Wet V-Day

The Club presents a rose jointly to Santosh Tyagi and Tara Chand

It rained today. Many were caught unawares by the unseasonal shower early morning and came equipped with umbrellas and wrapped up in woolens. The temperature however, did not drop because of the heavy cloud cover. In fact, it was warmer today than the past two days when the biting chill and gusty winds had made everybody irritable to the bones.
Lifting our spirits this morning was the Valentine’s Day celebration, initiated by Dilip Babani with a round of candies and lozenges. He had thoughtfully brought his collection of romantic songs (suited to the occasion) on a USB drive and with sing-alongs and silent claps during the exercises, everybody had quite forgotten about the dark skies and morning rain.

Razia 'Birla' and Dilip 'Kejriwal'

A rose for Ved Prakash Grover

In a telling departure from the past, we had decided to celebrate Valentine's Day by demonstrating our love and respect towards the elders of the Club; and as a symbolic gesture, a rose was presented jointly to the two senior-most members, Santosh Tyagi and Tara Chand Seth.
Taking the cue, Geeta Sardana comically curtsied in front of Ved Prakash Grover and presented the same rose to him.

A rose for Teja Singh Bhambra

Sitaram Hivarkar came next. And then, finally, it was the turn of Sardar Teja Singh with Razia Khan doing the honours.
It was all very spontaneous and heartwarming – the odd part being that every time, it was usually a lady presenting the rose to a male as a mark of respect. Barring Santosh Tyagi, none of the ladies present felt any need for the 'respect' as that would (possibly) amount to an admission of seniority. And ladies don’t age.
Before long, the busybodies for tomorrow’s Chhota Kashmir picnic got cracking as they fine-tuned all logistical details as well as the requirements of food and recreation. Somehow, the ‘aam aadmi’ tag has become a big hit – such that Dilip has become ‘Arvind Kejriwal’ for the picnic. Bose has been named ‘Manish Sisodia’ and Razia is happy being called ‘Rakhi Birla’. And Tara Chand, who had set the ball rolling, is our ‘Yogendra Yadav’!