Holding Fort

It was the turn of Pratap Bhatt (in pic) to hold fort today. In the absence of regular instructors, creating a back-up for conducting the morning exercises has assumed importance of late. So the moment Bhatt offered to step in the middle, he was welcomed with open arms.
But the gentleman had other plans. Apart from his broken-Bengali wisecracks, he had got into the prankster mode by deliberately goofing at the initial stages. Later, he was to stabilize and sailed through the entire routine with effortless ease, but for occasional tomfoolery such as calling for a ‘parrot exercise’. "Now, jerk your head left, then right, the way a parrot does,” he commanded amid rousing laughter.
Tara Chand Seth observed that Bhatt was the “most educated” of all our instructors since he could correctly count up to 10, whatever the exercise – unlike Bapu Rane who always stopped at 7 and Srichand Arora, who is incapable of counting beyond 5!
The persistent buzz though was the complete breakdown of communication with Kashmir since yesterday. Almost everyone seems to have tried contacting someone or the other from our group on phone, but has failed to connect. Today, soon after the exercises, Ramila Mistry dialed Santosh Tyagi – then Shekhawat, and then Arora – but to no avail.
Renu Babani's PICSPEAK:
"I can do anything I want, just follow my lead."
Anonymous:
Due to security reasons, none of the pre-paid mobile numbers are working on their trip.
Harish Wadhwa:
Got to know that there was a Kashmir Bandh in protest against plans to build a road to the Amarnath shrine. Mobile phones there must have been blocked for security reasons.