Gandhi Jayanti 2015

The kids join us for today's exercises

The Club does not celebrate Gandhi Jayanti. Never did. But we were reminded of the great man who got us freedom from British rule when a flock of little children descended upon us while we were exercising.
They were all in regulation white cap-'n'-T-shirt with the legend, ‘Spark a Change’ printed in large, colorful lettering. Where they came from and why, nobody asked. But Tara Chand Seth surmised that they must have all run away from school, till someone reminded him that schools were closed today.
“Today is Gandhi Jayanti,” he was told.
Those mysterious kids came in two droves – each time departing en masse and as suddenly as they had come.
Arora invited them to join us for the exercises – which was another way of telling us to be at our best behavior in their presence. Shekhawat looked restrained and crestfallen for a while… till he could not hold himself any longer and burst out declaring with his arms outstretched, “Hai Mera Dil!”

Time to disperse...

Promptly the children ran away.
Confused, Shekhawat tried to explain that he had not spoken to any child in particular and in any case, there was no bad intention behind the declaration on his ‘dil’.
But Mallika Kagzi insisted that it was buri baat (a bad word) and in future, he better hold his tongue in front of kids.
Shekhawat simply dismissed her and started needling Bijoy Gupta till he found another flock of kids, similarly dressed but older, landing unannounced and uninvited.
Shekhawat peered at them suspiciously, then turned his back and started making phone calls to kill time.
Turns out that some kind soul somewhere was treating those kids to a movie, Singh is Bling, first-day first-show, as part of some Gandhi Jayanti celebration. He had told them to gather at the Garden, from where they would be herded to a cineplex close-by.