Phunti Season

Phunti is a word peculiar to Shekhawat’s vocabulary. The closest English equivalent is A.w.o.l. – the U.S. military expression for being ‘away without leave’. So if you are away even for a day, Shekhawat would pull you up (as he did Khatoon Baig this morning for absconding yesterday) for doing “phunti dabaa-ke”. And then there are the habitual absconders like Yusuf Rassiwala, who end up being called "phunti masters”.
As the mercury creeps up, doing phunti becomes fashionable. Of course, there are excuses galore – had to go to hospital, slept late at night, not feeling well, urgent work in the morning… Nobody admits to lethargy and over-sleeping. But that is the fact. With every passing day, it becomes increasingly difficult to psyche yourself for the expedition to the Garden at the crack of dawn. Little wonder, attendance has dropped by more than 50 per cent in the last three days.
It will drop even further. Soon the summer exodus will begin as everybody would want to take off to cooler climes. Already Razia Khan is vacationing in the U.S. and Harbans Singh is away at Ludhiana. Today, Kishor Babani (above) announced that he and Renu would be leaving the day-after (Saturday) for Mussouri -- combining Delhi, Haridwar and Dehradun enroute.
Then from April 1, Ramila Mistry (left) would be away for a fortnight-long religious camp at Haridwar. Bapu Rane says that his annual “mango harvesting” visit to his village at Sindhudurg is overdue. Srichand Arora has his annual trip to Singapore also coming up. So would the Boses be going on their summer vacation…
But life at the Garden would continue. Men may come and men may go, but the Club shall continue for ever.