||One weekend with Friends||

Early this year we all came down from Bangalore, but could not gather much. This time around Christmas when Siddhartha came to visit his parents in Kolkata we thought of chilling out a day together. Staying out for night was not feasible, so we finalized on a place near Kolaghat called Deulti. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, the great bengali writer had built a house in Deulti. The place is on the banks of river Rupnarayan. Not many tourists know about this place. Naturally it was not crowded though the resort where we had lunch and a brief stay was popular. Aged couples and families came to spend a lovely winter day from Kolkata.

Due to shortage of time, mota arranged for a Toyota innova and 10 of us had to manage in that car. Uncle, Amitayu’s dad is an engineer, he checked it and said the task is difficult but doable.

We started at around 7 in the morning from city. Stopped midway for a cuppa at a roadside dhaba. It was not a usual small dhaba, rather a medium sized restaurant. Reached the resort within 2 hours maximum. Breakfast was fantastic with luchi, alur dom and sweets. The eating place was actually a lawn and surrounded by seesaws, swings etc. Everyone ran for those and started posing for me. All the time I suffer, nobody clicks a photograph of mine. That is bad, is not it?

After an hour of photo session, we went to the river side. It was a bright sunny day and the distant fog made the vast river magical. Villages along the banks were an added attraction for some. They saw a village for the first time. I spotted couple of Kingfishers and a Woodpecker but could not manage with my 50 mm fixed focus lens. I was watching the deep bottle-green water of the weed filled ponds silently as everyone was trying to talk at the same time. Everyone was so excited. We were coming back when a boatman shouted and offered to take all of us on a trip. We instantly agreed and enjoyed that thoroughly. And ofcourse, photo session continued for rest of the trip till we had to go back to the resort for lunch.

Lunch was an event! It was pure bengali cuisine; very tasty and there were good number of items. Siddhartha took eight pieces of fish fries!! After lunch there was nothing much to do. We had hour long chit chat with roasted chicken and potatoes in the evening. When it became dark, we started for Kolkata.

Around 7 in the evening, we reached Park Street and headed for PeterCat. Again had another round of very good food; courtesy Mota. He changed his job very recently. In all, enjoyed the day to the fullest and planned for the next gathering on the way back home! It was a lovely trip with friends after so many days.