Cold Storage?

As winter sets in, our picnic plan for Alibaug seems to be getting into cold storage. Let alone anybody taking the initiative to tie up the loose ends, nobody is even bringing up the subject. Shekhawat-ji, who looks to be in fine fettle now and has been a past master at organizing picnics, is equally indifferent. Probably he does not want to get into this mid-stream when Yusuf-bhai started it all. And Yusuf-bhai has become scarce.
This is rather odd, especially at a time when the Club is witnessing record attendance. On any given day, we are having between 25 and 30 members (if not more), most of them turning up well before time. Every other day, a new face shows up. Even Renu and Kishor Babani are arriving long before their normal time, thereby giving the impression (like many others) that they had been staying overnight in the Garden!
The ‘record attendance’ would however, not last for long. Many members are expecting guests/ family to drop in for the Christmas-New Year holidays and that could alter their morning schedule. (For instance, Arora-sah’b is having his son over from Singapore.) Then there are some who would be going out on vacation during the winter. Santosh-ji (right) has already packed her bags and would be leaving for Delhi tomorrow to attend a family reunion. Khatoon Baig (below, left) is planning a trip to Dubai, beginning December 11. Renu has also said that she would be unavailable from December 20… All these factors, put together, have rendered the possibility of a picnic in the near future, rather slim.
Meanwhile, there’s good news from Khatoon Baig. Her son, Naveed has just been awarded a prize for excellence in performance by his employers, naukri.com. He is a hot shot there. The proud mother distributed gulab-jamuns this morning to share her joy with us. Significantly, the number of gulab-jamuns she had brought along matched exactly with those present, right up to the last piece – not one more, not one less!
Being so eerily accurate with her estimate, is it any wonder that she has a gifted son?

Harish Wadhwa says:
Kishor-bhai's Guru Gyan today is very good and well thought out. I wish I could do all of them to make life better. I will try.
--Harish

Renu Babani says:
I shall be travelling on the 22nd and so my last day in the Garden will most probably be on the 21st of December. Will be returning home on 2nd January. Hopefully returning to the Garden on the 3rd if I have recovered from my holiday hangover at my maayka. If the picnic doesn't materialize now, perhaps later on, when the holiday season is over and everyone is back. Let's wait and watch. Things done in a hurry never work out anyway.
--Renu