Ladies Winners

When we were evenly poised...

Nahid Khan has left for Goa and will turn up on November 18. Yusuf Rassiwala is leaving for Bhopal tomorrow and will be back only on November 20. He did not however, come to the Garden today.
There is also Kiran Prakash, recovering from a nasty viral attack, but is committed to a ‘training assignment’ which will end on November 23. We should hopefully be seeing him on November 25.
And then, there are some faces we have got used to seeing every morning – Karun Sharma, Fahmida Khan, Bhaswati Bose, Naseem Khan, etc.

The 'elusive' Bihari Milwani

Significantly, none of them were to be seen today.
Normally such occasional dropouts do not

Shekhawat anxiously peers at the gate

affect us as the exercises are conducted every day, on schedule, without fail. But to Shekhawat, this matters a lot. He has a funny habit of keeping check on whether the men outnumber the women, or vice-versa, and then declaring whose jhanda is higher.
Today, for the best part of the exercises, we were evenly divided. There were as many men as there were women. And then word went out on whether it would remain the same till the end, or if the arrival of a woman would upset the balance.
Shekhawat insisted that the men’s jhanda would eventually fly higher. Razia Khan challenged

Razia Khan greets Naheed Siddiqui. Shekhawat walks away, dejected.

him saying that a woman would show up and if she were to be proved wrong, she would treat the Club to chai. Shekhawat accepted the bet. And should we remain equally balanced, there would be no winner or loser.
Immediately the Club got divided on gender lines. As the minutes ticked, suspense mounted and everybody started stealing glances at the gate. The exercises turned into a nail-biting thriller. Clearly, Shekhawat (as indeed the men) were counting on Bihari Milwani. He even started crowing towards the gate, “Milwani aaja – aaja”!
The ladies were on stronger ground. They were betting on two probables – Naseem Khan and Naheed Siddiqui. But then, Shekhawat could not discount Manoj Motwani, another known late comer. Just when we thought we were inching towards a draw, in walked Naheed Siddiqui, an apparition in white.
The Garden exploded. Razia rushed to shake Naheed’s hands. Shekhawat walked away, dejected. He had lost the bet.