Picnic Fever

Banoo Apa helps Urmila Sinha to conduct prayers from a cellphone

Urmila Sinha distributes prasad of the Ashtami puja she held yesterday

Once every six months, members of the Club are struck by a peculiar affliction. All of a sudden everybody gets into a frenzy, restless to set out on a picnic. Any place will do. Funnily, the fever lasts only for a month and then, everything fizzles out. All is forgotten… at least, for the next six months.
This time around, Zarina Khan was instrumental in spreading the virus. Somebody told her that Amby Valley in Lonavala is a great place to be in and she even signed up with another picnic group for a day trip. But as her luck would have it, the booking was rejected. And then she piled on the Club.
That is how the picnic fever caught on. Zarina has systematically been prevailing upon anybody and everybody who cared to listen to her, insisting that a picnic to Amby Valley is overdue. She managed to even persuade Banoo Apa and Nahid Khan this morning. When they were told that Amby Valley is no big deal, the general reaction was that “any other place will do” – so long as we get going.
After weighing several options, the toss-up is now between Alibaug and Silvasa. Both hold promise, more so because we have not ventured to either of those places from the Club. Zarina’s only hope is that when Shekhawat returns from his village (tomorrow), he would set the ball rolling and make the picnic happen.
But Bijoy Gupta has other plans. He wants Shekhawat to pay for the picnic (rather than all members contributing) as a sort of “penalty for ditching us on the Rajasthan tour” (ref post of August 30). So he has decided to insist that Shekhawat bears the cost of taking the Club to the most distant part of the country, apparently Kanyakumari.
“I am sure he will refuse,” Gupta reasoned. “Then I will suggest Bangalore, then Mangalore, then Goa… this way, getting closer and closer to Mumbai. Ultimately, he would be all too relieved on having to foot the bill to Alibaug only, or Silvassa. It will be a win-win for all!”