The Project Outing

When we were flipped upside down for the first time ,I heard Nikhil curse loudly.For a moment, I was surprised to hear him curse . In our acquaintance over the last six months or so, this was the first time ever that I heard him swear. We were seated on a ride called 'Flip Out' in Adventure Island, a theme park in Rohini and being twirled upside down forty feet above the ground. I was hanging on to the harness because my life depended on how tight it was wrapped across my chest. As the ride got over , relief was etched across all our faces. There were six of us from my office who had taken this ride together but once it was done no one wanted to give it another shot. The fact that we had taken lunch just before taking this ride and nobody was forced to do projectile vomiting in mid-air was nothing short of a miracle.

It was a pity that this was the only decent adrenalin pumping ride in the theme park . The theme park was the venue of a long overdue project outing . Barring the flip out ride all the other rides were meant exclusively for the enjoyment of little kids. I find my daily ride in the cycle rickshaw to the bus stop more thrilling than most of the joyrides in Adventure Island.

I couldn't help but compare this theme park with Veegaland in cochin. More than twenty of us had gone there in our final year of college and had a phenomenal time. The rides were grand and there were some really funny incidents. Like Sid crying for Mama when he was being whirled 360 degrees in the twin flip monster ride and all of us making fun of Saif losing his hair in the middle of the free fall .

While here in rohini we had some senior guys leaving early because they were missing office dearly. One lasting image I have from this trip is of my immediate manager after he had finished his turn on a stupid aeroplane ride. He was heaving a sigh of relief, wiping some sweat from his brow as though suggesting 'that ride was something' when 8-9 year old kids were finding the same ride mighty boring.