Uneasy Calm

Moti greets a well-wisher with chocolate

After days of warm sunshine and festivity around birthday celebrations (ref previous posts) an uneasy calm held over the Garden since early morning. Monsoon had resumed. The sky was overcast and rains threatened to descend any moment.
In the gathering darkness, 90-year-old Moti Gurshani stood ramrod straight outside the China Hut, greeting everybody who passed by with a smile and a box of chocolates. He is back from a holiday in the United States and this was his way of celebrating his return to the Garden.

Yusuf Rassiwala (from left), Kiran Prakash, Kajal and Dilip Babani

For his age, the gentleman looked incredibly peppy and rejuvenated in his trademark white shorts and beige T-shirt.
Sure enough, the rains arrived and washed up the Garden in its wake. We contained ourselves within the China Hut, only to disperse in a hurry after the exercises. Some though hung around out of habit. Kiran Prakash created a minor stir as he tried to explain his absence yesterday – something unusual of one known to be so regular for the exercises.
Yusuf Rassiwala believed him when he said he had overslept in the morning. Kajal Babani wanted to believe he was sloshed out of his senses and couldn’t make it to the Garden. Putting both the excuses together, it stood to reason that Kiran Prakash was so badly drunk the previous night that he could not wake up in time early morning.
“In fact, I woke up in the morning, got drunk again and slept off,” he clarified today, adding to the mystery. If only there was some truth in any of this…
Lt Col Angad Singh (retd):
Making plausible excuses is not within everyone's domain. It goes to the credit of Kiran Prakash that he could convince almost everyone on the reasons for his absence. At the same time it also goes to the credit of a few alert people who were not easily convinced. This is what you gain by exercising your mind and laughing. Good show! Keep laughing and enjoy the rains.