Picnic Burial

Shekhawat returns the picnic money he had collected

With one day to go, the picnic idea (ref post of February 2) was finally given a formal burial this morning. Shekhawat returned the moneys he had collected from Karun Sharma, Zarina Khan and the Gupta couple saying that “we might as well forget any picnic from the Club in future”.
If one person looked disappointed by this development, it was Bijoy Gupta. “I thought the picnic was meant to celebrate the success of our Annual Function,” he remarked. “I still feel we should go. We deserve a picnic.”
Several suggestions came up on the spot as a viable alternative. Dilip Babani proposed a day out at Juhu Beach as we had done a couple of times in the past.

Mysterious poster at the Garden
gate that is self explanatory

Somehow, Gupta was not impressed and in the absence of enthusiasm from anybody around, the idea became a non-starter.
Another spot idea

Banoo Apa hosts tea party early morning

that came up (but not without some mischief) was to pile on unannounced at Arun Patil’s film set and on the pretext of watching the shoot (ref yesterday’s post) spend a full day in Film City.
Everybody agreed that it was one of the few beautiful picnic spots in Mumbai that remains largely unexplored. “But first get us the permission and then we will go,” Shekhawat said dismissively.
There was a third proposal yet. Why not go to the Borivli National Park and as we had done earlier, have our Sports Day there? For various events like tug of war, spoon race, musical chair, etc. we may even hand out trophies to the winners as take-home mementos.
The suggestion appealed to Gupta (among others), but soon objections were raised on the absence of comfortable seating/ resting arrangements, toilet facilities, etc. in a jungle environment. So this idea too was cast away taking us back to square one: Banish the thought of a picnic any time soon.

Lt Col Angad Singh (retd):
Alas, it is too bad that we have given up on the picnic. An outing should be welcome. As for Geeta's teeth pain, I suggest she should gargle with alum (phatkari) in little water. In a few days the pain will vanish. After that she should get her other dental problems sorted out.

Dilip Babani:
Banoo Apa, very nice tea. Thank you very much. My wife liked your tea.