Freak Cold Wave

Ram Shankar Shukla

Just as we thought we were done finally with winter, another cold wave has hit us. It was obviously the effect of the freak showers and hailstorm in parts of north India. Yesterday, Mumbai recorded one of the coldest days during March in history. No wonder, attendance was low this morning. Those who came in without woolens had a tough time braving the unusual chill and hostile winds.
But that was not to dampen the spirit of some of our pathological pranksters. For instance, Srichand Arora got curious on how the baldies were faring with frozen heads under their cap, only to discover that he was the only baldy around today.

Arun Patil and Razia Khan

When Ved Prakash Grover offered to lift his cap (to display a full head) he was dissuaded from “removing his izzat”. But when Ram Shankar Shukla’s turn came, Arora was ecstatic: “Oh-teri-toh, this head is a complete airport runway!”
However, nothing was to match Razia Khan’s incessant needling of Arun Patil today. The moment he stepped in the middle to conduct the exercises, Razia got into a vicious tit-for-tat act. Much to our amusement, she went after him full-blast – bullying, distracting and confusing him at every stage – mainly to avenge the criticism she had faced from him in the past. So Arun was either too fast or too slow, did not know how to count, rolled his arms the wrong way, did not bend fully… Obviously, nothing he did today met with her approval.
When Arun complained that she was unnecessarily troubling him, Nahid Khan opined sagely that this was not “tung karna” but “chhed-chhaad karna”. But that was not to deter Razia. She kept gunning at Arun relentlessly – more so, since everyone was enjoying the fun at their expense. Even Arora did not intervene.
The next time Arun is summoned to the middle, he would have to think a dozen times – especially if Razia were to be around.