Irregularly Regular

Till recently, you could slot people in the Club into two neat categories. First, there were the regulars – Hari Singh Shekhawat, Nahid Khan, Ved Prakash Grover, Kishor Babani… people you could trust and count upon meeting every morning. As surely as night follows the day, they were there in the Garden daily, before time, without fail.
And then there were the irregulars – Dilip Babani, Nafisa Sayed, Kiran Sajjan, Mumtaz Jahan… people who showed up once in a blue moon. The standard greeting for them has been “Eid Mubarak!”, so rare has been their sighting – almost like Eid ka chaand. You can never say about them.
Now, of late, a third in-between category has emerged. They are people who follow a certain pattern about their attendance. Some like Neelam Garg show up only on Saturdays. And then you have those like Bhaswati Bose who is not to be seen on Mondays. So predictable has this practice become with them that they would ideally qualify for being ‘irregularly regular’. They are not strictly regular. Nor can they be called irregular.
Today Shekhawat added Yusuf Rassiwala, Razia Khan and Sitaram Hivarkar to this fast growing tribe of ‘phunti masters’. According to him, these are people who have become pathologically tuned to alternating every day of attendance with a day of absence. Their on-off presence, he says, has become a routine – something that defies all logic and comprehension.
He did not make a big issue of it though, because his own wife, Mohankanwar Shekhawat (pic above right) was absent – today being her birthday. We nevertheless raised the “fourth laugh” for her after the exercises. And like we did for Nahid Khan in absentia yesterday, this is wishing her many, many happy returns of the day.
Renu Babani's PICSPEAK:
* "...and S-T-R-E-T-C-H!"
* "I am so happy and want to share my joy with everyone."
Harish Wadhwa:
Here is another culprit. Early morning is ideal to get real REM sound sleep. Everything else can wait... Ask all the lucky ones who keep themselves tucked in a cozy bed. Aap regulars kya jaano iss ka mazaa?