Picnic Afterglow

Happy days are here again. After the week-long build-up for the Sunday picnic at Harshgiri, enduring the rigors of that trip and bunking exercises yesterday, things were back to normal this morning. Of the 30-odd members who turned up, ladies outnumbered the men as usual. The chatterers and the gigglers were all there, complimenting one another and adding to the overall sense of bonhomie.
Somehow, Neelam Garg (above) found herself at the receiving end with the ladies gunning at her for having recommended Harshgiri as a great picnic spot. Some suggested she scram before the exercises ended. An over-concerned Santosh Tyagi enquired if she had brought along some bodyguards for protection as nobody would spare her after the exercises.
Much as the lady explained to one and all that she never “recommended” the place and had only said that she found it “good”, nobody was prepared to listen. Long after the exercises were over, they kept chiding her for misleading us and she sportingly maintained that she found nothing wrong with the place when she had gone there. Obviously, times have changed and we had ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Another bright patch of the morning was Srichand Arora (right) being his old chatty self. He could not join us for the picnic because of a persistent slip disc problem. He is still in pain, but kept up a brave smile and his sporadic wisecracks through the exercise sessions. When Bapu Rane commented about a Marathi play in town on Gandhi’s assassination, Arora-sah’b was quick to retort: “Look, I address him as Bapu and he’s calling me Nathuram Godse!”
Even Prakash Motwani (left) was in a jovial mood while narrating a hilarious incident on how he almost got conned in trying to find a cure for his tinnitus problem. Quite simply, he suffers from a constant ringing in his left ear. But doctors have diagnosed him for a variety of ailments, from vertigo to degeneration of aural nerves… till he finally got hold of a reputed ENT surgeon at Versova. Without much ado, the wise doc prescribed a Walkman that plays “soothing music” when plugged to the ears. This way the ringing in the ears would be drowned and Motwani could even catch some sleep, the doctor promised.
The price of this stupid Walkman: Rs70,000 – payable in installments!
Renu Babani says:
Whatever the outcome of the picnic, everyone was back to their normal selves. Despite the blame game which was done in a cheerful way, everything else was back to routine. Mr Shekawat announced that a meeting will be held Wednesday morning after the exercise session, so hopefully everyone will attend. Yes, the picnic will be a constant topic for a while, considering the place was not at all impressive to say the least. However, no matter what one says now, it doesn't make a difference as it is over and time to move on. We do have a knack of finally laughing things off. So hopefully this time will be the same.
--Renu