Corporates taken for treasure ride

BANGALORE: "Are you looking for international consciousness? Keep chanting our Chief Minister''s name," was the cryptic clue. The answer? The Iskcon temple.
"The Cathedral that unites Mahatma Gandhi with his wife?" A tougher one, but Bangaloreans did answer —the St Mark''s Cathedral, on the corner of Kasturba and Mahatma Gandhi roads! The Karnataka Tourism Forum (KTF) organised "treasure hunt" on Sunday to increase corporates'' knowledge of Karnataka and it turned out to be a success with 126 teams enthusiastically participating.
Deciphering the cryptic clues, the teams zoomed over the local spots marked as tourist destinations in Karnataka to reach the ''treasure'' in the form of holiday packages to hotspots like Chikmagalur, Kodagu, Maravanthe and Mysore.
The corporate executives — several of them Hindi-speaking from companies like IBM, Ad Gel, Volvo and others —came in costumes ranging from the Vijayanagara King Krishnadeva Raya and Tipu Sultan to the Kodava traditional dress and the simple Gandhi cap and kurta of North Karnataka.
Individual prizes were given for best costume for the two-wheeler and the four-wheeler categories, decided by eminent people from the arts circle including actors Srinath and C.R. Simha, dancers Sandhya and Kiran Subramanium, architect Jaisim and others.
The vehicles were also ''dressed up'' for prizes. While a Bajaj scooter was ingeniously turned into the king''s elephant, complete with flapping ears and solid tusks, an Esteem had two horses stuck onto it, turning it into a horse-drawn chariot. Other vehicles had streamers and posters of the Mysore palace, Shravanabelagola and other tourist sites of Karnataka stuck onto them. An impromptu quiz prior to the prize distribution saw a lot of fun, though serious questions like the suspended stupa pillar at Belur and the number of districts Karnataka has, added to public knowledge.