Point to Ponder

Arun Patil (foreground) faces the most talkative section during the exercises

Today, Tara Chand Seth dropped a brilliant gem: “At home our children do not allow us to talk. In the Garden, you do not allow us to talk. Where shall we go?”
“Well said, Tara Chand-ji, well said!” Shekhawat exulted, instantly breaking into a jig and flapping his hands with joy. Moments earlier, he had been ticked off for talking too much by Arun Patil who was conducting the exercises this morning.
“No, seriously, I mean it,” Tara Chand sought to explain. “Ask anybody out here. At home they are unable to speak because their children have no time to listen. My kids tell me to shut up because I have spoken enough in life and now it is their turn to speak.”
Amusing as he may have sounded

Tara Chand Seth

at that moment, the 87-year-old widower had spoken about a harsh reality of life – the loneliness and silence that surrounds us with advancing age. Some like Zarina Khan and Santosh Tyagi are frank enough to admit that their sole purpose of visiting the Garden every morning is to “chat with everyone” and socialise. This anxiety to remain socially relevant

Shekhawat is amused

is shared by the likes of Bhaswati Bose, Nahid Khan, Bijoy Gupta, Banoo Apa, Kajal Babani, Swati Panjabi, Chanda Khadaria, Shanti Singh, Mumtaz Jahan… and of course, Shekhawat.
To all these so-called motor mouths, exercising is a convenient excuse to be able to talk to people.
On the other hand there are some like Arun Patil, Khatoon Baig, Kiran Prakash, Mallika Kagzi, Bihari Milwani… who constitute a ‘silent minority’ for their insistence to remain quiet during exercises in the interest of Club discipline.
Problems arise when they try to impose their silence on the ‘talkative majority’ and somebody retaliates. Nahid, for instance, is openly defiant toward Arun and once, even Zarina took umbrage when pulled up for chatting non-stop during the exercises. “Who has given Arun the authority to scold us?” she flared up.
In this ongoing duel between the chatter boxes and silent observers, Tara Chand’s has been the only voice of reason. His comment today, couched in humour, has given us enough food for thought to last a lifetime.
Bihari Milwani:
Big Laaf is for laugh and not Big Talk. Laugh as much as you can and as loud as you can in the Garden, because you may not be able to do so anywhere else. If you laugh at any other places without reason, you may be labeled MAD.