Horrifying experience @Ill-managed IMAGICA!!! Yesterday I visited IMAGICA on the occasion of my daughter’s birthday. While most of the day went on well, it ended on a sour note, thanks to some mismanagement on the part of IMAGICA management. I would like to share my experience for others who intend to visit IMAGICA to be aware what they can be confronted with! While my daughter was in the queue for the “Happy Wheels” ride, another kid jumped the queue and got in the ride, unfortunately with full encouragement and support of the parents who were by-standers. As a normal rule abiding patron, I raised my objection about this with the IMAGICA staff along with another gentleman whose kid had lost his turn due to queue jumping by the other kid. While we were arguing with the IMAGICA staff, the parents of the queue jumping kid came to us and started abusing us without provocation. They were in a bigger group and appeared to be from some parts of either Gujarat or Rajasthan. On giving them our peace of mind, they came to blows with us with the support of the larger Group which they had with them. The way in which the males in that group attacked me and the insulting language in which they spoke to my wife was extremely horrifying!!! While this entire episode was taking place, the IMAGICA staff members who are assigned the task of managing the rides in an orderly and fair manner were silent observers. They were conveniently following the policy of “All guests are equally important for us” not realising that they were indirectly supporting the indecency and the audacity of the uncultured, uncivilized souls who had made it to the park only because they could afford it financially. While this particular incident got managed without too much of damage, it clearly puts a question mark on the readiness of the IMAGICA management to deal with such situations and more importantly the overall philosophy they follow while dealing with such situations. Inspite of repeated requests the Concerned Manager at the location (Name - Rakesh Jha as communicated by him) was neither willing to take any concrete action against the members of the troublemaking group nor was he willing to share the details of the members from the uncivilized group for me to lodge a formal police complaint against those members. In fact he was trying his best to convince me on not reporting this incident. He did not even have the courtesy to share his visiting card or the email id of Mr. Manmohan Shetty. While talking to one of the security personnel later, I realised that they have been informally instructed to have a very soft stand in such situations. In fact one of the security guard was suspended for 6 months for taking a tough stand against some guests creating nuisance in the park. The initiatives like IMAGICA are clearly a replica of the Disney land concept already operational in countries like USA, Singapore & Hong Kong. While they have managed to copy the concept of theme park from these countries (which is no surprise as one of the promoters of IMAGICA, Mr. Manmohan Shetty has his roots in Bollywood) they have failed miserably to implement the discipline and orderliness in managing the show. There is enough scope for discrimination in their fare design itself. Why have a system of IMAGICA Express (an official paid option to jump queues by paying additional price) when that cannot be used for every ride. For instance, the “Happy Wheels” ride where the whole altercations took place is not covered under IMAGICA Express scheme. People with more money and inversely proportional brains & education fail to understand the “conditions apply” clause in such schemes and think that they are the privileged GODs in the park because they have paid extra. This note is an effort from my end on one hand to persuade the IMAGICA Management to introspect on the ways they are managing the show and on the other hand to all my friends and readers of this note that they need to be prepared for the unexpected even while visiting a reputed Theme Park like IMAGICA!! Amol Shirodkar amolshirodkar1@rediffmail
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 17:08:09 +0000
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