We checked out of the resort and were heading towards my brother’s home in Kolkata. A few minutes into the journey, I just floated the hypothetical “How about we head back to our parents in Kalyani?”. Of course, there were always those initial “Would be great, but what about…..?”. Ultimately, the surprise element of the adventure was enough that we decided we will change course. The price to be paid was that we would have to wake up very early and head back to Kolkata at a God forsaken time tomorrow morning.

The journey was a tad tedious what with my brother getting caught driving without a license (he left it at the resort, the cop was nice enough to let him go after talking to the resort) and getting caught in a tight jam due to construction. After about four hours we finally had covered 100 km (60 miles).

Of course, there was complete mayhem once we all walked in our parents’ house. Remember, they were under the impression they were going to see me in another three to four months when I left home a few days back. Then the two nephews confounded their whole confusion by trying to pull their own stunts of surprises. With all the commotion, my sister and niece came up from downstairs and promptly added to the confusion.

You can see in this picture my elder nephew holding court and has convinced half the crowd that we are leaving in about another hour’s time. Of course, slowly but surely he is getting caught in his own lies. But the best was when my mom demanded to know why do we have to leave tonight (which is untrue, by the way) and before my sister in law could explain that she had duties in her school tomorrow for India’s Republic Day ceremony (which is the truth, by the way), my brother added for good measure “Kaal Obama aaschhen” (Tomorrow Obama will be coming).

My father who is hard of hearing raised his voice “Kaal tor Baba Ma aaschhen???” (meaning Your inlaws are coming in tomorrow?) 🙂

Right now, there is absolute chaos and total confusion. At this rate, even I might forget what are our real plans are 🙂

Giving some cricketing tips to my nephew. The real cricketers might point out that what I was teaching had nothing to do with cricket whatsoever – in fact the bat is nowhere near the ball… but that is just a matter of detail… 🙂

And those are the 23 cousins and their families (including the two in the inset who had to leave early and myself as the photographer) that got together for a couple of days. This has never happened before ever and I don’t think we can pull this off again ever but it was certainly great to see all those relatives of mine for a few days all under the same roof. Learnt a lot about my extended family from mom’s side.

Statistically, the youngest and the eldest ones were separated by about half a century!!!
Also, we had 1 doctor, 5 teachers, 6 in other services and 5 homemakers.
Further, if you discount me, everybody lives within 100 miles of each other or less! The one exception point (me) is about 10,000 miles away!!!

And that completes my third goal for this trip!!