All Set to Go

Third and final meeting for the Monday picnic

All is set for the one-day picnic at Samara Gardens on Monday, October 14 (ref previous posts). The picnic bus will leave our Garden around 7:30 a.m. and reach the venue in about an hour. Breakfast shall be waiting there. Banoo Apa has kindly agreed to organising tea and snacks for the journey.
According to Shekhawat, 22 members have so far paid for the picnic -- the number likely to go up to 25 before Monday. He is apparently counting on Rukhsana Khan’s daughters and Bijoy Gupta’s wife. A couple of other names were also mentioned, but the likelihood of their joining us appears slim.
“I have booked a 32-seater bus,” he informed. “Whether it goes half-empty or full, we shall

Rukhsana and Fahmida, friends indeed

be charged the same amount by the transport company. In our interest, we should ensure that all the seats are occupied. This would reduce our per-head cost on the journey.”
Shekhawat has already worked out a good deal with the resort management, having extracted a Rs100 discount per head on the ground he's taking a senior citizens’ group. “I intend to extract a further concession as ex-serviceman,” he said. “I shall be wearing my white uniform and medals on Monday

Back to old times: Shekhawat leads the joy train

to convince them of being a navy veteran.”
In all this, a heart-warming story came to the fore. We all know that Rukhsana is under immense mental stress after being duped of an unimaginably huge sum of money recently. This has affected her physically also because she feels faint nowadays and tends to retch for no apparent reason. So when she excused herself from the picnic, we understood.
Fahmida Khan would however, have none of this. She discreetly called up Rukhsana, offering to pay on her behalf for the picnic and insisted she joins us. “How else will you be able to distract yourself from your worries?” Fahmida reasoned. “You need to get out of the house and be with us. You need to go for the picnic. Don’t worry about the expenses.”
On narrating the incident this morning, Rukhsana said that it was not as though Fahmida was doing well financially, but it was this generosity of spirit that makes her so much “more rich and noble” than anybody she knew. It is another matter her elder daughter put in the cash and Rukhsana did not have to take Fahmida’s help. If only we could all follow Fahmida's example...