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atch the enthusiasm of the Ganga Kutir ducklings (Ram and Laskhman) as you feed them bread crumbs!

Look in awe at the resident Mansa Devi idol, which survived a dramatic float down the river from god-knows-where to rest on the banks of Ganga Kutir.

Give your children their first feel of driving a moving car around the safe Pakhiralaya roundabout.

Walk 20 feet ahead of Pakhiralaya 20AB - where full-grown trees are within handshake distance and eye-level - to ‘shoot’ butterflies at play.

Watch a multi-racial pigeon family - white, brown and black - step out for its morning walk from the exhaust vent of 11B Pakhiralaya.

Get the masseur at Anaya Spa to give you a 'stretttcccch' while he balances (not holds!) you on his back.

Float into your alpha at Room E of Anaya Spa with a view of a champa tree and the Hooghly.

Get into a peppy mood with the specially invented Mint Special (chopped pineapple, sweet lime, mint leaves, sugar syrup, and lemon and crushed ice) at Captain’s Deck.

Get clicked for posterity under the arch on the driveway of the Ffort entrance.

Walk in the midnight stillness and darkness from the clock tower in The Ffort Holiday Klub to the Ffort.

Marvel at the spectacle of 42 muted lights on what once used to be the car park of the Ffort; best viewed late into the night with no distracting lighting in view.

Rise before sunrise, steal into Pakhiralaya and jot down different bird-calls (the list should go to 38!).

Spell bird-calls for a change!

Feel the Hooghly breeze in your face, while you are cruising mid-river in the Pari at 30 kmph.

Invest 19 seconds in watching room-maker (craftsman actually) Sameer Garai create a duck out of a towel and then place it ceremonially on the Ganga Kutir bed.

Photograph the natural phenomenon of silvery droplets on leaves in Ganga Kutir’s lotus pond; best done early morning when facing the sunrise.

Milk the cow at Goushala (Ganga Kutir); typically rare experience for urban hands!

Play the piano at the Ffort (however badly!) and hear it resonate across the atrium.

Hitch a lift on a passing golf cart, take the back seat and glide noiselessly through the property.

Request Satya Paik, resident Baul exponent, to deliver you a live performance.

Shoot the water falling across three levels at the Infinity Pool (Ganga Kutir) in variously slow shutter speeds – and study the differences in impact.

Send your children on a pebble hunt (‘perfectly oval, white and black spots, smooth surface only’) so that your spouse and you get quality time for the next two hours!

Try and shoot an orange and black butterfly in flight!

Shoot droplets in different designs on lotus across the property; host an exhibition called ‘Diamonds in Water’.

Tune in to the evening Hooghly ripples.

Capture the distant Haldia night sky in orange from the refinery flares.

Shut your eyes and hear the gurgle of the running water in the corridor of the Ffort Holiday Klub (just outside the courtyard).

Lie down in Robin Mistri’s boat from outside the property and count the stars.

Putt on the mini-green inside the Ffort garden; while you struggle with the seventh, remember Tiger Woods can do it in two nearly 90 times out of 100!

Jog the 1,500 m from Pakhiralaya to the main iron gate; time yourself; the world champion would probably have taken 3 minutes 26 seconds!

Coast over the hump on the approach road to the property (before the last big left turn) at 80 kmph – and feel the vacuum in your abdomen.

Savour the magic of the loochi radhaballabhi from Ramkrishna Mistanna Bhandar, before you turn in right from the highway for the last 10 km haul to the iron gate.

Photograph the idyllic bliss of a white-masted sail boat plough noiselessly through the river and remember that this single scene inspired thousands of water colourists across Bengal.

Take your shoes off and feel the unbelievable sponginess of the garden at the SMIFS Bagan bari (prior permission advised). The term ‘green carpet’ was never more relevant than here.

When it pours, sneak into the gazebo behind the Ffort, lie on the floor, shut your eyes, tune in to the sheet of raindrops and if you are still awake six minutes later, we will send the gazebo back to its manufacturer and ask for a refund.

Hear the swish of the palm trees in Pakhiralaya on any lazy afternoon; this de-stressor comes free.

Catch the waft of Hemanta from some villager’s transistor float and remember that Lata Mangeshkar said the voice resembled that of a pujari who attracted devotees into the temple.

Boat on the moat.

Play chess on the mega-board of the Ffort property; derive anti-imperialistic pleasure in getting a nayak subedar to bump off the British king!

Arm yourself with a camera and catch the sky during the magical 15 minutes after sunset; set the camera in tungsten mode for the kind of pics you see in the National Geographic.

Fill a pocketful of after-mint (viryaali in Gujju lingo) after you have paid the restaurant bill; someday this will be marketed by an entrepreneurial mind as ‘Raichak ni Viryaali’; until then it’s unpatented and you can have as much as you want.

