Class Act

'Real' Kiran Prakash

Kiran Prakash’s class act as Santa Claus (ref yesterday’s post) has earned him high praise from all quarters. A fourth laugh was raised for him after the exercises today for the manner he could get into the skin of the character and keep

Bihari Milwani sits amused as Qadir Bano seeks the blessing
of Santa Claus (a.k.a. Kiran Prakash) for her grandchild

all kids engaged for the entire two-hour duration of the Christmas celebration in the Garden yesterday.
Clearly, nobody had expected him to pull it off so effortlessly. Even those who have been seeing him every morning for years failed recognise the face behind the disguise. Many made “educated guesses” wondering if Santa was someone they knew, but never quite zeroing in on Kiran Prakash.
“I thought you people had got hold of some boodwa (old man) from somewhere and dressed him up as Father Christmas,” said a Garden regular, instantly prompting peals of laughter all around.

Shekhawat (l) still cannot believe his eyes!

“Honestly, I believed you had kept him hidden outside the gate and at your signal, he showed up before us. I saw him getting out of an autorickshaw, but how was I to know he was Kiran Prakash?”
Kiran Prakash, who was present today (without make-up, of course) quietly listened to the compliments, but at this point he too burst out laughing. He had saved a video recording of the event in his mobile and circulated it around among those not present yesterday.

Biscuits  Sharing the remains of yesterday

Barring Laxmi Hadimani, nobody could identify him in the Santa costume and get-up.
Yusuf Rassiwala’s grand-daughters, Mubaraka and Jamila as well as Siba Prasad Maitra’s two sprightly grandsons, Yug and Ziann also came in for much acclaim from those present. By now, Mubaraka has become a club veteran having attended our exercises quite often and even officiating as a judge for our last Sports Day.
But the biggest surprise was Shekhawat’s grandson, Shlok presently pursuing his studies in the U.K. He rarely visits the Club. The last we remember seeing him was as a shy pre-teen, holding on to his grandma’s pallu. Nobody had expected to see him grow into a fine young man, clean-shaved, with an air of authority about him.
This was the purpose of yesterday’s event. Over the year, we hardly get to meet and interact with the kids we hear/ know of and about whom our members are so proud. A Christmas celebration exclusively for children (read grandkids) is just a pretext to bridge this gap. In that sense, we were fairly successful yesterday. Next year we will be still better.

Karun Sharma:
Let me name this event as Get-together of Grands -- grandparents and grandchildren. It was a highly successful event, prompting my grandson, Vivan and son, Madhur to attend. Meeting Shekhawat-ji's grandson was the first time for me. The grandchildren of Yusuf-bhai and Maitra-ji were very active and it was good to connect with other grandchildren too. Kiran-ji handled the role of Santa with authority and ease. We must continue to play the role of Santa Claus in the lives of our friends.

Hussain Rassiwalla
I thank God for blessing me with such good grandparents and all the people whom I have known through my grandfather. I thank everyone for giving me a chance to bring out the real me. I feel very lucky to have such people in my life and I wish that God always fills your life with happiness. I again thank you all for taking the effort to know me better and accepting me as one of you. Thank you very much.