Valentine’s Day: 2020

"Will you be our valentine, Shekhawat-ji?"

Shekhawat had his day made early in the morning. It was after all, Valentine’s Day. Never before, not in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that he would be the valentine for not one, not two, not three… but a whole bunch of females – and that, to the exclusion of all other males.
So when the ladies of the club

Shekhawat presents Rukhsana the rose

today got together and presented him a bright red rose, Shekhawat was ecstatic. He had reached tenth heaven. “I will never part with this rose even if someone were to pay me a crore of rupees,” he declared jubilantly.
But then, Shekhawat had to actually earn this distinction of an alpha male.

Blind-folded, Yusuf R tries to fix
a bindi on the sketch of a girl

Departing from his daily practice of presenting white flowers to late comers (mainly females), he thoughtfully procured a red rose for

Practising for the Spoon Race

the purpose today.
Nobody else, had thought of this. And nobody else had the ingenuity of recycling the same rose among different women, one after another, with impunity. Shekhawat offered the rose, promptly snatched it back and offered it again to the next woman turning up

Oops!

… over and over again.
We watched bemused as this bizarre ritual was to be played and re-played through the one hour

Slow Walk with real books balanced on the head

of our exercises. Clearly, Shekhawat alone was capable of performing this extraordinary feat. And in the end, the ladies rewarded him by confiscating the rose and then giving it back to him!
Significantly, it was on Valentine’s Day that our sports meet was originally slated (before the date was shifted to February 23) to be held. In keeping with the general mood early morning (ref yesterday’s post), another practice session was conducted – this time with a couple of newer contests. From all appearances, the participants were better prepared and some like Angad Singh and Sayeeda Sayed pulled off a few surprises. The pictures above give a fair idea of the heightened enthusiasm and excitement gripping all members, as the big day approaches.