Tell yourself you will do nothing in Raichak; then spend 10 hours teasing the mind with the works of Paul Klee, Bankim Chandra, Vivekananda, Gauguin, Shakespeare, Rabindranath, etc etc etc in the Ganga Kutir library.

Sit Yvette Bose down and don’t miss her arched eyebrows as she describes her unexpected run-in with a six foot monkey that came across the river in a boat.

Photograph your children standing between Ganga Kutir’s Infinity Pool and the river; caption the printout ‘Daring kids’ for an unsuspecting audience.

Get someone to picture you with the guns on the wall of the Ffort; drop the audience with the line ‘Whitney, 1865 make’ most casually and watch the reaction from the side of your eye.

Wear bold black; stand against the tiled black-and-white background of the Ffort Holiday Klub; caption the picture ‘Rebel’ and pin it on your office felt board to impress the girls.

Suspend yourself in the Anaya Spa floatarium like they do in the ultra-saline Dead Sea; remember Jesus and all that.

Stagger like Deewar-wala Amitabh at the Anaya Spa entrance, ringing the overhead bells and mouthing ‘Bhagwaan, maine tere se aaj tak kuch nahin maanga...’

Look in wonder at the bowl on the receptionist’s table in Anaya Spa; it contains 630 petals bunched into an intricate design pattern; made afresh each morning; creator deserves an award.

Look up at the guillotine outside Reflections restaurant and remember that this was the quickest and painless way to meet one’s Maker more than 200 years ago; then just feel your neck for dramatic effect!!

Get your subject underwater at the Ffort pool, make him/her face straight up, shoot from above. When Neil Leifer shot Mark Spitz exactly like this, the picture made it to Sports Illustrated!

Step outside the property, hire the village equivalent of a bus (a cycle rickshaw with a flat base for seating) and go on a ride through the KOPT complex (permission required) right to the river. That’s rural India’s natural mass rapid transport.

Find your way across the Pakhiralaya catwalk to the point where it overlooks the FX-11 Bagan bari; you are looking into the largest individual property in the complex.

Walk across the Pakhiralaya catwalk, gaze out at the village and remember that the place where you stand was exactly like this some 20 years ago.

Raise your head to view the spectacular batik on the ceiling of the Ganga Kutir restaurant; then raise your glass in salute to the spirit of the 92-year-old Sri Lankan who created it – Ina D’Silva!

Roll up the windows to shut extraneous sound and dust until you get to Sarisha More; roll down the windows to soak in the breeze during the last 10-km drive into Raichak-on-Ganges.

Relish the visual spectacle of the arched trees after you turn at Serakole on your way to Raichak; rare, right?

Talk to the birds at Raichak for a change; when they coo, you coo in return; see the volume of the rejoinder rise with each successive mimic!

Get the wife to the striped and bulging balcony of Mallika; then stand on the ground floor and recite ‘Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say good night till it be morrow.’ from Act II Scene II of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Gaze at the river rolling by and intone W. H. Davies’s ‘What is this life, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare’.

Drive beyond Raichak to Bakkhali (three hours away) for a change to see the Roopnarayan and Hooghly come together in a grand union.

Cycle around the complex. When was the last time you did so (or on second thoughts, did so without the fear of getting run over by a careering auto-rickshaw)?

Walk through the adjoining villages; glimpse villagers getting ahead with their daily lives, someone weaving, someone sifting wheat, someone carrying a child on the waist – and more.

Create an unforgettable treasure hunt for friends and family (call us for clues!).

See the sun disappear below the horizon from the Captain’s Deck; then intone with a shaayrana flourish ‘Subah hoti hai, shaam hoti hai, zindagi yun hi tamaam hoti hai’.

Get yourself photographed with the Ffort in the background, so that you can tell all your admirers in office ‘When I was in the Presidential Suite last weekend…’

Catch the shimmer of the setting sun on the river. If you have a camera nearby, try the tungsten-white-balance!

Listen to fishermen singing on their way home through the river, their beat inspired by the splash of the oar into the water. Usually a 7.30 pm phenomenon. Best heard when raining.

Watch the full moon rise and transform from dull orange to shining silver. Best glimpsed from the knife-edge pool at Ganga Kutir along room 22.

See more stars in one place – the Raichak sky – than Hollywood. Most urban eyes will have never quite seen the sky like this.

Care to model with clay on the river bank during low tide?

Become a farmer for a few minutes, while you learn organic farming in the six bigha kitchen garden.

Experience Dackwoodman cooking (on the fire, no utensils). Try roasting chicken and bread and see the difference.

Take a tour of the neighbouring kilns to see how bricks are manufactured.

Sit, sketch and paint.