Prelude to Party

Bijoy Gupta (l) distributes tilgul laddoo to mark Makar Sankranti

Today was Makar Sankranti – a festival that celebrates the solar cycle, whereby the sun transits into Makara or the constellation of Capricorn and in effect, marks the beginning of shorter nights and longer days. In simple language, this means we are not done with winter yet.
Why this phenomenon needs to be celebrated is anybody’s guess. But Bijoy Gupta, of all the people, wanted to make a meal of it and generously handed out some jaw-breaking tilgul luddoos early morning. True to tradition, he even managed to mutter “tilgul dhya, goad-goad bola” much to everybody’s surprise.
Shekhawat was not impressed though. He raised the bar by announcing a sit-down dinner in the evening at his house and only those present today for the exercises were invited. “I am not calling anybody else,” he said emphatically. “I will not make phone calls this time asking people to come. Those absent today will miss the party. I cannot help it... it is their bad luck."

Shekhawat (r) invites everyone personally for the dinner party

Gupta could not believe his ears. “You mean you are really throwing a party?” he asked Shekhawat. “Are you serious? Or are you going to make a fool of us when we land up at your place? I cannot imagine you would eventually invite us home for dinner.”
Shekhawat fished out a piece of paper from his pocket and showed Gupta what looked like a dhobi list. “See, this is proof,” he said when Gupta asked what he was to make of a listing of aloo-baigan, tamatar, sabji… Apparently, those were the grocery items Shekhawat was to order for today's dinner party.
The other subject of concern, as raised by Nahid Khan, was the building lift, supposed to be under repair (ref post of January 11). Shekhawat informed that it was still out of order and suggested that we could either take the staircase up five floors or else, get to the adjacent building, take the lift to the top floor and then make our way by jumping across a wall on the common terrace.
By the way, Shekhawat’s grandson, Shlok is leaving for London the day-after-tomorrow late night, i.e. January 18.