famous game in top universities in US), but I was playing the first time. The rule is simple few mafia guys would have entered the village and start killing the villager. Villagers have to eliminate those mafias. In a group of people there will be 30% mafias and rest will be villagers. During the night time mafias gather and will kill one villager (so mafia knows who are the other mafias) and during the daytime they will act as a villager. In the daytime villagers has to gather and kill one person who they suspect as mafia. Villagers don’t know who are villagers or mafia.

If villagers they decide to kill someone, the person identified to be killed can justify why he is not a mafia.

We played 3 games, and in all 3 games I was a villager and in first 2 games I was killed in the beginning itself by the mafias... and mafias and villagers have one game each.

Third game was interesting one. In the end only 3 people are there in the game; me and two more guys. Now among this 3, there is one mafia and we have to identify and kill him. By mistake if we kill villager, then mafia will win the game.

Both the guys are pointing to me as a mafia and recommending me to be killed. Now I have to make an argument that why I am not Mafia and why the other person whom I suspect as mafia. I got a doubt with one person and I need the support of the other guy to kill that mafia. I made a very convincing speech for 5 mins explaining why I am not mafia and why the other person is a mafia and asked the support of the villager to kill the mafia person. Now mafia guy also made is argument and he accused me of being a mafia. Again I made a counter argument for all his arguments.

Finally the other villager accepted my argument and decided to kill mafia! There was huge uproar from the entire gang that villagers had won the game.

It was a very exciting argument! We all enjoyed and congratulating each other for winning. We hit on our bed at 1 am.

Second Day

The bell rang to wake us at 6am. Few of us woke up and had a tea and went for a morning walk to the nearby lake. After breakfast we met at 8:30am to start our Actions. 

Each action will have different teams, but all the teams should complete it within the given time and team can take help from other teams also. After each game there will be a analysis and learnings will be discussed (post-mortem.... i hate it -:(). Each one of us were given a number and mine is 27.

First action is to climb the rock. We should touch the rock only beyond certain height. Few of us lifted the guys and helped them in climbing and also while coming down. We were given 30mins to complete this task, and we completed in little over 15mins.

 

Second action is to carry the marbles and put it into the bottle in the other end. We were given a broken pipe pieces to carry the marbles and also many rules which made it very difficult to carry it. It was very much challenging for the physical ability. 2 teams finished it within 30mins and one team struggled and helped by the other team.

Third action was crossing the island with the given tools like stick and ropes. This was extremely challenging for our fitness and also the strategy...after 15mins only we figured-out that we can’t cross the island until all the groups unite and use the tools... within 45 mins all the guys were not able to cross the other side...but we enjoyed every moment of it.

Fourth action is an Australian walker... team of 7 has to walk on the plank of wood without touching the ground and move the plank along with u and walk. There will be lot of land-mines in the path and we have to carefully walk. If we hit the mine, we have to start from the beginning... this is the test for our physical fitness and our team coordination... I was leading from the front for one of the team and we did not hit the mine in our entire walk and completed 3/4 of the path in the given time... after this everyone is exhausted and it’s already 6 pm!!!

Few started playing cricket and I along with few played football.

After 6:30, all of us were tired and few of us took bath and got ready for the night trek in the mountain. Only 6 of us were ready for that and rest all said they can’t walk. But Pegasus folks said they need more people as this is a team building activity. At last we 20 people walked to the top of the small mountain in the pitch dark... along with me few guys sang a nice tamil songs.

 

Third Day

I woke up 5:45 itself and rang the bell to wake up others... few people were asking why bell rang before 6 itself -:)

The first action we had for the day is to cross the mine without touching the ground, along the poles and other structures. Rope, Plank etc.., were given as tools but which is not sufficient to cross until you use it intelligently... again this has to do with lot of strategy and physical fitness. We made lot of strategy and able to cross only halfway. But we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Last action is our favorite... building a raft and rowing it in the lake. We were taken to the lake nearby and each team has to design their raft first. Only after raft design is approved we will get the material to build the raft. Finally we got the approval and all the teams’ started building the raft. After completion the raft was inspected by the Pegasus team. All the rafts got approved after the quality check and we took the raft into the water and started rafting... oh man!!! What a amazing experience...we all enjoyed it to the core. After reaching back the shore we started swimming and playing in the water for another 30mins.

Around 4:30 pm we started back after a farewell tea. I am looking forward to visit that place again!!!