Holi – The festival of colours

After more than a decade , I finally got to be in a situation where I could be in India , in my home city at precisely the same moment when the festival of holi was to be celebrated, My Mama ji’s (maternal Uncle) daughter was getting married and she had managed to get me to promise her that I will be there in Punjab. The wedding was to be on 19th march in my Nana (maternal Grandfather) house, which is 5-6 hours from Chandigarh and if you go at my speed it could be done in 4 hours 30 minutes.. Since she was also going from Uk along with her Fiancée we all had only a few days to manage everything.

The ladies sangeet was to be on 16th and my flight to reach Chandigarh was on 15th and holi was on 17th , 18th was to be the day when girls side go to the boy’s side for the Shagun ceremony which was again to be in a village nearer to Amritsar, again a 5-6 hours journey, it was going to be a hectic schedule. My friends knew I was going to come and everyone was Like I had to make sure I would be with them on HOLI, so much so that some suggested to miss everything and be there, emails-phone calls , exchanged which involved a lot of swearing , shouting , but then it was fun thinking about it now.

So the journey began I landed at chandigarh airport to find my best matey Babbar at the airport, what I had not realised was he was not alone , a few others too turned up.. Cherry came, Sunjeet turned up from ambala, and my cousin Noni too turned up.

Fun time started from the airport itself, I had planned that I will leave by 3pm but one thing led to the other only to start for my village about 6pm in evening, the moment I left the city disaster struck, typical with me, things never go to plan , the rear tyre burst, “OH NO”, opened the boot to look for the spare to only find that the spare was also punctured, Not a good start at all.Thankfully there was a gentleman coming from the other side on his bike who gave Me and My punctured tyre a Lift, to a nearby village, I knocked on a house of the guy who fixes punctures stayed. He was kind enough to open and do the needful, after getting all that sorted I started off once again towards my village.

Thankfully nothing un-towards happened on the way other than the amount of phonecalls I was getting from my relatives , as according to them I was supposed to have reached home by 7pm NOT Started towards home at 7pm , One good thing happened the traffic seemed to ease out at night, which was good for me to get used to driving in India after so many many years soon I was back into INDIA MODE, zooming in and out, giving two hoots to the traffic coming from the right or the Red light on the way . The main roads were very good but as I went off the main road , it was chaos the BADAL Akali Govt. In all their wisdom suddenly decided to dug up all the village connecting roads , have their contractors put the raw material on the sides.. Election Gimmicks I guess to get votes, I was not happy god know how many times I abused these Govt officials.

Anyway to cut the Story short because this is supposed to be an article on the 17th March , I reached home about 2am, the bed had been laid for me , I met everyone , talked for a bit and off to Zzzzzzzz land. Next day we got busy in doing some work, the ladies sangeet started, and my phone would not stop ringing because everyone at Chandigarh was asking When am I starting, I had with lot of persuasion managed to make all my relatives aunty’s and uncles agree to the fact that I have to return.. The fun carried on till about 11pm where everyone started to pack up, and go to sleep , since the function was in the village it was just a family affair , come 11 pm I sat in my car and Zooomed back to Chandigarh, Reached Babbar’s house at approximately 4-5am in the morning. I was so damn tired I went to sleep ..

Early morning I was woken up to the sound of HORNSSSSSSSsss – LOUD MUSIC – TRUMPETS etc, kids were running around on the road outside, neighbours were putting color on each other It felt so fresh, I walked out of the house to be bombarded with Colour .. Rest of my friends started turning up , I was meeting them after more than a decade, everyone had changed so much, a few had got married , a few had become parents , some had lost their hair , It was fantabulos.

Whoever came to the house was targeted with color – water anything that came to hand

That is me filling the Bucket and making sure I put it all over Babbar .. 🙂

and he in return joined the kids to make sure , he has his revenge on ladies .. boooooooooooooo too him 🙂

We decided to go uphill for a picnic, The ladies did a wonderful job I must say with all the food, we men were responsible for the DRINKS 🙂 , started towards Morni hills on the way saw a lot of people enjoying the festival especially these girls , who were standing from inside the sunroof, singing their head off , drinking too which made them go louder and louder, but I guess the idea was to enjoy, they were surly enjoying, we enjoyed just watching them 🙂

Drove for sometime in the hills singing , dancing , on way found a little stream of water running , so stopped for our picnic, the kids in the group were having fun with me as their english chachu, couple of them were seeing me for the first time , so I guess they were all Ga Ga of a foreign returned Chachu.. they started to play with me

I also joined them in the fun and took them on in the battle of the Water …

When I was unable to control them , I had to do the MAN THING.. I had to take LAW in my hands and MAN-HANDLE the kids into submission and I WON.. yooooooooooooooooo hooooooooooooooo , bring it on… KIDDO’s

yess , I took each one of them and dunked them in that stream MUUUU HA HA HA HA HA HA .. Bad chachu I guess

Food time came, ladies had prepared some delicious food, for the Foreign returned, making sure there was not much spices etc, as it was only my second day in india,I did not want to get sick , But saying that by then so much alcohol had gone inside that it would have been pretty Safe to eat anything .. as I am sure you all know that “Darooo peene se PEt ke saare Kide mar jaate hain”.. 🙂 he he he .. don’t ask me to translate that in English , it wont be funny then 🙂 .. but just for those who don’t understand hindi (Drinking Alcohol, kills all the germs in the stomach), see not funny at all ..

Food time

The Long walk back to the parked cars ..

The Whole gang well almost as a few left to find another place uphill to have coffee ..

Ended up on top of a hill where I in my tipsy mood had fun with the kids ..

HAPPY HOLI Guys, how did you celebrate yourssss…