BLUFF Outing

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First and foremost, I would like to thank John and Murli for the big sponsorship for one more mega memorable event “BLUFF outing”.

I would also like to thank the family members who decided to spend there precision time with us, by scarifying there family commitments.

Last but not the least, I also would like to thank the entire team to come together for this big event.

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So were do we start from, it was for a long time, say it as a year or more that Murli wanted to treat us for a lunch or dinner, at the same time John also wanted to throw out a party for his new car, new job, new house and the list goes on and on. Gosh, what a person everything in his life is new. Now you have the biggies in the sponsor list. Out of blue, I pitched-in and started to negotiate between the sponsors and came out with an idea of a day outing. Since it was me who started with this idea and I had to plan the whole program for the day. No matter you have the members or not. It was planned that even three to four people turn up we will go out. Just realized that it was once again my regular work of planning and execution. It would be mine 6th event and as team 9th event outing. Each one was very unique and mind-blowing. Close my eye they run as trailer as if the events are yet to be organized. I can’t believe it, we completed our engineering in 2004 and still we stick on to each other. Even though we are not in touch for a long time we never get separated. Except for the defaulter Mr. Bijoy, everybody turned up. I had not even thought of what is the challenges waiting for me in the up coming days. Question occurs is, where do we go? Lot of ideas poured into my mind like trekking, river rafting, wonderlaa, resort, hill-station, waterfalls, and others. I also need to keep my ideas packed as it was for a day long only and I am suppose to get the people back to Bangalore on the same day before the night falls. So it was like we need to spend valuable time together from dawn to dusk. After long discussions and telcons we decided to go to bluff and any other place nearer to it. I had Talakadu in my mind. The next was the day to fit this plan and put it into execution. So we decided to make it on October the 2nd, which was idle for everybody.

Once this was decided, we circulated the plan with our group asking for the participation members and ideas. In fact we never thought that crowd would touch upto 15 members and counting. Initially we decided to take our own cars for the trip, lunch would be order from a restaurant which would be packed for all the members. Since the members were adding and dropping we could not come out with a plan which would workout for everybody. Then somebody raised there voice of an idea, instead of our own cars why not we book a TT which would be half the price of the own car expenditure. In our group Venki was the person who new somebody in that background and he would get us a reasonable price also. So we all asked Venki to book a TT which he would talk to his friend who runs a travel agent and fix up a deal. At last the vehicle was arranged and I though that 50% of the work is done. Lunch, which was already planned that it would be ordered from a restaurant near JP Nagar and the whole task, would to be driven by John and Bhakta. Even this plan was dropped later due to very high price quoted for the veg & non-veg dishes. To be honest, my entire trip budget would not match that amount. So we finally decided that we will checkout for any Dabhas on the Mysore road. Being it a Gandhi Jayanthi’s day we wonder if anybody would server non-veg dishes. Lucky nobody has any attachment towards alcohol. Amazing team that I am with, BMSIST.

All set and TT was also booked. Sudden comes a surprise of 2 people getting dropped from the plan due to personal issues. Ramesh dropped due to health problem and Raka dropped due to additional work load in the office. John planned to get the seat occupied by his fiancé’s sister and her boyfriend. Oh, by the way his fiancé is none other then our dear friend Bhavani who studied with us only. Another surprise also arrived, John was willing to sponsor only the lunch which was calculated very minimum. So he planned to drop out from the sponsor list and promised for a separate grand lunch or a dinner. I was in shock of how to convey this information to the rest of the people. Later slowly convinced everybody by recalculating the budget and asked Murli to be a solo sponsor and the rest of the money to be pooled from the rest of the folks in the trip. We also had some team funds from the previous trips. At last everything was set. Murli in the solo sponsor list, Venki to co-ordinate for the TT, Bhakta to oversee all the activities and other to co-ordinate with each other. It was planned that we will meet in Murli’s place as the starting of the trip. He has got a big parking lot for accommodating the bikes & cars.

