Selfless Love

Banoo Apa treats the Club to cake with tea and biscuits

Banoo Apa is not well. From the time she returned from the Mt Abu-Udaipur trip (ref post of November 22), she has been under the weather. Chronic cough and cold has kept her away from the Garden. Yet, on December 8, she pulled herself out of bed early morning and celebrated Baby Enaya’s gold medal run with us.
We had imagined the worst was over for Banoo Apa. But she suffered a relapse. A change of doctors and a new course of treatment followed, with little effect. Still, she showed up in the morning today – this time with a cake. Why? Her daughter had saved it for the “Garden people” from their family

Movie poster

celebration at home, last Sunday.
Nothing but selfless love towards Club members had made Banoo Apa risk her health and brave the early morning chill to share that cake with us. She could easily have done so a day or two later, when her condition improved.

Santosh Tyagi

“But I did not want to keep the cake in the fridge too long for it to lose its freshness and taste,” she explained.
Banoo Apa had one grouse though. “Not a single person from the Garden called me to ask about my health,” she complained. “What is the point sending me impersonal text messages – that ‘we are missing you’ etc.? You could have easily picked up the phone and made a call, couldn’t you?”
Meanwhile, a section of the Club geared up for the movie of the month – Kedarnath. Billed as an “inter-faith love story”, it is about a rich Hindu girl (Sara Ali Khan) flipping over a poor Muslim boy (Sushant Singh Rajput) with Kedarnath Temple and the magnificent Uttarakhand mountains serving as the backdrop. Kajal and Renu Babani, Naheed Siddiqui, Bhaswati Bose and Nahid Khan among others would be going for the noon show of this film today, at PVR ECX Cineplex.
Santosh Tyagi, a ‘movie-outing regular’ was also supposed to go, but the sudden indisposition of her son kept her away. He has been under treatment for an acute liver condition at Nanavati Hospital for the past six days. This explains why, of late, we don't get to see Santosh Tyagi in the Garden.

Lt Col Angad Singh (rtd):
Big Laaf is a close-knit club. Banoo Apa's complaint over nobody from the club inquiring about her well-being is very relevant. It makes a lot of difference when you call a person to inquire about his/ her health rather than sending a message by SMS. Hope we take care of this.