Ready Reckoner

Shekhawat (in striped tee) distributes the Membership List

Shekhawat today performed the ritual of distributing the Membership List of the Club, effective April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020. More than providing an annual update, the list serves as a 'ready reckoner' indicating the telephone numbers of bona fide members, i.e. those who have not defaulted on their annual subscription and against whom there are no dues.
That’s so far as the official line goes.
What is not official and indeed, not talked about is a hilarious reality befitting a laughter club. Just as in a new restaurant we discreetly skim the extreme right-hand column of a menu card, the main attraction of this new ‘reckoner’ is the last column that lists the birthdays of members.
To an outsider, the column conveys little – not even the age of a person. But to a true, blue-blooded Big Laaf member, there exists a wealth of embedded information that, in many subtle ways, influences interaction between Club members in the next 12 months.
For one, you now know how to budget your birthday bash – how much damage you’d be exposed to, an affordable venue, whether or not to invite ‘special guests’, etc. For another, you can prepare yourself well in advance for birthdays to be avoided – or otherwise.
On the other hand, there are clusters of birthdays that tell you when it will be unwise to leave town – unless of course, you fall in that cluster. It may even make sense to be regular (if not punctual) for the exercises at those times of the year.
There are many such issues… but then, to be fair, these do not matter to those who are serious about exercising and in their daily attendance.

Bihari Milwani:
In school we used to get a List of Holidays. Here, in Big Laaf, we are given a List of Compulsory Attendance Days!