Rs100 Effect

An excursion for senior citizens from the neighboring Garden all but hijacked our Club. For a hundred bucks (what could otherwise cost Rs 500) per head to a distant holiday resort, travel and food included, it was a steal. As a result, barely 13 members showed up this morning. A majority of the ladies, including regulars like Razia Khan, Nahid Khan, Khatoon Baig, Geeta Sandhana, Nafisa Sayed, Sushma Gupta, Mumtaz Jahan and Harbans Singh were absent.
Santosh Tyagi (right) was also supposed to go, but opted out after paying for her seat. She has not been keeping well for a week and could just about make it to the Garden today. In her delicate state of health, she did not want to risk a long road trip by bus. The good thing was that she chose to walk down from her house instead of taking an auto-rickshaw.
The best part though was Srichand Arora (below, left) inviting Sunita Jajodia (below, right) to conduct the exercises this morning. He said he had read in the blogpost day-before yesterday (when he was not present) that she, along with Nahid Khan had conducted the morning’s proceedings – even as it was the laughter round. Obviously, he could see the potential in her to graduate to taking charge of the free-hand exercises as well and wanted to remove whatever inhibitions she might have.
Actually, Arora-sah’b had a larger game plan, which became evident only later. He is trying to groom a second line-of-command for conducting the exercises, since two key members, Yusuf Rassiwala and Sitaram Hivarkar have become quite irregular these days. In their absence, the burden of conducting invariably falls upon Nahid Khan and Razia Khan – and of course, Arora-sah’b himself. As he mentioned, he is looking at Hari Singh Shekhawat and Santosh Tyagi also as additional back-ups. Only someone with foresight and having the long-term perspective of the Club's interests can think along these lines.
Sunita-ji was however, all at sea, as she could not see the bigger picture. When Arora-sah’b told her, “Bas, aaj se aapki duty lag gayi,” she felt she had been led into a trap. “Mujhe, kahaan phansaa rahein hain?” she complained. Nevertheless, she took on the challenge gamely and did a fine job of conducting the exercises – except in the beginning, when Bapu Rane and Tara Chand requested her to slow down a bit.
At the end, when everybody complimented her, Sunita-ji became all the more suspicious. She could not believe that she had pulled it off so well. Only when Santosh-ji demanded a treat for being praised by everybody, did Sunita-ji start believing in herself. Tomorrow, after her son returns from Chennai and shows her the blog on his laptop, would she be convinced completely.
Renu Babani says:
Tick-tock, on the clock: 7:40, on the dot... And we are done. It is a hat-trick! Three days in a row and the exercises completed on time. Yes, Mr Arora certainly ensured that the laughter and exercises were completed really well and with such few members, it was done in silence. However, the more the members it is definitely better. So once the weekend is over, hopefully everyone shall be back. We saw the senior citizens' picnic bus head off towards its destination and do hope that they had a blast. Hopefully we shall get a full report and perhaps our next picnic shall follow in their footsteps.
--Renu
Anonymous says:
Interesting theme, I will take part!
--Anon