One-Way Ticket

Shekhawat gives Khatoon Baig her one-way ticket

Normally when anybody wants to take a flight to some place, he/ she would book a return ticket – unless of course, there are no immediate plans of returning home. Now trust Shekhawat to book 23 tickets by Indigo Airlines to Bagdogra – the airport nearest to Darjeeling/ Gangtok (for the Club excursion next April) – only to realize that the Rs96,600 he had paid in cash was only for a one-way fare. What about the return?
But then to be fair, Shekhawat had got those tickets for a near-impossible rate of Rs4,000-odd per passenger – a fare that is not even available online. And what’s more, all 23 tickets are for the same flight at the same price – again, something no airline is known to offer insofar as bulk bookings at discounted prices are concerned. In his excitement to grab whatever he got, did Shekhawat commit on behalf of the group not to return to Mumbai?
That was the question being asked this morning as Shekhawat jubilantly distributed zerox copies of the tickets and proclaimed that he is not such an “ullu” that some people might imagine.

Box of sweets from Angad Singh

While Khatoon Baig, Bhanu Khan and others pulled a long face, worried how they would return home, Shekhawat was on the tenth heaven. “Don’t worry about coming back,” he said. “When I get a good rate, I’ll book your return as well.”
The other person to hit pay dirt during the weekend was Srichand Arora. He managed to pick more than a dozen parrot-green T-shirts for a ridiculous price of Rs135 per piece and distributed them this morning. There’s of course a rider to this: We will now have to wear those T-shirts every Wednesday, the so-called ‘Green Day’ for the Club. The moment Arora mentioned this and the price, ladies unaccustomed to western wear returned their T-shirts. “I would rather wrap a green dupatta around,” declared Santosh Tyagi. In all this, Angad Singh came up with a box of sweets, presumably from his home town, Mohali. As usual, he did not disclose the reasons for celebrating, but insisted that we enjoy his treat. Clearly, he belongs to the old school that maintains we ought to relish the mangoes rather than count the trees.
Jagmohan Papneja:
By any reasoning, if an innovative idea (such as wearing green T-shirt on Wednesdays) is to be implemented in a group, it should be on the basis of consensus where everyone actively supports it or at least, can live with it. Unilateral decisions yield not so good results. No one is more qualified than you to decide what your life should be.