Quick getaway

My daughter had an incredibly busy year from July 2018 to June 2019 – classes at 11 p.m., assignments to be submitted by 5 the next morning, that sort of thing. Naturally we could keep in touch only electronically, besides my running off to Delhi every now and then so that she could spend at least a night or two in the weekends with me. Well, now we are over it. I insisted on her taking a month’s break after that course ended, and mercifully she herself came around to seeing how valuable that could be, so she has been able to laze at home for several weeks at a stretch, and now it’s time for her to get back to Delhi and begin her working life in earnest.

This last week of her vacation I took three days off, 23^rd to 25^th. On Tuesday morning we drove off to Mukutmanipur. The staff at the WBFDC Sonajhuri resort there was as friendly and welcoming as I had found them to be in March last year, but this time Pupu and Ma were with me, and we had no trouble booking cottages (Haritaki and Amlaki, the ones with the best views) online beforehand, so it was heavenly. Since it was mid-week and ‘off season’, we had the resort more or less to ourselves. We decided within hours of arriving that we wanted to extend our stay for another day. The first day was stiflingly hot and sultry, and the only saving grace was the early-evening boat ride on the sadly depleted reservoir, but the next afternoon a thunderstorm arose out of nowhere, followed by torrential rain for an hour, which sharply brought down the temperature, and the drizzle continued till almost nine p.m. The meals were simple and very Bengali but sumptuous, so my cup was full. I think Ma enjoyed it quite as much as Pupu and I did. Sudipto the young manager couldn’t have been more insistent that we should visit more often.

Pupu likes big city life, but she also loves silent hills and forests. I cannot thank God enough for that. What would I have done with a daughter who didn’t love books and good movies, who didn’t do charity, who couldn’t tell the difference between music and monkeying, who couldn’t talk philosophy with me, but was crazy about shoes and clothes and makeup and parties and ‘likes’ on Facebook instead?

And what would have I done if my mother had also been a common woman?

 our cottages

 when it was raining hard

the storm was really violent