Comedy Flashback

Manisha Kolhe celebrates her return with choco-barfi

Members debate whether to pursue the picnic idea after yesterday's showdown

It’s been over two months since we staged a play, ‘Soney Ka Haar’ as part of the Club’s Annual Day function (ref post of September 10). It was an amateurish effort, but memories of that experience haunt us still – the snappy dialogues, catch-phrases and punch lines resurfacing in our everyday conversation with comic effect.
So every time we get to have good, home-made tea from Banoo Apa or Mallika Kagzi, someone or the other would sound off a compliment with Kiran Prakash’s popular one-liner from the play, “Aapke haath mein jaadu hai!" (You have magic in your hands). It instantly rings a bell.
Or say, Santosh Tyagi, whenever Arun Patil reminds her about wearing her cap, we are almost certain what her response would be: “I have lost my gold chain and here you are bothered only about the cap?” This was her line.
Today, Bijoy Gupta sent us reeling with laughter when he exhumed a forgotten, but eminently hilarious line from the play. Manisha Kolhe was away at Nagpur since Diwali and had reported to the Garden only this morning. Instead of greeting her cordially (as others did), Gupta sprung a surprise by making a slimy pass: “Is your husband at home?”
This was Shekhawat’s famous line to Manisha from the play. But for a moment, even she was caught off-guard. Only when she saw us all cracking up did she connect with that audacious remark and burst out laughing. “Aapka matlab?” she retorted, appropriately.
Manisha celebrated her return from Nagpur with choco-barfi, instead of the santra-barfi we had requested her to get. It seems she had brought the special delicacy from India’s ‘Orange City”, but could not reach us in time. She was struck by spondylitis and had been undergoing treatment at Kokilaben Hospital since her return from Nagpur.
She says the pain has subsided and she feels “much better” now.
Lt Col Angad Singh (from Mohali):
The choco-barfi proved not only a belly appetiser, but also a brain teaser to re-enliven the Annual Day one-liners.