Winter Exodus

Geeta Latte explains her itinerary for the North East

After lying low for a week, Geeta Latte today surfaced in the Garden mainly to say ‘ta-ta bye-bye’. She is leaving for Guwahati this afternoon and then, onward to Meghalaya and Nagaland in what should be an exhaustive tour of the North East. She is expected back on November 12.
By then, the group on the Bangkok Tour (October 31 to November 7) would have returned to Mumbai.

Shekhawat thanks Maitra (r) for
curing him of his skin ailment

Should Kiran Prakash – currently on a Nile Cruise in Egypt – be able to touch base in time, he would leave for Bangkok with the group on October 31. And then, there is Arun Patil who has a trip lined up for Goa from November 1, presumably on a film shoot.
They are not the only ones to be taking off in the near future. From Siba Prasad Maitra to Bose Babu to Santosh Tyagi, suddenly a large number of members are having travel plans for this winter. Others like Lt Col Angad Singh (retd), Manisha Kolhe, Ram Shankar Shukla and Tara Chand Seth are already away from Mumbai since long. All this put together, will inevitably lead to a drop in regular attendance at the Garden in weeks to come.
The winter exodus this year is rather unusual because much of the goings-‘n’-comings occurs during the festive season – between Dussehra and Diwali. This time around, surprisingly, only Shekhawat had taken off on Dussehra. All the other regulars reported for the daily exercises, in spite of school/ colleges remaining shut and the unusually hostile weather conditions.
Should this be a cause for worry... in view of the Annual function on December 16? Not really. But then, how it all pans out would be clear by the second week of November.

Lt Col Angad Singh (retd):
Surprisingly these tours have come all of a sudden and attendance in the morning sessions has dropped. But this is a temporary affair. Soon the Club will be humming again with its usual activities. Such drops also serve a purpose.