Another Thursday Club....................at Bandra Gym for the first time.

It's been a long time since the Thursday Club met. Everyone has been super busy and stressed out. Finally we fixed a date for a get-together on a Thursday but at the very last minute it was moved to a Wednesday. Seriously, we must rename it to a Wednesday Club or a Not Just Thursday Club! :)

I was so touched that Mr. Tomar cancelled a dinner meeting to actually be there. It means a lot to me and emphasises the fact that we need to strengthen the bond with our work colleagues in order to foster a more meaningful work experience.

Arlene, Sanjai and Smita

Smita, Me and Bunty

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Chenna with the girls.

The cool couple.

Bunty and Tomar

Arlene, Tomar and Chenna

Bandra Gym has a very informal atmosphere and on a Wednesday night it is great because there is a live band playing music that one can jive to. Chenna's wife Arlene loves to dance.............and of course Chenna has to make sure that I jived on one of the numbers.

Smita jiving away......

This Thursday Club was special because we celebrated Smita's birthday.

As always, we had a blast and Thursday Club rocked.

Thursday Club

Kingfisher has some great people and I by virtue of the nature of my job, get to interact with most of them. However, I could see that most of them did not know each other well enough nor did they have the time or inclination to make the effort to forge closer ties. So I took the initiative to set up the Thursday Club. The idea was to create a platform for people to interact with work colleagues once a month in an informal setting and get to know each other, appreciate each other and in the process break down barriers.

Some of the ground rules:
- Open to anyone from Kingfisher.
- There will be no hierarchy.
- No discussion on work. (difficult but the idea was NO serious discussion on work).

We started off by meeting on the rooftop of the Orchid and then graduating to popular restaurants and finally we have found that it is best to meet at Bunty Marwah's place. It is a time for all of us to let our hair down and release the pentup stress and enjoy ourselves.

It has now been over a year since I started the Thursday Club. It has given me a lot of joy and pleasure and I get a real boost when people send me emails to enquire when is the next one!!

Some of the things I love about it............

• The interaction between the very senior members in Kingfisher and the very junior. There truly is NO hierarchy.
• The support, love and care shown amongst the members.
• The way they refer to me as the President; makes me feel so important.
• The initiation ceremonies for new members (a product of Sanjai and Smitaa's imagination) and the way I "anoint" the new recruits.
• The pictures I take of everyone.

Some of my favourite TCs are:

• The one where Tushita cooked us her famous Burmese Khowsuey.
• The one where they brought in my birthday with the beautiful cake and Smitaa had to drop it!
• The one at Hard Rock Cafe where everyone was totally smashed.
• The one at Escobar where we had the tallest from Seabury and the shortest from Accenture!
• The one where we played drinking games (courtesy Prabh Sharan).
• The one where Smitaa and Sanjai hosted Big Boss.
• The one where we croaked at Karaoke.
• The one where Smitaa did a headstand and Tushita walked like a duck.
• The ones where Sheikh's wife cooked her yummy biryani.
• The one where we had the shiny disco ball and wore retro clothes.

Each of them had its uniqueness and it is difficult to actually pick a favourite one.

At Escobar in Bandra with all the staunch supporters of TC -

Bunty, Smitaa, Sanjai, Chenna, Harsh, Harshit and Arun

Big Boss - Sheikh as Oongli Baba

(Bunty holding the umbrella, Sanjai supervising the proceedings,

Arun making a joke of it all and Capt Puri enjoying the madness)

Big Boss - Ron

(Bunty in the foreground with a goofy smile and mischief in his eyes)

Sanjai, Aarti, Prabh, Capt Puri and myself

Myself, Chenna and Tushita

The beautiful picture on my birthday cake.

The Wanderers ...................the first getaway

The Wanderers is an offshoot of the Thursday Club where like minded people from work go out on weekends together. The only difference is that this includes family and friends as well.

The last weekend was our first getaway to Hideout, an eco resort 3 hours from Bombay. We had actually planned to go to Aamby Valley but we had quite a time making arrangements for the stay there as well as trying to find out information about the place. Since the week was a hectic one, we put Aamby Valley on hold and instead settled for the Hideout.

We booked a mud hut and it worked out to Rs 1700 per head with all meals included. An honest review - the mud hut was completely basic and was nothing like the one we stayed in at Hodka, Gujarat. It was literally made up of mud and bamboos with a badly thatched roof which could not keep the cold out. In fact it was freezing cold and even though they had warned us to carry our own blankets, we spent the night in discomfort as we had not anticipated that the temperature would go so low!! The food was average and totally unlike the reviews that I had got from my friend Simmi. I was told that the owners grew their own vegetables and fruits organically and this in turn made the food extremely delicious. I personally thought it was average.

But the great company of my friends more than made up for these shortcomings of the eco resort. We had a great time playing Boggle and Jenga. We played 20 questions with Sanjai's gizmo and laughed all the time. We read a little, washed our lunch down with a wonderful Australian Merlot - Yellow tail - drunk in chai glasses and later in the evening had some Bacardi Reserve (8 Annos) once again in chai glasses! The night sky was absolutely beautiful, the sky was clear, the stars shone brightly and our only regret was that none of us were proficient in astronomy.

We also drove to a nearby dam, if you could call it that. Spent some serene time near the water and reflected on our present and wondered about our future. We also cycled a bit and figured that we could do more about our fitness levels. Watched a beautiful sunset and in short had a relaxing, destressing time in the quiet of the country, away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

All in all, it was an eventful trip. A great start for the concept of the Wanderers.