Booking Closed

Harbans Kaur pays her share for the Kerala tour

The booking window for the Kerala trip is closed. With Harbans Kaur paying her share of the expenses, Shekhawat today declared that he will no longer be entertaining any request for inclusion in the troupe nor will he be “phoning defaulters” who have failed to pay up so far. He said he was content with a contingent of 40 and anybody who may still be interested to join, will have to make his/her arrangements.
This marks the culmination of a tedious month-long exercise that began with block reservations of rail and air tickets for the 44 members who had expressed interest initially. By and large, everyone would be travelling by train from Mumbai on February 10 and on the return journey, a dozen-odd are booked by air. Arrangements for local travel and stay have been entrusted to a Kochi-based tour operator brought in by Naseem Khan of the yoga group. The seven-day itinerary would cover Kochi – Munnar – Thekkady – Allepey – Kumarakom – Kochi.
Significantly, most of the biggies of the Club, including Srichand Arora, Shekhawat, Yusuf Rassiwala, Nahid Khan and Monthi Serrao would be on this trip. Jagmohan Papneja would be away to Chandigarh around that time. Santosh Tyagi will be unable to go as she has to attend to her son who has just undergone a major surgery.

Shekhawat is done with the Kerala bookings

Likewise, Razia Khan has withdrawn from the tour because her husband too has undergone an operation recently. Nafisa Sayyad has pleaded she’d be unable to go in the absence of Razia Khan.
On the other hand, there’s Tara Chand Seth who wants to join, but is unable to commit till he returns to Mumbai (from Lucknow) on January 21. He is prepared to undertake the journey to-and-fro by air. There is also a group of five ladies who frequent the Garden and are interested to join in – just that they don’t have the “confidence” without their menfolk. Shekhawat has now summarily closed the door on them – unless of course, they make their own arrangements.
That leaves the Gupta couple, who had earlier been to Kashmir, Amritsar, Vaishno Devi etc. with the Club. Bijoy Gupta has paid for the train tickets but has since been playing hide-and-seek on paying for the hotel bookings. Shekhawat is at his wit’s end phoning him because Gupta neither takes his call nor does he return his calls. “I'll make one final call to him when I board the train,” says Shekhawat exasperatedly. “I'll tell him 'ta-ta bye-bye'!”
Jagmohan Papneja:
If anyone of you has not received your ticket, please check the status. If your ticket is reserved and confirmed, kindly reach the venue on time. Else you may miss the trip.
Harish Wadhwa:
* Organising a trip is no joke and requires good planning and management. I appreciate 'Big Boss' Shekhawat-ji shouldering the responsibility with his trusted aides. Start dreaming of 'Karela' -- back waters boating, tea gardens, banana chips, appam, Chinese nets... I can bet you people will have a real good and memorable trip.
* By the way, aaj kisi ka janam-din ya koi aur celebration nahin tha kya?