Pre-Christmas

Members wish Bihari Milwani on his 63rd birthday

Christmas arrived a day too soon at the Garden. Bihari Milwani celebrated his birthday this morning. He turned 63 yesterday. Belated though his treat was, we had the benefit of a double celebration with phoren chocolate squares today.

Bihari Milwani receives birthday calendar from his 'angel'

Karishma distributes chocolates

The funny part though was that Bihari’s ‘computer brain’ let him down. It failed to break his age down to months and days. Otherwise, he has always been prompt at accusing us of inhabiting the planet for a mind-boggling number of days, hours and minutes (as though we have overstayed our welcome). Not just that, he unfailingly reminds us of our wedding anniversary every year -- the worst thing anyone can do in civilized society. But when it came to his own big day, he was completely at sea!

Daughter and father in a candid moment

Bijoy Gupta (in red) belts out a friendship song

Fortunately for Bihari, he had his ‘little angel’ from the City of Angels (Los Angeles, USA) to salvage the situation. Karishma Milwani presented him with the club calendar and went on to distribute the chocolates to all present. We had an unusually large gathering of well-wishers who had braved the early morning chill to felicitate Bihari and join the morning celebration.
As per tradition, we raised a fourth laugh after the exercises and sang the birthday song. Bijoy Gupta joined in, crooning Tera jaisa yaar kahan (from the film Yaarana) and forgot the rest of the song after the first stanza. Nothing unusual about it. That’s what Big Laaf is about!

The 'birthday boy' in the midst of well-wishers

Bihari Milwani:
I did not want to be at the receiving end by saying that 11 days back there was a more important occasion of having attained the landmark of 23,000 days. Today I completed 23,011 days.