January 2024 – Goa

So the New Year started with a bang as it was my sister Suman’s landmark birthday… her big seven oh 70th!! She was extremely keen on taking our whole family away to Goa on a holiday and I think she started planning it about a year in advance. Now getting everyone together is no feat considering that she lives in Raigarh, her son is in Singapore, her daughter is in Kolkata, one granddaughter is working in New York, one grandson is in Germany, one granddaughter is in Missouri at boarding school, my eldest sister lives in Manchester, her son lives in Kuala Lumpur and finally me and my clan are all in Kolkata!!! So you can imagine the mammoth task Suman undertook and the best part is that she achieved it. She booked 3 lovely villas in the Vagator area for 3 nights and we partied from morning till night. We ate and drank to our hearts desire and laughed and laughed till we cried. Often… getting a large group of relatives together for any period is asking for trouble as someone or the other always feels hard done by and feelings are hurt. Here fortunately we all got on famously and I can honestly say that we had a fabulous time. Credit must go to Suman who was determined to organise this and wouldn’t let anything trouble her or put her off. We partied so hard that by the last night we were just too exhausted to even think of going out and ended up relaxing in our kaftans and getting takeaway!!! Now I can understand we ‘budhas’ feeling this but for the children to be done too is saying something!! The best part was that we got to interact with all the youngsters so much and they opened up with us and we were playing drinking games and trading awful jokes… they seemed so funny at that time!!! So thank you Suman for all the wonderful memories you left us with and the beautiful family photograph and frame you gifted us!!!

So January….. done ✔️✔️