Prayer Session?

Arun Patil

Today’s morning exercises turned into a sonorous prayer session – just that, instead of keeping our hands folded, we were furiously flinging our arms about and rolling our heads and hips around in unison. And the culprit for all this was Arun Patil. For reasons best known to him, he had selectively played only religious numbers this morning on his sound box – filmy bhajans, kirtans, hymns… all invocations to Ishwar-Allah.
Funnier still, the sound box was at its best behaviour. Every morning, while playing assorted hits of Kishore Kumar, Rafi, Asha Bhosale and others, the box would abruptly shut down while we were midway through the exercises. Yesterday, when some racy numbers of Yo-Yo Honey Singh and Mika were playing, it became silent within 10 minutes! Arun’s explanation was that the battery had drained out. But today, by some divine intervention, no battery ‘drained out’.

TIME TO REJOICE: Harbans Kaur is back from Pune

And the music played on and on – all because Arun had put those yesteryear devotionals on.
Whether this was plain coincidence or that the music box has a mind of its own, cannot be ascertained. But it must be said that everyone enjoyed the session thoroughly till it lasted. They heard in rapt silence, not uttering a word – except for one occasion when Khatoon Baig drew our attention to a big, fat man on all fours, crawling on the grass like an overgrown baby. Khatoon liked to believe that he not only resembled, but behaved like her one-and-half year old grandson. Or maybe, it was the other way round.
Harbans Kaur woke us from our reverie with a big box of dry fruits and another containing kaju barfi. She had gone to Pune to attend a wedding in the family and returned some time back. Her leg pain had prevented her from making it to the Garden all these days. But today, she took an autorickshaw from home and limped her way in from the Gate with those two big boxes. She described it as a belated ‘Diwali treat’ for the Club.
Jagmohan Papneja:
A true and caring person does not have to speak out loud. What a wonderful way for Mrs Harbans Kaur to share with us the Diwali festival -- which is never too late to celebrate. Our hearty thanks and gratitude for her kind gesture. It will remain in our memory for ever.