Picnic

Yesterday, Rakhi was followed by a picnic. It was an impromptu invitation by our friends Giri & Shruti. It was organised by their relative Kailash Uncle who was representing an organisation calles "Maheshwari Parishad". Maheshwaris are a part of the "Marwari" community who have distinct customs/ culture. Needless to say that Giri & Shruti belong to that community & along with our friendship, my understanding & knowledge about their customs has grown especially over the last year.

So, we accompanied them on this picnic which was being organised for Sawan. The place was awesome. We had attended another picnic at the same place a couple of years back. It is a farm house located bang on the banks of the Ganges which was built by the Britishers as a rest-house associated with one of the big jute mills in Kolkata called "Agarpara Jute Mill". Besides the great ambiance , there was " shudh shakahari khana"(pure veg food) , which was surprisingly very good, a mehendi corner where you had to sit in a line for a long long time to put mehendi for free, lots of games, swings & a cultural program.

We arrived late around 1:30 pm. The program was on from 9 in the morning. The weather was not great at all. It was very humid & hot- quite a wrong time for a picnic. But we did not want to miss out on the great outdoors. So in spite of the heat, Ansh made the most of the wide open spaces. He was constantly on the move. His favourite activity was playing with the gravel, swinging by the Ganges & fishing in the Ganges with either a blade of grass or a stick. Besides running around with Ansh & eating the good food, I did not do anything. Abhi as usual found a quiet corner on a sofa to nap. I got really tired by evening we left the place at 4:30 pm.