Botanical Gardens at 7 am.

On 4th September, I reached Turf View (meeting point to carpool or follow the convoy) late but Madhuri and Carl were yet to reach, somewhere behind Zoria’s car. I got into Zoria’s car and waved nonchalantly at a car behind us and then when we didn’t see the Mahindra behind us at the Toll gate we waited and wondered whether Madhuri and her new driver were still waiting for me near the Race Course or were lost in the spaghetti junctions off the new Howrah bridge. I always manage to get lost on the way to designer duo Nil and Dev’s studio which is apparently only 100 metres from the New Howrah Bridge! But they weren’t lost, they’d just nearly lost a hubcap!

The 4 of us, not expecting any other hashers to arrive, set off on forest paths or pug dundis as they are called up in the hills. Just as we were coming out of the bundu we serendipitously bumped into Gherda who had also arrived late. The Botanical Garden is so huge we would have easily missed him if it weren’t for the happy coincidence of taking the pug dundi path. According to Zoria, Serendipity was the name of a Sri Lankan princess whose life was full of happy coincidences. We continued down more such paths, disturbing clouds of yellow butterflies, and even took a pebble path around the center. We saw lots of early morning contortionists and some white balks which in Bonani’s absence are the slim white birds that are either storks, herons or cranes. We passed the large palm house and the lily pools and the mangrove trees and found ourselves somehow back at the entrance.

Back at the Taj we took a corner table by the pool in the smokers’ section near the buffet and enjoyed our adda and breakfast. We found out what happened on the un-panihati hash. Zoria and Carl also described a wonderful hash venue near the Howrah station. Gherda taught us satta a betting game with numbers.

The Ibiza resort (beyond Taratala crossing and Diamond Harbour) idea has fallen through. We are instead doing another stretch of the Wetlands. So meet in front of the ITC at 7 am. We will double back and breakfast at the Taj. Jaap is back so he will join us.