Parties should be like this….

I got back on Saturday night from the Yahoo Year End Party and it was just way 2 cool… :)

We had left from our office on Thursday night in 4 buses… about 120 people in total I guess … Having worked all night on the day before on this new blog site, I fell asleep immediately… next thing I wake up and I see we’re somewhere near Chennai, waiting for the other buses to catch up (and we waited for a very long time) and it’s raining in Chennai! I didn’t expect that… then we finally reached the resort at 10 am. All yahoos were divided into groups of 6-7 and we had a ‘captain’ for each of them who was responsible for ensuring that we’re all together/safe/etc…. well organized, I must say.

Then, we checked in to our rooms… me and Vinoth headed straight for the swimming pool… many were there… I just love swimming lengths and did so for quite a while. Then, we started the old-but-cool game of throwing in a coin and scampering to find and pull it at 7 ft depth :D and eventually played pool basketball as well…

Then we had a late breakfast and we had an emcee who was getting us involved in team games and it was kinda ok. Then we went to the beach to splash in the waves! That was so much fun. We also played beach volleyball, football, handball,… I had a good lunch and just went and sat in the shade near the beach just watching the vast water body.. and next thing I know I had drifted off asleep…

In the evening, we had a great lineup of events – there was a skit (by our Chennai Colleagues) where Munnabhai, BE wants to become part of Yahoo ..! , and a dance program and followed by the highlight of the evening – each and every manager in Yahoo came forward to do a bit of dance to his/her fave song. They really did well!

Finally, we had cocktails and dinner and then we boogied to the disco! I danced for about an hour and finally got exhausted. After that, me, Yashwanth and Dinesh (a new friend I made in the trip!) sat on the beach and had a great conversation about… well, let’s just say we talked about lotsa things. After about two hours, there, we could hear the disco songs still going on and yahoos are still jiving. Great energy!

Around midnight, we went to our respective rooms and hit the bed with exhaustion. What a great day! We had planned to wake up early the next day to get good snaps of the sunrise…

I had set the alarm at 4 am (believe it or not!) and I actually did wake up. I went to the beach, sat there, listening to the howling winds, sitting in the darkness, alone in my thoughts…. life seemed so right, my brain was working at lightning speed and I just was planning so many things about what I wanted to achieve in the future…. amazing that the right kind of environment and solitude and peace of mind can give you tremendous inspiration :)

I was waiting to get a good glimpse of the sunrise, but was ultimately disappointed, along with many other people, when the clouds had blocked the sun out and the sun eventually rose over the clouds. I so badly wanted a snap of the sun coming just over the water… that would’ve been cool.

Finally, we landed back in the pool and had a last hour of splash before we had to board the bus and come back home…

While I was going back to my room, Sarika (our HR) asked me ‘Why are you looking so lost?’ … I immediately joked ‘Because we have to get back today’… only later I realized how true that was! When things are going good and you are having fun, you just don’t want it to stop… it’s like – once we are in fast motion, we hate to slow down!

We had fun even in the 8 hour journey… I slept a bit and then listened to Bryan Adams’ ‘Room Service’ (thanks to Sehgal) – I really liked that song ‘Open Road’ – …. "Life is an open road… it’s the best story never told… it’s the endless sky… it’s the deepest sea… life is an open road to me…" :)

Towards the end of our journey, there was invariably a techie discussion going a few seats ahead of me… and me being the geek, got tempted and joined them… so there we were – Ankit, Suraj, Ashish, Sudhir and myself – we were discussing MySQL, Postgres, VIM, some internal Yahoo tools, … the best part was when Prem’s daughter 5-6 year old daughter Alisha soon joined us and she had her own story to tell us… it seems a small lady came down to meet her and she visually showed her hand to describe how really ‘small’ that lady was … and it seems that lady tried to climb a tree but fell down… and soon went back up in the sky… is that some imagination or what?!

Heh heh. Then we finally land back in Bangalore at 8 pm in front of our office. I took out my bike and went home – where my aunt & family have come back from Australia and all our cousins had got together… it was nice to meet all of them after such a long time.

Another great day…. !

Update

I have put up the photos now ! Coppermine software is cool :D

Check out my favorite picture of the sunrise – it’s my wallpaper now!