Kerning at Kohlad

Kerning at Kohlad (part 1)

It’s been a few days since we returned from our trip to Kohlad and most of us at Kern are just about recovering from body ache, muscle pulls, bruises and rashes. I suppose all of us have carried a bit of River Kundalika and the River Trail camp with us!

The last couple of days have been a rush to capture our memories on the World Wide Web, make it permanent through photographs, emails and blogs, so friends and family can partake in our weekend adventure. I suppose my attempt is no different. But the deal with writing a few days later is that you don’t have to capsule the entire trip in one blog post. The need to narrate everything is satiated and there’s time for reflection. Besides, memory is fragmented. We don’t remember in sequence, and neither do we remember everything. My posts about the trip are going to be short sprints, covering only certain aspects of the trip, as and when they occur to me. So here goes….

As the newest kid on the block, I was quite excited about the trip to Kohlad. Not everybody gets to go for a trip to an exotic location, less than a month into work, fewer get entrusted with the role of playing Paparazzi, to unleash ‘deep dark secrets’ as Geeta would put it. It was already a couple of days into the trip and Nishana and I had done little to carry out the secret mission that Geeta had entrusted us with. We were running out of time and Hot Seat, a game I played back in college seemed like the only way to get mission ‘deep dark secrets’ underway. The game was explained, the ‘rules’, remade and we were all set for our rather, let’s face it, voyeuristic endeavor. I mean, deep, dark secrets for the harmless and ordinary go little beyond matters of lust.
A good scientist always finds himself (or herself) the guinea pig and this, shall we say social experiment, was no different. Off I went to face the hot seat, a rather unmemorable stint, since I had few deep, dark secrets. Besides, people were just about getting warmed up and were still learning about the tool they had just been offered. I mean think of the potential of being allowed to ask your colleagues five questions (any kind of questions)!! Anyways, read on to find out some of the really interesting questions and equally dark answers.

Mini was among the earliest to face the hot seat and she was asked as to what the hottest thing about Ashish was. Mini, in her cute sincere style launches into this long speech about how well behaved a guy Ashish is and as to how (and here comes the clincher) amongst all the guys who have ever asked her out he’s the most trustworthy and respectful guy. Ripul, catches on to this real quick and asks her as to how many guys have actually asked her out. It’s not the fact that it was a sizable number that sent the rest of us into splits, it’s the fact that she took two whole minutes to count on her fingers that really got us.

Meghna was another very memorable victim, a willing victim at that. Since Ashim couldn’t join us this time (he’s off to S.Africa), Meghna had to first answer a bunch of five questions as Ashim and then answer five of her own questions. Ashim’s stint was boring, courtesy Sathyajit who couldn’t quit asking boring questions about choosing design over girl friend, money etc . He was obviously on his trip of proving that Ashim was above this world of moh and maya. Sathya, we get the point, move on buddy, you’re still made for the lowest rung on Maslow’s pyramid. Meghna, by then bored out her skull decides to ask herself the questions. So each time we were racking our brains, she’d tell us what to ask! Here’s the one that took the cake “Ask me what we did in the water tank at NID?” LOL…What followed was a delightful adventure of how the two managed to get themselves locked in a water tank that was out of bounds and narrowly missed getting suspended thanks to friends who conducted a fake contextual enquiry with the security guard!

Sushant (aka Baba, aka Sallu bhai): As the only single bachelor in the office, everyone was out to clobber him. Firstly, he refuses to give his take on the hottest woman in the office. Finally when pushed to the corner (even Sallu bhai can’t resist the attack of a pack of wolves), he settles on Archie, who he’s not met so far! But here comes the best part, Baba actually had a girl friend when he was studying abroad. And she was nothing lesser than a hot Columbian whose name was revealed after much fuss and threats of getting beaten up if ever contacted. Ripul of course pulled out his fancy technology and Googled for her name right away!

Ripul was an absolute pro at tackling the questions. I thought he displayed the poise of a celebrity in Karan Johar’s hot seat. Among other interesting ones was his side to the ‘airport story' which was news even to Rashmi. But what really laid the icing on the cake was Ruby’s persistent questions about Ripul’s marital status vis a vis Geeta. And this was post the long romantic story of how they met at the airport. Rumor has it that she’s still confused..lol..

Those were some deep dark secrets of some Kernites. Oh I completely forgot to mention Nishana and Ruby who couldn’t stop talking about their supportive husbands. Ruby still had things to say about Rahul ten minutes after she was off the hot seat (lol…that was really cute)

So that’s the scoop from Kern’s Paparazzi, look out for more posts on Kerning at Kohlad…