Fireworks!

Going hammer and tongs

Diwali is still a week away and already fire crackers are going off in the Garden. An innocuous remark made with all good intention, gets blown out of proportion, and before anybody realizes, things reach a flashpoint and suddenly, there’s an explosion. BOOM!
That’s exactly how today’s drama played out with three sturdy ladies – Swati Punjabi, Razia Khan and Mallika Kagzi – going ballistic over an issue too trivial to mention. Such petty disputes tend to run a predictable course and typically, after a brief flare-up, would fizzle out.

Shekhawat stirs up a hornet's nest

But today, with many ‘non-state actors’ adding fuel to fire, matters spiraled out of control and an ugly free-for-all broke out. Sadly, we are yet to see (or hear) the end of it.
All this could have been avoided had Shekhawat not raised the issue of restricting free-loaders to Club parties and celebrations. The question was how do you distinguish a ‘gatecrasher’ from an invited ‘guest’ – a problem that is as old as the hills and for which there is no solution.

In peaceful times, discussing saalis

Party hosts everywhere learn to live with it.
Shekhawat too should have let it be. But today, in his eagerness to lay down some ground rules, he unwittingly opened a can of worms and many reputations got needlessly sullied. Had he stuck to his pet obsession of ‘four saalis’, peace would have prevailed in the Garden.
In fact, since early morning Shekhawat had been in a jovial mood as three of his saalis turned up today. “Yesterday was a Black Day for me,” he joked with Razia. “Not one of my four saalis had come.”
If Shekhawat still has a problem on this front, it is about the fourth saali. Right now, she happens to be Bijoy Gupta’s wife, Pushpa who simply refuses to get involved. Earlier, there was Rukhsana Khan, who is now bed-ridden with a fractured hipbone. Prior to her, there used to be Sunita Jajodia who terrorized Shekhawat so badly that he replaced her in no time.
Now he is once again on a saali hunt because he believes Pushpa has abandoned him for good. “Why don’t you people suggest someone?” he consulted Razia and Kiran Prakash in the morning. Had he continued in this spirit, joking and playing the fool, the morning would have ended on a positive note.
Bihari Milwani:
Sasu tirath, sasura tirath, tirath sala-sali. Lekin sab tirathon se bada, tirath hai gharwli!