Five secrets to having a great big-family holiday.

Over the third weekend of October in the heart of Bengal, people gathered by the dozen to worship Durga, go pendal-hopping and indulge in a lavish spread of Bengali fare.

Approximately 1,800 kilometers away, I was busy with my own celebrations: a weekend away from the city with family.

It wasn’t just the parents and I – it was the three of us plus six cousins – all younger – and two aunts. That’s one big family do, and after over a decade. Even then, the headcount wasn’t complete, with three uncles, another aunt and two more cousins – younger again –missing. And that’s just on my mother’s side.

Anyhoo, now that I’ve made you unnecessarily privy to my family tree, let me tell you more about the holiday itself.

Unlike all the other times when you holiday to untangle yourself from the world and everyone you know in it, a family holiday sort of strengthens the strings that tie family to one another. The time you have can go either way – morose and unhappy and full of family politics and cribs and complaints, or totally chilled out and mindlessly fun and full of camaraderie. Fortunately, I belong to a family that falls in the latter category, minus the occasional outburst of preferences and cribs, which is only natural. Oh, and the best part? By the end of it, we had our hair intact, vital organs in the right places and no blood on knives. And here are five things we did right, that helped us have a relaxed couple of days.

#1 Allot a SPOC (Single Point of Complaints)

Food not good? Travel arrangements not up to the mark? Beds too comfortable? Find the family a neck to put on the line. It works to your advantage to outsource the arrangements – that way, everyone can have a good time pointing fingers, without having to worry about hurting sentiments. Be warned, though – sometimes, one single person will have taken the initiative to choose the planner and that person may risk having been bitched about anyway. Don’t worry, just join the others and point away as well!

By default, the responsibility of arranging things fell on my shoulders because I’m the only one in the family with strolley wheels for feet. And because I’ve done it so many times, the whole thing was a cakewalk – except for the part where we decided on the travel dates 24 hours before travelling, on a long weekend when every resort I called was booked out or didn’t have accommodation available for 11 people.

#2 Choose a location/resort with provisions for group activities

You probably haven’t spent more than seven hours (including loo breaks and meal times) with your family since you were a toddler (read too little to comprehend family dynamics). So, living together for the next couple of days is fertile breeding ground for discord. By going to a place that has lots to see/do, you automatically give everyone something better than each other to be involved in – flowers to pluck, monkeys to chase or skimpily-clad women on the beaches to ‘observe’.

Discovery Village was our chosen destination. The place is not too far from the city, yet feels like it because it’s surrounded by mountains. Their usual guests are corporates who want to hold team outings or families that visit for a day-trip. We stayed overnight, and had much fun trying our hands at pottery, archery and target shooting. They even have a high-ropes course, but that needed to be booked in advance and we hadn’t.

#3 Stay away from controversial topics (including “When are you getting married?”, “Why do you spend so much money?” or even “What do you think of our Prime Ministerial candidates?”)

I’ve seen talks on Big Boss eliminations end in fist fights, so trust me when I say that I know what I’m talking about. Controversial topics may give people something to occupy themselves with, but they also usually divide people into three groups – those arguing, those supporting arguments and waiting for an opportunity to take a personal dig, and those who stand far away and enjoy the drama vicariously. Isn’t it better to spend time doing other, more interesting things (refer to #2) instead of debating if Salman’s new movie name was a gimmick to get more TRPs for the show?

Here’s what happened to me: Our holiday had precisely three minutes of focus on when I was going to get married. I deflected the question by drawing attention to my cousins and their problems –is so-and-so’s teacher discriminating based on religion? or Ohmigod you’re wearing that to go exploring? When both failed, I resorted to randomly jiggling to beats from “Lungi dance”. It worked beautifully.

#4 Don’t let how old you are affect how much fun you have

Being in a similar age group can give you lots of dots to connect, but when the years range from 10 to 75, you have to keep age aside and get together to have fun. Since the older generations have problems with the younger ones growing up (metaphorically and briefly) to their age, they just have to get down to the level of the youngsters. Which means, keep throwing in phrases like ‘Cool!’ and ‘Whatever’, get on Instagram, use the resort space to advantage to come up with age-neutral games, or just have a bonfire and play Antakshari.

We just came up with an impromptu game around pillars outside the rooms at Discovery Village. It was great fun, with all of us conspiring to get my mother out while she cheated her way through every round.

#5 Go with the flow

There’s nothing much to explain about this, is there? Go crazy, have fun, keep an open mind and try out new things.

So there you have it, my little secrets that will make a big difference in having a fabulous time with family. Use them, share them, turn them around and by all means, adapt and modify them as per your convenience. And if none of them work, get my number on speed dial and I’ll give you fantastic cheats to get out of sticky situations.

Getting to Discovery Village: Driving down is the best way. It’s about 60 kilometres from Bangalore and if you follow the directions to the T, then easy to find too.

Go if: You’re planning a family holiday or team outing, want to treat the kids to a day out, like being among mountains or want to stay within easy access to the city.