‘Toy Handshake’

TOY HANDSHAKE: Karun Sharma is in the foreground facing camera

Innovation is the name of our game. Had it not been for this tendency to adapt and adopt, we would have remained where we were a decade ago. Big Laaf would not have evolved and grown into the Club it is today.
So this morning, when Karun Sharma suggested we play “a game of toy handshake” we jumped at the idea, little bothered about the spectacle we would be making of ourselves. We knew though that there had to be some method in this madness.
We obediently broke into pairs, held hands facing one another and after a few heave-hos threw our arms up in the air laughing hysterically.

Confused Karuna Waghmare

Karun explained that this exercise helps to “improve creativity”. Yusuf Rassiwala said that the laughter it evokes is “natural and spontaneous” unlike the forced outbursts we display as part of our normal routine.
Be that as it was, Karuna Waghmare also kept us in stitches on returning from her “Ganga-snaan pilgrimage” (ref post of January 9).

Shekhawat (l) distributes til-gud laddoos

The funny part was that she had no clue as to where she had been to.
She had left telling us that she was off to Allahabad to take a holy dip in the Triveni Sangam.
But today she described the place as dirty, very congested with narrow lanes, decrepit buildings, dead bodies burning by the river banks, and so on.
Now, this sounded more like Benares. “In this biting cold, we hired a boat and visited 49 ghats,” she affirmed, thereby confirming this could not be Allahabad.
When asked if she had unknowingly ended up in Benares by any chance, she nodded, looking utterly confused. Arun Patil asked

Nahid Khan (l) says it with toffees

Dilip Babani (r) brings Shirdi prasad

in Marathi if she was sure, her reply was that she “had to take the dip on Makar Sankranti day (last Saturday)” – this time leaving us baffled for words.
Earlier in the morning, there was Shekhawat celebrating Makar Sankranti with home-made til-gud laddoos – the soft, crunchy variety only his wife is capable of making. Separately, Dilip Babani celebrated his whistle stop visit to Shirdi on Sunday with revdi prasad from the Sai Baba shrine. If that was not all, Nahid Khan pitched in by distributing toffees and lozenges… simply for the heck of it. As they say, when it rains, it POURS.
Geeta Latte:
Bachhpan ki yaad aayi. Thank you so much Karun Uncle.