Ghatsila - Holi khela

The day I returned to Kolkata from Sikkim, I got a call in the evening from a school friend to meet up. I passed, since I was too tired that day. But others from the group, which now includes their spouses as well, met and called me to "inform" that I was going with them to Ghatsila during the Holi holidays. Not request, not ask, but inform! Being the only bachelor in the group has it's own "dis"-advantages :(

So anyway, we took an early morning train to Ghatsila, Jharkhand. It had rained there the night before making the weather very pleasant. We didn't waste much time and a quick lunch later went out to explore the area. First up was Burudih lake, a result of the creation of Burudih dam, a few kilometers away from the town. The "jungle" route was scenic, but not for those with a bad back. We did some paddle boating in the beautiful lake, and moved on to Phuldugri hills. Supposedly quite a number of movies have been shot there, but we couldn't really see why! We did some still photo shooting of our own there and came back to the town. We spoke to a lot of people, and almost all of them warned us not to venture out on Holi day. Apparently, it gets "nasty"! We were a little disappointed at this, since we wanted to see a few more places the next day. But once back to our hotel, we managed to drown our disappointment over a few drinks, and enjoyed ourselves with a lot of singing, eating and talking.

Burudih lake

The next morning, two of us went out to figure out the scene. We were quite surprised to see that at 07:30 in the morning, a shoe shop and a clothes shop was open - that too on Holi! We didn't find a single person with colors smeared on them! So we came back to our hotel, and discussed the possibility of venturing out. But instead of getting ready, we started playing Holi amongst ourselves in the hotel, and made quite a mess of ourselves and the common room. Meanwhile the streets were also full of people in colorful colors. We were pleasantly surprised to see that people weren't going bizzare with strangers on the road. The revelers would ask for permission and then smear gulaal (aabir) or water colors. When I went out to buy some more colors, two of them politely said "Happy Holi", and only put colors on my arm. We didn't see a single water baloon being thrown. The funny thing was, the drunk ones seemed to be more keen on throwing their own shirts up in the air and catching them than throwing colors!

It's ok if you don't recognize me

Post lunch we could have gone out, but since one of us was not feeling too well, we stayed back and rested. In the evening, we played a lot of dumb charade, and really got involved. As you can imagine, there were a lot of dumb-ness in dumb charade, and quite a few laughter champion moments. It went on till late in the night, but still, some of us got so involved, that they actually woke up in the middle of the night to jot down a few difficult movie names for the next day's play!

The hands that played Holi

The next morning, we went to visit the Subarnarekha river. It was more like a stream, and my guess is, it has a lot to do with the Burudih dam holding the water. We lingered there for a while, strolled for a while, had our breakfast, and came back to our hotel for some more dumb charade! Post lunch, we took the train back to Kolkata. Even there, we "adjusted" with others so that we could be in the same seat-cubicle, and played yet more dumb charade!

Subarnarekha river

Believe it or not, this was my first trip with school friends, and it doesn't get much better than this. I am already looking forward to more trips with them. The post trip party is next weekend, where we are sure to discuss a longer trip :)