Peacock Dance

Shekhawat and Razia match steps

It was a class act – a performance par excellence that would have made Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire leap with joy. Absolutely unprompted, unrehearsed and completely original, Razia Khan and Hari Singh Shekhawat gracefully matched steps, keeping rhythm with the music playing on the sound box, moving in slow motion… and instantly raising a round of tumultuous applause all around.
That was the highlight of the morning.
Long after it was over, Angad Singh and Kiran Prakash went up to Shekhawat to compliment him on his virtuoso performance – something that should have been filmed for posterity. “It was what we call mor-morni dance,” clarified Fehmida Khan. The accolades and appreciation notwithstanding, Shekhawat continued to play the fool.

Srichand Arora: in distress

“We were having a little fun,” he said, still red in the face.
Significantly, Shekhawat and Razia were in the whitest of the Saturday whites. They were also the liveliest in the group, prompting an otherwise reticent Mohar Singh to comment: “They are two flowers of the same branch.” Somebody remarked they were the sun and moon around whom the rest of us revolved. “Then we too should have a name,” interjected Sunita Jajodia, draped in colorful printed sari. “What are we?”
“We are the taarey, the stars,” Banoo Apa assured her.
“And she is the sky,” quipped Jagmohan Papneja wittily, pointing at Mumtaz Jahan in stark blue salwar-kameez.
If anybody could be missing all this fun and frolic, it is the master of wisecracks, Srichand Arora. He is at present in Pune, attending a naturopathy camp. “I am badly stuck out here,” he bemoaned over the phone. “Everything is regimented here – fixed timings for sleeping, waking up, taking bath... You can’t get out of the campus. No cigarettes. Not even tea. Just boiled vegetables. I like hot, spicy Punjabi food. The people here are such kadkas, they don’t even give you salt in the food. I’m sure people in jail are having a better time!”
Arora has to serve time for another week -- unless he escapes.
Dilip Babani:
I think Arora-ji will lose at least 10 kilos in a week because of no salt, no cigarettes, no tea, no chicken, no keema kaleji, no phapra-jalebi... Oh my god! What will happen to Arora? How can he live? He must be thinking, 'Yaar, kahaan phans gaye!'
Lt Col Angad Singh (retd):
The Peacock Dance was spontaneous and was appreciated by everyone. It was worth videographing. Arora-ji will certainly be detoxified and more active, alert and fit. Upon returning, he should inform us on the good habits he has picked up in Pune. We hope he continues to follow the good habits. Wishing him to be in the prime of health.
Kiran Prakash:
We want Peacock Dance again. We want Peacock Dance next Saturday also. I will videograph it. They will also know how beautifully they perform it. Compliments to Shekhawat-ji and Razia-ji.