Rendered Speechless

Kishor and Renu Babani returned to the Garden after a holiday. And Harish Wadhwa has left – for Jaipur. Nafisa Sayyad came, but Razia Khan did not. Ved Prakash Grover came, but Arun Patil did not. Geeta Sardhana came, but Harbans Singh did not. Bapu Rane came, but Srichand Arora did not... And Pratap Bhatt called early morning from Melbourne, just to say, “Bhaloo Toh?”
Shekhawat also came (right pic), but could hardly speak. With great difficulty, he could just about manage a weak croak – which was essentially to convey that he had been down with fever after having one too many. Oddly enough, nobody was buying that. He is supposed to be a veteran in all varieties of the bubbly and being indisposed after imbibing an extra chilled beer on a winter evening somehow did not ring true. The only possibility, according to Nafisa, was that someone had attempted to throttle him at night. And that person would be none other than the chudail from his village. After his recent trip to Rajasthan, she has obviously followed him to Mumbai to torment him!
But then, Shekhawat is a gentleman and none of us would ever like to see him in distress. So as expected, everyone turned into a self-styled doctor prescribing a home remedy for his hoarse throat – from chewing tulsi leaves and ginger to gargling with warm water and salt to gulping down a concoction of milk and turmeric to taking a swig of brandy, or better still, rum or whiskey with molasses...
The prescriptions came fast and furious till Shekhawat was left completely speechless at the end of it all. When he left the Garden, he could not even croak!
Jagmohan Papneja:
* Whatever is happening in the group with the changing tide of life, you never miss the opportunity to tell how much everyone means to us.