A brush with paintball

Courting adventure

Spolt! Before you can figure out why your clothes are drenched with water colour, another pellet will bounce onto you, leaving you looking like a skewed rainbow. This is the world of paintball that has been colouring the City in different hues since 2007.

Out of the many adventure sports, paintball is fast catching up in the City. The adventurous streak, leadership-building ability, team-building psyche and mind-boggling strategies of the game have made paintball a popular sport for all the right reasons.

The City hosts the ‘Paintball Indian Open’ every year, by National Paintball League, where teams come from different states to participate. The game is more than just a pastime, it’s a growing sub-culture.

Ritesh, a business partner at ‘Paintball X’ in Uttarahalli, says that their weekends are packed with at least 300 people who come in to play paintball.

 “The best part about this game is that it has no age limit. Though college students are interested, the corporate culture in Bengaluru keeps this game afloat because it acts as a team building activity and requires a lot of planning,” he says. Swapnil, the founder of ‘Paintball X’, adds that the number of customers have been increasing ever since they started and due to the huge market for this sport, they conduct paintball events in colleges too, with temporary set-ups.

Kumar, from ‘Xtreme Zone’, says that paintball can be played indoors or outdoors, on natural or artificial terrain.

“The game evokes a competitive spirit among people, which is not very difficult to pick up.” Amit, who is in-charge of paintball at ‘Play Arena’, says that he sees about 300 people coming in to experience the thrill during weekends, who comprise walk-in families and friends. He says that more than the game, the   planning that goes behind the sport makes for a very interesting and challenging experience.

“Indoor arenas can be tweaked depending on the interest and budget. At ‘Play Arena’, we have an urban set-up with tanks, sand-bags and tyres but it’s interesting to see how other people innovate and use spaces creatively.” 

Though it’s a slightly expensive sport and can be dangerous if equipment like masks, goggles, gloves and knee-pads aren’t used, the sport helps develop reflexes. Naresh, owner of ‘Yuyutsa’, which caters to conducting paintball tournaments for corporates, describes paintball as an “extreme safe sport”. “One’s feet is always grounded while playing paintball so it’s not very dangerous.”

However, one of the biggest hindrances to the sport can be the scarcity of field as Naresh adds that this challenge causes teams to move further away from the City. Nothing can compare the adrenalin rush as people agree that paintball is like competing in a warzone.

With guns spurting colours, teammates helping each other dodge water pellets so that they survive, hiding behind artificial terrains and running away from colour-filled capsule – paintball makes for a perfect sensorial experience.