Disastrous

Chaos and confusion rule supreme

One week of ta'i chi training bore fruit today. The Chinese girls were a little late in arriving at the Garden. We should have been patient enough to wait for them. Instead, in our collective wisdom we decided to quickly wrap up the ta'i chi exercises all by ourselves. And what a marvellous disaster that was!
Ta'i chi is all about patience – of gentleness and fluidity in body movement, one graceful action leading to the next in slow motion. Being rushed has no place in this Chinese doctrine. But there were many among us who had to catch up with the yoga session at 8:00 a.m.

The girls attend to Sheela Mirani

and so, the moment the second laughter round ended, we took to ta'i chi on the trot and successfully landed ourselves in a major mess.
Ideally, Geeta Latte should have taken charge in the absence of the Chinese girls. (She is the most experienced among us, having undergone training for more than a year.) But being slightly inhibited by nature, Razia Khan stepped in to help. In the absence of any coordination between the two, conflicting instructions went out and with several smarties from the circle chipping in to keep count, correcting one another and proffering unsolicited advice, chaos ruled supreme.
At one point there were three people calling the shots from the middle – Razia, Geeta and Akshat Choudhary – each totally at sea. But it was hilarious – more like the blind leading the blind. Arun Patil became so confused and exasperated that he simply collapsed in his chair and kept shouting for order to be restored. But who was listening? Before long the Chinese girls arrived and some method in the madness came about.
On a serious note, Sheela Mirani was to receive personal attention in Chinese acupressure for her paralysis-affected limbs. She had explained her problem yesterday to one of the girls and today, the seniors among them examined her and came forth with a set of exercises that apparently provided some relief to her. Let’s hope this way she would be up and moving at the earliest.