Birthday Season

Bitter gourd on birthdays... yuck!

By some quirk of nature, monsoon in Mumbai coincides with the Club’s birthday season. Yesterday was Khatoon Baig’s birthday. Tomorrow is Sunita Jajodia’s. In days to come, six more birthdays will be celebrated, thus taking the June tally to eight.
Thereafter, as the rains intensify in July, another six birthdays will fall. In August there would be a lull, but still four birthday treats can be expected. And in September, as the monsoon departs, there are six more birthdays lined up yet -- to be followed by a drought for the rest of the year.
Effectively, in the four months between June and September, we have as many as 24 birthdays to celebrate – thereby accounting for more than 50 per cent of the celebrations in a year. The funny part is that many members, who are irregular and rarely seen, will now become regular and show up daily as long lost friends – only to disappear after September.
The most pathetic among them are those known to stroll around the walking track and just as we wind up the exercises, would present themselves abruptly with a sheepish grin.

Bijoy Gupta

The Club has coined a special name for these types – a byword exchanged in loud whispers and instantly acknowledged with a chuckle.
But that’s all very fine. Gatecrashers are part of any celebration, big or small. What is even more amusing is when ‘guests’ dictate the menu – as it happened this morning. While bracing themselves to an overdose of luddoos and pedas as staple birthday fare, the ladies wondered why we should not switch to something else.
“Too much of sweet is bad,” agreed Sitaram Hivarkar. “Then why not phapda-jalebi?” suggested Razia Khan. “But that is fried, full of cholesterol,” chorused all the ladies. Finally, it was for Arun Patil to declare that the best birthday treat would be karela. “But you don’t give anything bitter on a happy occasion!” argued Santosh Tyagi. Still, it was unanimously held that from now on, everybody should ideally be handed a bitter gourd as a healthy birthday repast!
In all this birthday planning, we did not notice Bijoy Gupta’s presence in our midst. We realized he had been away for a long time when he inquired about Shekhawat's health: “He was to have a by-pass, what happened?” The conversation had to turn to Bapu Rane before long. When Gupta heard the news, his face changed colour. Silently, he turned and walked away, straight out of the Gate.