Mobile Phone Ban

Nahid Khan

Nahid Khan today promulgated an ‘ordinance’ banning the use of mobile phones in the Garden. She took strong exception to Shekhawat repeatedly tinkering with his phone and making calls while the exercises were on.

Shekhawat, busy on phone

Not only was he paying no heed to her instructions during the free-hand session, he was distracting others as well. Short of losing her temper, Nahid declared that no mobile phones would henceforth be allowed. While the order was received in pin drop silence, Jagmohan Papneja tempered its impact by adding, “Only incoming calls may be allowed.”
But to Shekhawat, the instructions hardly made a difference. At his friskiest best, he was all over the place and when having nothing better to do, he danced to the music playing in the middle.

Bijoy Gupta is dragged back

He announced ‘Kissa Kursi Ka’ during the knee-bending number but himself kept flapping both arms as is done during the ‘Bird Fly’ round. And when he noticed that Bijoy Gupta had left the exercises to take rest on a bench far away, Shekhawat ran the distance and physically pulled him back into the circle. Gupta’s loud protestations about getting exhausted and that he had to go for a gym session fell into deaf ears.

Shekhawat gets an amused look from everyone

This is Shekhawat – at age 74.
And yet, here is a man who already has several irons in the fire. He is organizing the Darjeeling-Gangtok trip and has just booked the flight tickets (ref yesterday’s post) for the onward journey. There are return tickets to be booked and he hasn’t yet collected the fare from all. He has also to collect lunch money from members for the Chhota Kashmir picnic-cum-meeting rescheduled this weekend (ref post of December 6) and still there is no clarity about the programme. He tried to explain but everybody looked blankly at him, more bemused than convinced by what he had to say.
Jagmohan Papneja:
Shekhawat-ji cannot hide his true colours as he approaches his second childhood.