• The badminton champ: The sole ambition of his life is to win the badminton championship he himself has invented. He has at least four raquets and an unnatural number of shuttlecocks. He is the common denominator in all the badminton matches. 

• The uncle who supervises the food: He will hover around the food area and supervise the arrangements. He is the one who will instruct the cooks to fry the fish for a little longer. If he is a nice man, he will give you a few chicken pakoras before they are served to everyone else. From the morning till the afternoon, he will make it his life’s purpose to make sure that the food is arranged in time.

• The children who have too much potential energy: They don’t do anything in particular. They will run about like bees and try to waste their potential energy. One minute you will find them near the swings, the next minute they are forcing Food Uncle to give them extra food. They have too much energy and very little patience. Till the moment everyone gets on the bus they will run about the place, often screaming. The moment they get back on to the bus, they’ll promptly fall asleep.

• The couple: This is the boy and the girl who will be struck by Cupid on the trip. They will enter the picnic spot and realise how they don’t fit in with the adults, nor can they stand the kids. They will realise that they have each other and wander into mysterious parts of the picnic spot, only to come back when everyone else is boarding the bus for the journey back. What they do during the time in the middle will always remain a mystery.

• The uncles who only want to get drunk: They are the ones who punch rum and Coke in the bottle and start drinking the minute they board the bus. When they reach the picnic spot, they will promptly find a corner (away from their wives’ eyes) and start their own party. They will break into Rabindrasangeet, and will be the first ones to start dancing to the Bollywood songs. 

• The parar dada with the guitar: He is the pop singer who never got a chance. He will carry his old guitar all the way to the picnic spot to play Anjan Dutt songs. And he will start taking suggestions only after he has run out of songs to play. Then he will play along with the drunk uncles, as they sing their out-of-tune ballads.

• The guy with the music player: He will bring his super fancy music system and blast Bollywood tracks until everyone is bored. He will break for lunch, only to resume afterwards.

• The cricket enthusiast:  He will always start a cricket match with the kids. And when he realises that they can’t play, he will look for other enthusiasts amongst people from the other age-groups. He has made too much of an effort in carrying the cricket bat all the way there, and he is determined to use it.

• The know-it-all: This person will claim that he/she knows every single spot in the area. They will reminisce about how they came to the same place a century ago and will urge the people to follow him/her on an adventure to explore the place. 

• The people who are forever complaining: They will criticise everything, from the ants on the trees to the danger their children are in on an open ground. They complain about how far the picnic spot is, and how long the journey is, how loud the music is and salt-less the food is. There is no making them happy.

Debroop Basu