Grasshopper Story

It was a bright sunny morning when out of the blue, a little green grasshopper flipped into the Chinese Hut where we were exercising. It fell close to Mr Garg, dodged Arora-ji’s shoes, darted towards Shekhawat’s, waited for a while before skipping around Rane, suddenly changed course and played near Nahid Khan, then hopped towards Grover, stopped again, raced to where the ladies were, only to bounce back and after one huge leap, settled on a green mat lying folded on the ledge.
Bhaswati was the first to notice and shrieked. Following a momentary disruption in the exercises, it was decided to let it be. It sat motionless, blending well into the greenness of the mat. But it had already become a major distraction, the fear being that it could suddenly take flight and land square on someone’s face.
Interrupting the exercises again, Arora crossed over, peered at it closely and after a while declared, “Iska nasha abhi tak utra nahin.”
Nahid Khan corrected him: “Roothi hui hai!”
Instantly all eyes searched the floor and sure enough, at the far end of the floor, just beside Motwani’s feet, was its jodi. “Kya, jhagda hua in dono mein?” Arora asked.
“Nahin, bhai-behen hai,” Nahid Khan replied sternly.
That pretty much settled the matter, only that there was a crow, perched on a high beam, eyeing the little grasshopper. This was a diabolical drama of predator and prey being played out. The crow kept cawing and fluttering about, rapidly changing position. At one point, Geeta-ji shooed it away, but soon it returned to its original perch. If it were not for us getting in its way, the grasshopper would be history. Effectively, till the exercises lasted, we were depriving the crow of its breakfast.
Finally, our exercises ended with the jumbo laughter, followed by 108 claps. This sudden ruckus caught the crow by surprise and out of panic, it simply gave up and flew away. The grasshopper too upped and disappeared. Nobody saw what happened to its partner. What we found were its squished remains on the floor, the stains of which were traced to Motwani’s shoes.