No Love Lost

Razia Khan

Arun Patil

Razia Khan and Arun Patil have struck a strange equation that has become a matter of much hilarity during the exercises. Like anyone who takes to the middle, Razia has been orchestrating the exercises in an orderly manner, such that we would not feel any strain and at the same time, our movements collectively bear a semblance of synchrony. She has been at this for years and nobody has had a problem so far – except for Arun. He simply resents the way Razia conducts the exercises.
So for the past one week, Arun has been picking on Razia for being varyingly too fast, too slow, erratic, forgetful, clumsy… Far from being cowed down, Razia would get back at him in equal measure, saying that there is no way he can be pleased because he is a prejudiced man. Things reached a head this morning when Razia declared that if Arun were to fault her any more, he shall have to stand in the middle from tomorrow and she would stage an honorable walk out.

Khatoon and Nazma extract commitments from Shekhawat

Trouble started today when Arun arrived late and Razia started to skip some exercises – particularly the repeat/ reverse numbers. Till then, she was doing fine. Clearly, Arun’s presence was a distraction and she had become so over-conscious that she began to flounder and miss out on the sequence of exercises. That was enough for Arun to go hammer and tongs after her. Since this was all very predictable, everybody burst out laughing; but neither Arun nor Razia found anything funny.
Meanwhile, Shekhawat is going all out on mobilizing numbers for the Bangkok-Pattaya tour. His pitch now is that anybody who resides in Lokandwala should be able to afford the trip. “You cannot stay in Lokhandwala and say you are short of money because you would then have already sold your flat and be staying in Nalla Sopara,” he argues. Somehow this logic has worked with people like Nazma Sayyed and Khatoon Baig. Till the other day, they were in two minds over the trip. Today, they confirmed not only about themselves, but also of members of their families joining in. In fact, most confirmations so far include family members.
Srichand Arora:
Shekhawat-ji, can you tell me who are really ready for the Thailand trip?