Scoring squard goals!

From brides who need their bridesmaids to know each other well on the lead up to the big day, to corporate offices which need their young teams comprising fresh graduates from all over the country to gel, activities that foster team spirit have taken a radical few steps up in this city. We take a look at the crazy new trends in team games that Bengalureans have been getting up to, to boost their squad’s energy levels.

With a dozen city venues opening up for detailed day adventures, team games have slowly been moving away from the physical. Avantika Ghosh, who works as the chief of human resources at an IT firm in the city, says, “We have several teams made up of people, all who come from every where in India. Overtime, we realised that in spite of the cricket matches, colleagues were still cloistered in their own twosome groups and not getting to know the team at all, so we decided to organise a scavenger hunt at a large mall. It was a huge success because for the first time, people had a chance to work together in a really fun setting, in spite of the language barriers.”

One of the newest trends is to eschew technology altogether and have a fun day out with your team. Kiran Shivappa, who runs the Escape Room, says, “We create a story of a prison where the ‘inmates’ have 45 minutes to escape with nothing but the combined power of their minds. We get many corporate teams of freshers who are awkward around each other coming in, and with one experience in a closed room, they transform into a team. The idea is to not involve any sort of machinery so that people can study the others in their team and work out a way of escape that suits them all, instead of staring at a screen like they do at work anyway.”

Corporates are not the only ones. With cross-cultural weddings taking place in larger numbers in the city, brides and grooms to be have been taking their friends and families out for activities that can boost understanding better than a stiff lunch in a star hotel. Shruti N, a creative designer who recently got married to her Australian husband, Scott, says, “In the days leading to my wedding, my husband’s sisters and friends were always awkward around my family. They were practically snowed in by worries that a freak remark will offend us. So my husband and I decided to take our respective friends and families out for a day of paint-balling and go-karting.

The results were hilarious and we all left really relaxed.” Some team games, however, force you to leave your shell for mere survival. Aniruddh Bhaskar, a marketing analyst with a city firm, discovered the tough life with an office game that required him to make a tent in the wilderness. “We first had to build a raft, then take it to the other side of a stream, where a tent had to be assembled – all this in the outskirts of a city like Bengaluru. Not only did we shout at each other a lot, the greatest discovery was that the silent people were the most useful!”