Work in Progress

Angad Singh (centre) is back after eight months

Brainstorming over Annual Day programme

A youthful looking and rejuvenated Lt Col Angad Singh (retd) returned to the Garden to a rousing welcome this morning. He was away at his hometown, Mohali for the past eight months or so. But he had all along been in touch with us through this blog and used to post his comments from time to time on the day-to-day developments in the Club.
Today, the octogenarian was promptly sucked into the planning and preparations for the Annual Day function, scheduled next month. At the instance of Yusuf Rassiwala, Kiran Prakash and Srichand Arora (who was to join us after the exercises), it was decided to firm up for the evening of January 16, 2016 (a Saturday) when the weather will be “neither too warm nor too cold”. It is being conceived as a two-hour variety entertainment programme (maybe, extended by half-hour max), followed by a packaged dinner.
A minor dispute broke over the venue, since the space in the China Hut was found inadequate to house an audience of nearly 100 last time (April 18, 2015). Razia Khan came up with an alternative – an air-conditioned dance hall in her building complex let out on Rs3,000 for an evening. This would allow us to also dine in the premises, rather than settle for packed food boxes. Yusuf Rassiwala, who is familiar with the place however, shot down the proposal saying that “the hall is too small to accommodate even 40 chairs”. So we are back to the China Hut once again.
Razia had also come prepared with a draft ‘programme sheet’ listing the items to be presented on the evening and their sequence – welcome address, ramp show, audio-visual projection, short play, skits, songs, mimicry, dances… Now, this is the trickiest part of any planning exercise, as no one likes being left out for any reason. How Razia Khan and Kiran Prakash should allow them to give vent to their bottled-up talent, all within two hours, remains to be seen. With exactly a month to go, this is doubtless heavy-duty work in progress.
Lt Col Angad Singh:
Thanks for the rousing reception. I am glad that members of the Club are so youthful and energetic as to remember their old colleagues. I am thrilled to be back with them. I was also surprised that some new, rejuvenating Chinese exercises have been added which are essential and helpful to feel full of energy in the end.