A visit to dreamland - report

I would have called in Neverland, but that is taken, so I will stick to dreamland. I am packing to leave dreamland and it is then that it hits you hardest, like when you wake up from a dream. So before I leave dreamland I thought I must put my thoughts on paper. That's what I have always done when I want to remember a dream.... write it down.

I first came across Dreamland when I received a card... I wouldn't call it a brochure....it was printed on a card that, when folded, was the size of a visiting card. The card talked about a training programme in work-life balance. The card was brief and mentioned a fax number, phone number and a website for further information. It piqued my curiousity so I put the card in my wallet. Later in the evening I typed in the URL and arrived at their homepage that described the place as an ecologically-friendly place and had pictures of the place too. On an impulse, I sent the card to my training manager and two months later, I was at the gates. As mentioned, the car had picked me up from the airport and we drove two hours to reach dreamland. There was no guard at the gates. The driver honked the horn and someone came over to open the gate. We drove straight to the office. While driving I got a glimpse of the place.

The grounds were well laid out and well kept.. but also had a good natural feel to it. There seemed to be one central building surrounded by independent cottages. The buildings obviously followed the "low cost" philosophy and didn't have any plastering. Each cottage seemed to have two independent approaches, obviously meant for two guests. The main building constituted of a hall. The hall had open sides and obviously no air-conditioning, though it had an abundance of electric fans.

The driver collected the key and drove me to my cottage. Once inside I saw the room was pretty much what was described on the website. A spartan room with a double-bed, a table and chair and an attached bathroom with running water ..and NO TV!... we were told there would be no TV and were encouraged to bring along books that we would like to read... there was also a library of books that had been left behind by other guests. The room too had no air-conditioning, but was well ventilated and had a fan. Though the room was clean and had fresh linen, a broom in the corner reminded me that it was my responsibility to keep it that way. The site had said that the entire facility was WIFI enabled and I could use the internet whenever I wanted to. As much as possible all trees on the facility were maintained. They were obviously not planted for the facility because they didn't follow a particular pattern, there were trees all over.

Once I unpacked, I went and met the facility manager, as per instructions. The manager told me that the facility had to be run by the guests themselves. Though there was a dining hall and an automatic laundry.. doing chores was an integral part of the dreamland experience. Chores included washing dishes, recycling the waste, tending to the lawn and plants, etc. I was handed a timetable of the things I had to do during the one week I stayed here.

The training....at least the in-class part of it... took place from 10 to 5 so that during the hottest parts of the day one could sit inside the hall under the fans. But the chores don't occupy the whole day, there were plenty of time to do things on your own too.

In fact many people just sit around and read or write in silence. There are also small groups of people talking to each other too.

The training programmes were of two kinds. First there were programmes organized by dreamland and there were programmes organized by others who rented the dreamland facilities...always with the same rules...even the trainer has to join in to do chores. Sometimes they have in-company training programmes, where often senior and junior executives work shoulder to shoulder.

The entire facility is built in an ecologically friendly way where resources are used judiciously and as much as possible, waste is recycled.

The brochure says that a new vision of business can only take place from a fundamentally new way of thinking about relationships. Relationships with oneself, relationship with other people and relationship with one's environment. Now that I have stayed here for one week, I know what it means.