Spring Is Here

Today was Vasant Panchami – the fifth day of the bright fortnight of the lunar month of Magha (by the Hindu calendar) and celebrated variously as Sri Panchami, Saraswati Puja and Kite Festival. More importantly, it celebrates the start of the spring season. So, on this occasion, we might as well invoke Sarojini Naidu’s eternal poem, Song of Radha: “Let us dance / Let us sing / Let us wear saffron / And welcome the spring”.
Indeed, a very Happy Vasant Panchami to all our readers and followers!
However, none of us needed any such excuse to play the fool today, least of all Shekhawat.

Bhaswati Bose and Dilip Babani exchange jokes

He had an extra spring in his step and kept provoking the ladies -- particularly Ruksana Khan and Ramila Mistry -- to join him in his antics while exercising. Earlier, Bandini Li did him in with a playful number on his rubber-banded currency notes and thus set the mood for the morning.
It did not take long for Nahid Khan to join the fun and games when her turn came to conduct the exercises.

Sunita Jajodia

With Arun Patil’s romantic numbers playing continuously in the middle and Srichand Arora’s timely wisecracks, nobody really cared who were exercising and who weren’t.Sporadic discussions broke between Sunita Jajodia and Santosh Tyagi, Shekhawat and Jagmohan Papneja, Bhaswati Bose and Monthi Serrao and so on, with a good deal of cross-talk… all in keeping with the festive spirit. In the end, there was Dilip Babani regaling the group with a hilarious joke on telephone tomfoolery, followed by an equally funny narration by Bhaswati in the same vein.
In all this hubbub, we clean forgot to compliment Sunita Jajodia on her moving into a new apartment at Orchid Tower. We all know that she had been house-hunting for long and surely, it was tough for her family to zero in on a place in the same neighborhood. We are happy for her and doubly happy that she will not leave us -- were she to move to another locality.
Jagmohan Papneja:
Wishing you happiness, good fortune, success, peace and progress on the occasion of Vasant Panchami.