It was on the day of Oct 2nd at 628 hrs, my cellphone started laughing which said that TT has arrived and will be on schedule. I quickly moved to the bathroom to finish all the morning activities. I sent a wakeup SMS to everybody and requesting them to be on time. In the team we basically concentrate on Holla, the customer. He come from a far place and relies on the public transport. If you talk about punctuality then you really need to get some advice from him. I call him my successor for me in this team. Later my partner Srini, Lu called me up and informed me that he would be on time 725 hrs at my place. I was ready waiting for him as soon as he arrived I left with him. Mom was worried since I had a bad cold and conjunction in my throat, in fact I was on a high antibiotics. Nothing stops me, once planned and fixed. There is no looking back. To add-on, we had Loks, PL and Murli who were also suffering from the same symptoms. We reached Murli’s place and was surprised to see that nobody turned up. It was 750 hrs and the vehicle would be there at any moment with Holla, Bhakta and Venki. Murli was just completing his morning activities. We parked our vehicle and started to find out where is the rest of the crowd. My heart already start pumping very fast as I was sensing that something was going wrong. Later Tapas joined with this office laptop assuming that if it gets late in the day, he would travel to office and start working. Vehicle reached. PL and Ranjan were on there way. The present crowd wanted to go for small breakfast. So went to the near by Darshani hotel to have light breakfast. The only person who was suppose to come with his fiancé and her sister and her sister’s boyfriend was John. He is not picking the phone. It was 830 hrs and we were losing time. Our TT driver Venkatesh gives us a surprise saying that Telakadu road is very bad and it of risk to travel. In fact Venki informed it to me earlier only. I though we will make a decision on the course of our trip because if you throw this surprise people would not take it positively. Finally John reached with his fiancé only. Other two were dropped and my budget was in huge risk. From Murli’s place we had been served with hot coffee to kick start the trip.

Our TT left to the outer-ring road and stopped by the Shell bunk to fill in the diesel for the vehicle. We started with our journey with the collection king collecting the money from the individuals. Sudden twist in the game, John requested that he would also be part of the sponsor list not sure what made him to change the idea but I was hoping that something turns up. I checked with the rest and everybody was okay with this plan. Now we have the budget, vehicle and fully loaded team. The people who did not reach on time were requesting for a place to stop over for breakfast. I had already mentioned that late comers will have to suffer. I know guys I can’t be so rude also. I already discussed with the driver to stop over at Kamath hotel in mysore road. The only punishment was to stay in hunger for the time you reach there. Believe or not the roads were awesome and the vehicle is traveling at 60-70 kms/hr. I was thinking what would have happen if I was traveling my xeta baby. TT was a video coach so we got see one telugu movie Gajani. Kamath was reached at 1030 hrs and our heavy breakfast was also over. It was not that great but manageable. Cute aunties with there kids was the crowd attraction. Honestly I was watching the kids only. From there we left to Bluff/ Shivanasamudra/ Gaganachukki/ Hydro Power Plant/ Barachukki. After a 2 hrs journey we landed at the targeted spot, security was tight. I had to sign and give the vehicle details and the number of people traveling and other details. After all this he asks for coffee tax. I had to give him something since he was govt. servant. We also got to know that Hydro power plant entry is blocked more then a year due to security reason. We quickly got some snaps and move to the fall which was Gaganachukki. It is awesome falls with natural beauty. People started taking snaps and cute aunties whom we intersected in the Kamath hotel were also seen there. Some school/college trip people were also come and the place was one like our Majestic bus-stand. Soon we closed our photo session and planned to go to Barachukki and our great driver informed that from this angle its Gaganachukki and from the opposite side its Barachukki. Inside story was that from Gaganachukki its 1 kms to Barachukki were people can play in the water. People were very upset as they did not spend much time over there. I asked to driver to the takes us to the near by Dhaba for the lunch. For almost 10 kms the roads were worst or rather there was no road. Talakadu was dropped.

We landed up in one Punjabi Dhaba, I would not say that food was fabulous but it was just okay and non-veg people enjoyed the show. As usual the food was severed very late because they were waiting for the egg to hatch and later wait for it to grow and then slaughter it to prepare the delicious dishes which was very identical to each other. Small team discussion happened. After the lunch, we planned to move to Srirangapattana which was 25 kms from the dhaba. By the time we reached there it was almost in the verge of raining and the weather was splendid. We stopped by Rangantittu Bird Sanctuary/ Sangam to enjoy the flora and fauna. The river was very mild so we planned to do a thapa ride. PL dropped due to health issues and the other enjoyed it. On the way back we covered Jumma Masjid (a Mosque) and the Daria Daulat Gardens but we could not go out due to heavy rain. Later we though to drop by Sri Ranganathaswamy temple to complete our journey. Got his blessing and left from Srirangapattana to reach Bangalore . We stopped in midway for a coffee/tea break. At around 2100 hrs we reached Murli’s place. Settled down the TT fare and move to my home and others also happily closed a day long BLUFF journey.