Ullu Making

High Hopes: Mallika is confronted with demands for dubba

It was a smart, well-timed move that took us all by surprise. Taking advantage of our primary weakness as a Club, Mallika Kagzi announced that it was her anniversary today. “Please do not leave in a hurry after the exercises as I have ordered for food boxes,” she said. “They would arrive any time soon.”
What anniversary, nobody asked. We had no reason to suspect Mallika because she has the reputation of throwing a treat at the drop of a hat. Besides, it was too early in the morning and many of us were still groggy from want of sleep to figure out the date of the day. Ram Shankar Shukla even intoned lazily that nobody should leave the Garden because there would be ‘nashta-chai’ today.
Sunita Jajodia however, was curious about the contents of the food boxes. Standing next to Mallika during the exercises, she kept pestering her till the latter burst out, “Hai, she is only interested in the dubba!”

Ramila Mistry compensates with prasad

In self-defence, Sunita clarified she couldn’t care about any dubba but in any case, would stay on till the end of the exercises.
From nowhere Mohar Singh announced that there has been a major landslide in Darjeeling, claiming hundreds of lives. "I heard it in the morning news,” he said with a straight face. “A huge hill has been leveled to the ground." Obviously, he had smelt a BIG rat.
The nickel had already dropped. Jagmohan Papneja was the first to pick it up and charged Mallika with making April Fools of us. He kept needling her throughout the exercises while Mallika maintained the boxes were on the way. She even said that Mr Kagzi (her husband) would also be making an appearance for the first time in the Garden and pointed at a lone woman sitting at a distance, saying she was her sister. “She too has come for my anniversary,” Mallika said. “By the way, you can have two-two dubbas, because there are so few people today.”
Still high on hopes and unwilling to let a good thing go by, we raised a fourth laugh for Mallika, only to see her among the first to walk away, nonchalantly – leaving us all high and dry. She had the last laugh.
Jagmohan Papneja:
Gulab ka fool bagh may khil raha hai/ Kamal ka fool talab may tair raha hai/ Jasmine ka fool chaman may mehak raha hai/ Aur April ka fool Mallika ke hoto par chehak raha hai... Happy April Fools' Day.
Bihari Milwani:
Hearty congratulations to Mallika for providing us the fourth laugh on the first day of the full new accounting year of Big Laaf. We have one more skillful laughter, known as MALLIKA.
Kiran Prakash:
Ha, ha, ha, ha... Well done Mallika!
Lt Col Angad Singh (retd) from Mohali:
The Club's year starts on April 1. Mallika gave a good opening to the New Year. She scored a century. Well done Mallika-ji.