Spaced Out

Happy Birthday, Qutub Minar-ji!

Ram Shankar Shukla celebrated his birthday this morning. But yesterday, when some people wanted to wish him in advance, he had no clue that he was one day short of hitting 79 years. “My birthday is on 29th May,” he insisted.
“And today is 28th May,” Ved Prakash Grover tried to remind him.
“But my birthday is on 29th May,” he repeated. “I was born of May 29, 1935.”
“Oh-ho… so tomorrow is your birthday, isn’t it?” Grover tried to make it simple.
“How can my birthday be tomorrow?” Shukla started to argue. “What month is this?”
Call it forgetfulness or a mental disconnect with time (if not space), Shukla dwells in a world of his own making. A well known though inexplicable practice is that he’d come to the Garden punctually to exercise and then, exactly at 7:00 a.m, he’d walk away without exercising. But today, he stayed on and appeared genuinely pleased with himself when everyone cheered him – more so, when Sitaram Hivarkar reached up to feed him a ‘birthday peda’ he had brought for the Club.
Even otherwise, he was unusually alert and chirpy all morning. So when Nahid Khan, in her own mischievous way complained of someone having stolen her dil (heart), Shukla chipped in helpfully suggesting that we all set out to retrieve it. “Chalo, let’s go search for the dil today,” said the tall, gangly gent, better known as Qutub Minar-ji.
The blog joins everyone in wishing him many happy returns of the day and a long, healthy and contented life ahead.
Jagmohan Papneja:
Many many happy returns of the day, Shukla-ji. In the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Happy Birthday!
Harish Wadhwa:
Wish you a very happy birthday, Shukla-ji. Though I was not at the Garden today, I could still feast on the tasty peda, thanks to a dear thief who stole one for me.