Laughing Club

Bose marked his return to the Garden with Ganguram’s sandesh – typically a Bengali sweet. He had taken a break to attend his niece’s wedding in Calcutta. Sunita Jajodia (below, left) was however, left wondering how he could survive the city’s giant mosquitoes, famously compared to helicopters. “Baap-re-baap,” she blurted out. “Wahaan peh machchar toh mosquito jitne badey hotey hain!” Whatever that meant, she made her point.
Sunita’s bigger concern though was upon sighting Yusuf Rassiwala (below, right) for whom she has another quaint analogy: “Gayi bhains pani mein!” She dreads the thought of him conducting the exercises because it only delays her return home. The last time she asked him to hurry (rather that “waste time on frivolous talk”), he snapped at her, “If you are in such a great hurry, you might as well go right away.” She did not take any chances today and went away before the exercises were to begin.
Sunita needn't have got so paranoid because Yusuf-bhai did not conduct the exercises today. Srichand Arora and Razia Khan did. But that was not to stop Yusuf from playing the fool till Razia had to walk up to him and deliver a reprimand. “What is this ma’m?” was his simple defence. “We come here only to laugh and you are stopping us. This is Laughing Club.”
Soon it was Razia’s turn to be pulled up by Arora for interrupting the exercises with her smart one-liners and cheeky asides. “Talk if you have to,” he advised her. “But only between one exercise and the next, not in the middle of one.” Before long, it was his turn to be admonished, this time by Sitaram Hivarkar – again, for talking too much. “Baatein baad mein,” he hollered at Arora and suddenly, everyone fell silent. The man had spoken!
Harish Wadhwa:
Bose Babooooo... Good Morning! Nice to see you back. I am not going to leave you without my share of sandesh. So you better keep one piece for me. The mood in the pics of Sunita-ji and Yusuf-bhai is an apt depiction of what must have happened.