Wine Hangover

Nahid Khan

Sardar Teja Singh may not have got us to raise a toast for the winner of the Pehchaan Kaun contest yesterday (see post). But he surely has succeeded at getting us on a new high without as much as uncorking his wine bottle. From the time it has appeared on the scene, our exercises have gone for a toss.

Not serious... just joking!

We have either been repeating the numbers absent-mindedly or missing out on some, without anyone getting any wiser.
The hangover was evident this morning when Nahid Khan suddenly interrupted the exercises and asked Sardar-ji if his birthday was coming up any time soon. Earlier, she was eager to know if the bottle he gave had been opened after all. Little did we expect the lady, who is otherwise so disciplined and particular about fitness, to break into an uproarious jig, invoking visions of a drunken soiree gone wild. “Buss, exercise ho gaya,” she declared. “We will all be merrily doing ‘jhoom barababar jhoom sharabi’ early morning in the Garden.”
Much later, she could still be heard muttering to herself, “Jhoom- jhoom jhoom-jhoom…” And now that Sardar-ji has promised “daru” on his next birthday (January), Nahid just cannot make anything of what the future holds in store.
Meanwhile, Srichand Arora is seized with “terrible guilt” for having brought this upon us. “I was merely joking about the booze, but Sardar-ji has taken me seriously,” he rued. “This is not fair. How do I make him understand that nobody among us is hard up on booze? We value his company every morning, that's all. That’s more than we can ask of him.”
Jagmohan Papneja:
Ram raaj mein doodh mila, / Krishan raaj mein ghee, / Kaliyug mein sharab mili, / Tu jhoom jhoom ke pee!
Harish Wadhwa:
Nahid-ji believes that these men don't pick-up the right clues. Instead of just going ahead and opening the wine bottle, they come up with weird stories and start apologizing, show guilt feelings, use postponement techniques and talk of good intentions. Let us wait for Saturday the 10th of August for the real fun!