Out of Loop

Nahid Siddiqui

The sun rose in the west today. Nahid Siddiqui, a perpetual late-comer for the exercises, forgot her normal schedule this morning. She turned up at the Garden around 6:30 a.m. – a clear one hour ahead of her usual time!
Naturally, this was to take us all by surprise as indeed, she was also in for a mild shock. “Where has everybody gone?” she asked Santosh Tyagi, one of the early birds performing her breathing rituals on a bench. “Are the exercises over?”
Santosh’s eyes popped as though she was seeing a ghost: “People haven’t come in yet. How come you are here so early?”
Then the truth tumbled out. By mistake Nahid had set her phone alarm an hour in advance and had come to the Garden straight out of bed, believing she would be terribly late and miss out on today’s exercises.

CAKE CUTTING: Nahid celebrated her birthday yesterday

“I did not even have my morning tea,” she complained.
More than finding herself at a loose end, what seemed awkward for Nahid (and hilarious to us) was her effort at familiarising herself with the exercises. In spite of being a very senior member of the Club, she had not even seen most of our exercises because by the time she would turn up, we were done with them. She struggled with some of the initial numbers today before deciding to just stand by and watch us quietly. Later on, she joined us on the numbers she was familiar with.
Perhaps, there is a lesson somewhere in this for all late-comers.
Lt Col Angad Singh (from Mohali):
It is good to be early. If there is a will, there is a way. So one can always come in time. Hope Nahid Siddiqui keeps this in mind and is always well in time in future.