Hilarious Asides

Shekhawat rattles off his 'Kadak Singh' lines

The core group meets to delegate off-stage duties

It would appear like an upcoming family wedding. Almost every member in the Club is now neck-deep preparing for the Annual Function on January 13. Rehearsals are on, morning and evening for over a month. Nothing is left to chance. Bijoy Gupta’s play has been finalized and the actors have memorized their parts. Likewise, the ladies (and a few men) are all geared up with their song-and-dance act. The live band has also been suitably briefed...
Today a decision was taken on delegating off-stage duties – from technical support, programming and sequencing to fixing the caterer, distribution of food boxes, ushering and attending to special invitees and so on. The purpose is to make this a fully participatory event with every member in the Club involved in one way or the other.
The upshot of this is that all those who were hitherto acting hard-to-get have suddenly turned over-friendly in their desperation to be featured in the function. Nothing wrong with it, but for the unpleasant task of weeding out sub-standard ‘talent’. For instance an elderly lady, with pretensions of a Lata Mangeshkar, had to be told tactfully to banish the thought of being a singer. She insisted on sitting for an audition, but couldn’t sing to save her life. Instead of telling her bluntly that she had murdered her song, Banoo Apa pointed out gently: “Yes, you can sing, but you are singing in a different tune!” How much more polite can anyone get?
Meanwhile, a gag order has been imposed on all actors of Gupta’s play – the idea being to retain an element of surprise till the actual enactment on stage. But Shekhawat is so excited with his role of a bumbling jailor that he simply cannot be restrained into keeping his mouth shut. Given half a chance, he would take off like a loose cannon: “I am Kadak Singh Jailor, I shall set everybody right…”
The ensuing performance has become the cause of much hilarity these days.

Kiran Prakash (from USA):
Reading today's blog gave me immense satisfaction and pride. The participation of every member will certainly make the event great. I may be away but my heart is always there with all of you. I am also carrying the script of my skit to prepare before I join you back.

Lt Col Angad Singh (retd):
It is good that all members are taking a lot of interest in making the Annual Function a memorable one. Certainly it will be appreciated by everybody.