Pet Gripes

Karuna is in yellow, seated on the extreme right

Not everyone among us is capable of pulling off all the exercises to perfection, from start to finish. Physical infirmity, personal prejudice, even plain sluggishness tend to get in the way. Notable exceptions are people like Yusuf Rassiwala and Nahid Khan.
For the rest of us, there are many who remain seated while flexing their limbs through the hour-long routine. Some would skip a drill or two.

Rukhsana Khan celebrates Eid-e Milad
with cake rolls

Nahid Siddiqui does not bend down or turn her head around because of a severe vertigo issue. Tara Chand Seth tries his best to swing his arms about, but cannot perform the free-style swimming or backstroke numbers properly. Kanta Sharma refuses to beat her chest during the tai-chi round as she relates it to an act of mourning the dead.
Today, Karuna Waghmare came up with a new one when she suddenly chirruped on doing away with the tai-chi round.

Bijoy Gupta prefers breathing
exercises to tai-chi

“This is ping-pong-ping exercise,” she reasoned in all seriousness. “Modi is trying to drive away the Chinese. So why should we be doing their exercise?”
Bijoy Gupta also does not like the tai-chi exercises and simply walks away. He would much rather do his yogic breathing exercise all alone. But then, he has a far bigger problem to reckon with. For many years now, Shekhawat has been on his case during the kissa kursi ka round, urging him to lower himself

Yusuf Rassiwala and Shekhawat holding their morning durbar

by folding his knees double, the way some others do.
Initially Gupta tried to wriggle out of the situation by joking that those capable of sitting on their haunches for long “suffer from defective knee joints”. Fact is Gupta is scared that his knees would not be able to bear his body weight and he might even topple over, especially when attempting to stand up.
Shekhawat understands this, but still insists that he goes “down, down, down…” if only to see how Gupta would topple over. “Don’t compare me to others,” Gupta has pleaded. “They are doing some other exercise. What I am doing is the correct one!”
When this also failed to keep Shekhawat’s mouth shut, Gupta came up with a brilliant gem: “What’s wrong with you? You need treatment. See a mouth doctor and tell him that every morning at exactly 7:20 a.m., I can’t help shouting ‘down, down, down…’ Believe me, it is a bimari and you need to find a cure!”
This time Shekhawat too burst out laughing.
Karun Sharma:
This is a new family for me. I have started exercising and am finding the group very compatible. There is a lot of similarity I share with the members. My bonds are going to be stronger.
Kiran Prakash:
You are most welcome, Karun-ji. Please do come regularly and also get involved in post-exercise 'gup shup'. You will enjoy more. All the best. Keep laafing!