46) Life lessons wrapped in games!

Team Orange!

Experiential Learning was completely different from what I had anticipated about it. I thought it would be an intellectual grill, but it turned out to be ‘life lessons’ wrapped in games, that seemed like sports day on the surface, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. After playing all the activities, while going back home, I realised it was so much more than just physical activities. Everything makes sense in hindsight, and so does ‘Experiential Learning’.

We all gathered on the college campus and had the morning tea (or morning desserts). Then we were given balloons to blow up and save them from being burst by other team members. The teams were formed by the organizing committee, so it was ensured that no good friends were in the same team. Thus, I got to talk and play with people I have had the fewest conversations with in college so far. 

Lesson 1: to deal with people you don’t know and play with them as a team!

Initially were asked to sit with our teams in the bus to Karjat, but later we were allowed to sit with our friends, and that set the right joyful tone for the journey! We sang, danced, and laughed our way to Pinewood Resort. The journey does not feel tiresome when you travel with your friends, and so the time just flew by, and we reached. Started with misal pav and tea, we explored the place, and what caught all our attention was the swings of all sizes, the see-saw, and the slides. 

The first activity was of a wooden plank, where the team was divided into two groups with 4-5 people on one side. We all had to keep our feet on the wooden plank and hold the ropes tied to the plank in our hands. The plank goes ahead only if there is the right coordination, but the points were for the balls of different sizes that were lying on our way; those had to be picked and kept in our hands till the time is up or we reach the other side, but in all this, we have to make sure that we still hold the ropes. We could go till halfway, but were able to take the plank ahead and pick up all the balls on our way, but we did realize that even if one person does not cooperate, the plank does not move. We saw teams fall on their own members, push way balls they actually had to pick up, and what all can go wrong when different people work together as a team.

Lesson 2: Multitasking with a team is difficult but not impossible if planned well.

The second activity was to make a tent out of three bamboo sticks, a tarpaulin, a rope, and a pair of scissors. But the twist was to do it creatively. With such minimal resources and no prior experience in making a tent, we began with basic maths, tied the three bamboos in a triangular shape, and then, to make it different from others, we used the white side of the tarpaulin on the outside and blue on the inside. It was definitely not the best tent, but as management students, we recalled our marketing classes and marketed it well. The white surface will reflect sunlight in summers, and it is sustainable as we can reverse the tarpaulin in the monsoon, also we can use the white surface as a screen to watch movies. It looks like we were bluffing, but that is what advertisements do.

Lesson 3: Try to make a good product, but advertise it as if it is the best!

Our Tent!

This was followed by Lunch, our class sat together and had a discussion on food, cultures, and regional language wars. The topics in discussion were more decadent than the food! After lunch, we got a frooti and sipped it while swinging on the swing. It felt like we were all living our last bit of childhood. There is a very slight difference between being childish and childlike, but those lines blurred, and we rejoiced in those moments!

MMS 'C' division!

The last activity was like a relay with a twist. First, we had to skip to a point, then give back the rope to the next player, then a sack race to a certain point, again returning the sack, then using only two square pieces of cardboard to walk to the other side. After reaching the other side, we had fill our mug with water, and come back to the starting point to pour that water into the bucket. The mug had holes on all sides, leading to the water leaking by the time we reached the other end. The final winner would be the team that had more water in the bucket. So it wasn’t about who skipped fast, or the sack raced fast, or walked on the cardboard fast; it was about the water level. The water leaking from the mug looked like time flowing away from our hands before we reach our goals. Two of our team members were absent, and one was injured, so three of us had to do this twice. It was tiring, but satisfying at the end.

Lesson 4: Make sure to fill the bucket of life with memories, because in the end, that is what matters!

Post the activities, we had our evening snacks, and then we gathered in the conference hall, where the prize distribution was to take place. Every activity had points, but in the end, we all won; we were all given medals. Some people were unhappy about it; they really wanted to either win or lose. But I absolutely loved the concept of everyone winning, because otherwise in life, we will either win or lose, but for the last time, we all won!

Happy Reading,

-सिddhi Bhosale.

MMS Batch of 2025-27.

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46. Life lessons wrapped in games! : https://sidthisside.blogspot.com/2026/03/life-lessons-wrapped-in-games.html