Priyanka Chopra was feeling really homesick in cold, grey New York as her home country celebrated the festival of colours. This is the third straight year that the shoot of her American TV series, Quantico, has kept her away from spraying her Bollywood colleagues with gulaal and dancing to evergreen chartbusters like Big B's “Rang Barse“ and her own Waqt hit, “Do Me A Favour, Let's Play Holi“. But all that she had pencilled in her calendar was a shoot with Jimmy Fallon, her third outing with the American comedian-TV show host. The conversation was to revolve around her Hollywood debut, Baywatch, but Jimmy and PeeCee ended up make the world chant “Holi Hai!“ In the last episode, the duo had got into a fiery, extra-spicy chicken wings eating duel with the 34-year-old actress winning hands down.

This time Jimmy had made plans for a thandai drinking contest. When asked what was actually in the beer mug, PeeCee laughed out loud saying, “It's just almonds and nuts in a milkshake with magical substances.“ Not a word about bhang as the two chugged down the drink. Jimmy then brought out a thali of six colours wondering what he was supposed to do with them. Rubbing gulaal on his face, she educated him saying, “And that's how we put it all over each other!“

The festive fever enhanced the home sickness as the actress drove back to her Big Apple apartment where her nine-member Indo American crew of Dana, Basanti, Mohnish, Vanessa, Priyanka, Jennifer, Vimla, Damla and Chanchal waited for her with colour and paint. They had come to bring in Holi with PeeCee and there was thandai too which was described as “a cool drink of milk and tequila“. While the party was underway, her Baywatch crew gate-crashed to sample the desi tequila with milk and spray colour and paint all over her living room. “My white walls are painted colourful now. It's wonderful!“ exulted the hostess, surveying the trashed apartment without an iota of regret, and instructing her chef to cook up a daawat for the dozen guests who'd stayed back.