Morning Mirth

Bapu Rane returned this morning with stories of giant mangoes, bursting jackfruit and loads of big, black fish showing up at his village near Ratnagiri. The alphonso crop, he said was so good this year that smaller (even juicier) varieties were simply left to rot in the open as there were no takers. “If only I had a gaadi of my own, I would have packed some mangoes in cartons and brought them for you all,” he said.
The fun part though was when Rane had to conduct the exercises (above) in place of Razia Khan (who had to rush out mid-way following a sudden call from home). Till then, Rane kept narrating how, during the past two months, he had not missed a single day doing the exercises in his village – even if it meant having to laugh all by himself under a tree on some mornings.
But today, once in the middle, it became apparent that he was completely out of touch. He not only muddled the sequence of the exercises, but much to everybody’s amusement, was skipping some of the exercises. Twice he tried to excuse himself, but with Sitaram and Nahid Khan goading him continuously, he had to blunder along and keep the morning mirth going.
Actually Rane would not have been in such a fix if the attendance was anywhere close to normal. From an average of 30-odd prior to last Saturday’s party, we were reduced to barely 13 members today. The good thing was Sitaram Hivarkar had brought kaju-barfis (right) to celebrate his younger bahu giving birth to a girl child. This makes him a grandfather, twice over. What’s more, by a strange coincidence, the child was born on June 11 – Sitaram’s birthday!