Busy Days Ahead

Tying up loose ends for the Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani trip

The next five days promise to be action-packed as two important deadlines for the Club are coming to a close: one, the Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani trip takes off on May 19 with twenty members on board; and two, the results of the current edition of Pehchaan Kaun are to be declared on May 16. A few other activities are also lined up around these events, but those are of little consequence at the moment.
For the three-day trip beginning next Tuesday, the chartered bus is supposed to leave the Garden at 6:00 a.m., in time for the group to catch up with lunch at Mahabaleshwar.

Second thoughts on Pehchaan Kaun

The hotel, in which they are booked, will be providing breakfast, lunch and dinner for the period of stay while local travel is being organised by the tour operator providing the bus service. This will also include the trip to Panchgani as well as other scenic spots in the twin hill stations.
Like the previous trip to Gangtok-Darjeeling, Monthi Serrao and Bhaswati Bose are jointly coordinating the schedules for this outing under the supervision of Shekhawat. According to them, bookings have already been finalised but as always, they are having to deal with last-minute drop-outs, additions and substitutions. Despite being an old hand in such matters, Shekhawat is now at his wits’ end in making jodis (since accommodation is on a twin-sharing basis) and having to adjust to ‘special requests’ from group members. This will continue till the time of departure.
Meanwhile, excitement is mounting over the Pehchaan Kaun-12 guessing game as many are now intent upon revising the entries submitted initially. So far there are 20 contenders in the fray for the crystal trophy – but this is only after an inordinately long extension of 10 days to the deadline was allowed last Thursday (ref post of May 7).
The odd part is that many ladies have turned bold enough at asking men to remove their shoes in order to spot the tell-tale scar mark near the ankle. Today Santosh Tyagi tried her luck at getting Sitaram Hivarkar to take off his shoes. The more he refused the more she persisted. Now Santosh needs no further confirmation that Sitaram Hivarkar is her ‘mystery man’ with the funny cap.