Volume Control

Ved Prakash Grover (right) finds himself in the eye of a gathering storm. Till the other day, he used to be complimented for laughing the best and the loudest. Now, all of a sudden, he is being blamed for being the "loudest laugher". From Srichand Arora to Sunita Jajodia to Nafisa Sayyed, everyone is pointing out that his is the only laughter that can be heard several blocks away. Nafisa was even advising him how to pipe down and control his pitch – all because some day, somebody, somewhere in the buildings nearby might raise hell for being rudely woken up by our laughter!
Today Razia Khan (above, left), without pointedly mentioning Grover, put the fear of an impending lawsuit and announced that the “laughter club case is with the High Court”. She was obviously referring to the court verdict (see post of May 11) delivered last Thursday and got us to relocate further towards the public toilet. Everyone agreed that it was not proper to disturb residents in nearby buildings, but applying ‘volume control’ on laughing became an issue.
Some members suggested curtailing the exercises – if possible, doing away with one of the two laughter sessions (since those were the noisiest). Razia wanted the first session to be dropped so that our neighbours could sleep a little longer peacefully, before being jolted by our laughs. Yusuf Rassiwala reasoned that the second session should be dispensed with so that the neighbours may wake up briefly and then go back to sleep undisturbed. This would also enable us to ‘warm up’ before the free-hand exercises. To wake them up twice would be quite cruel on our part, he added.
The feasibility of both the options was discussed at length – but no consensus could be reached. The Managing Committee might have to step in and take a call!