Major Milestone

Nasir Putani Shah presents the birthday calendar

Karuna Waghmare reached a major milestone in life today. She turned 70. Decked in a grand silk sari, she was completely unrecognizable to most of us when she showed up this morning to usher in her birthday at the Garden.
Like many in the exercise circle, Khatoon Baig took a while to identify the spectacled lady in pink-‘n’-purple seated quietly at a distance on a bench. “Aww Karuna pretty-pretty!?!” she exclaimed.

Karuna Waghmare 

“Honestly, I could not recognize her…”
Karuna has many fans in the Club. And all of them had, till the other day, visualized her to be “dressed as a little doll” on her birthday. To find her today dressed in regal silk (and minus the walking stick) did create awkward moments, at least initially.
But Bijoy Gupta, as always lightened the mood by pretending to be hard of hearing and wanted a clarification on “whether Karuna had turned 70 or 17”.

Party time: Hostess of the mostest

The more she said she was 70, the more he kept insisting it had to be 17 and then went on to warble a cheesy ditty, “Tere husn ki kya tareef karoon, kuchh kehte huay bhi darta hoon…”
That set the tone for the merrymaking all morning -- though punctuated by a formal presentation of the Club calendar by Naseer Putani Shah, a chorus of the birthday song and in true Big Laaf tradition, raising a fourth laugh after the exercises. Karun Sharma had even penned a beautiful poem for Karuna to mark the landmark event.
As always, the celebration was wrapped up with a lavish treat with the birthday girl playing a loving and generous host. Here’s wishing her many happy returns of the day, once again.

Bijoy Gupta sings a song

Peering into the birthday calendar

Karun Sharma recites a poem

Dilip Babani:
Happy Birthday, Karuna-ji!