Apples and Oranges

Sorting out room partner problems

Early morning, before sunrise, a minor fracas broke out in the Garden with a member threatening to withdraw from the Kerala tour (February 10 – 17) because she would have to share her hotel room with a person she cannot stand. “How can you put me up with a 70-year-old woman?” she protested.
“Then whom should I put you with?” Shekhawat turned defensive.
“I don’t know,” she snapped back.

Ruksana Khan

“You better put me with someone else or cancel my booking. Or else, I shall make YOU share your room with a 16-year-old!”
The slip of tongue instantly triggered a burst of laughter from everybody around and Shekhawat hopped and clapped at the prospect of having a nubile nymphet in his room. This was music to his ears.
“But you should have consulted everyone before pairing them,” interjected Arun Patil, taking the lady’s side.
“I’m sure he has consulted everyone,” Arora mumbled, studying the list on room allocations.

Harbans Kaur distributes prasad after the exercises

Quite clearly, it has been a monumental task pairing apples with apples and oranges with oranges in a large group of 40. Besides, there is the question of sharing seats in the bus (during local travel) and furthermore, the group being split into four parts for the night-long houseboat ride as there would be only five bedrooms to each boat.
“I’ve done my best,” Shekhawat threw up his hands. “I’ve studied everyone, A to Z in the group. I know who gets along with whom and made the jodis accordingly, only to avoid last-minute complications. That apart, I have discreetly made inquiries wherever I had any doubt. But now I realize that you cannot please everyone.”
“So let us call a meeting and ask everyone if they are satisfied with your jodi-making,” suggested Arun. “We don’t want people complaining there in Kerala that they want a change of room partner.”
Inconclusive as these discussions were, the good part of the morning was that Mrs Harbans Kaur had brought a box of delicious prasad from the gurudwara to share with us. There is something selfless and intensely spiritual about this lady that makes us feel blessed in her company.
And then, there was Ruksana Khan saying her good-bye as she takes off for Ajmer Sharif this evening. Arora has directed her to also bring some prasad when she returns on February 12. He seemed to have forgotten that he should be in Kerala and cursing the world at that time.

Spring Is Here

Today was Vasant Panchami – the fifth day of the bright fortnight of the lunar month of Magha (by the Hindu calendar) and celebrated variously as Sri Panchami, Saraswati Puja and Kite Festival. More importantly, it celebrates the start of the spring season. So, on this occasion, we might as well invoke Sarojini Naidu’s eternal poem, Song of Radha: “Let us dance / Let us sing / Let us wear saffron / And welcome the spring”.
Indeed, a very Happy Vasant Panchami to all our readers and followers!
However, none of us needed any such excuse to play the fool today, least of all Shekhawat.

Bhaswati Bose and Dilip Babani exchange jokes

He had an extra spring in his step and kept provoking the ladies -- particularly Ruksana Khan and Ramila Mistry -- to join him in his antics while exercising. Earlier, Bandini Li did him in with a playful number on his rubber-banded currency notes and thus set the mood for the morning.
It did not take long for Nahid Khan to join the fun and games when her turn came to conduct the exercises.

Sunita Jajodia

With Arun Patil’s romantic numbers playing continuously in the middle and Srichand Arora’s timely wisecracks, nobody really cared who were exercising and who weren’t.Sporadic discussions broke between Sunita Jajodia and Santosh Tyagi, Shekhawat and Jagmohan Papneja, Bhaswati Bose and Monthi Serrao and so on, with a good deal of cross-talk… all in keeping with the festive spirit. In the end, there was Dilip Babani regaling the group with a hilarious joke on telephone tomfoolery, followed by an equally funny narration by Bhaswati in the same vein.
In all this hubbub, we clean forgot to compliment Sunita Jajodia on her moving into a new apartment at Orchid Tower. We all know that she had been house-hunting for long and surely, it was tough for her family to zero in on a place in the same neighborhood. We are happy for her and doubly happy that she will not leave us -- were she to move to another locality.
Jagmohan Papneja:
Wishing you happiness, good fortune, success, peace and progress on the occasion of Vasant Panchami.

Warming Up

Sardar Teja Singh makes a new style statement

Mumbai is warming up. Suddenly the morning temperature has shot up, even as it is still dark and the street lights are on when we enter the Garden. The stuffy cardigans and shawls of last week have disappeared and people are now looking younger and spiffier in light cottons.
Yusuf Rassiwala today replaced his patent woolen sweater with a summery yellow T-shirt. Sardar Teja Singh came in wearing a striped shirt perfectly coordinated with grey turban and grey track pants and informed that this is his “new dress for season change”. Razia Khan, Nafisa Sayed, Nahid Khan, Khatoon Baig and others looked bright and cheerful, having discarded their dull and boring woolens. And why not? Vasant Panchami, the festival that signals the onset of spring, is round the corner.
Separately, the ‘Kerala group’ is warming up for their trip, beginning next Monday. With barely six days separating them from the departure date, Shekhawat and Arora have become busier than ever tying up loose ends.

Kerala queries continue unabated

Between themselves, they have informally divided their ‘duties’ and from the way they are going about it, this should turn out to be the best planned and most well-managed excursion ever organized by the Club.
Still, a good deal of fine-tuning needs to be done during the next six days and in spite of the briefing given to the group, the two busy bodies are having to attend to a host of queries from all quarters: “How much luggage do I carry?” “Who will I be sharing my hotel room with?” “Will I be getting a window seat in the bus to Munnar?” “Will the bus halt when I want to vomit?” “When do I check whether my RAC ticket is confirmed?” “At what time does my flight leave Kochi?” “Are chapattis available in Kerala?”
There is no end to the flow of such queries and both Shekhawat and Arora are exercising extreme patience and restraint while addressing them. But then, this was only to be expected when as many as 40 people are to breathe down each other’s necks for seven long days and six longer nights. Good luck to all of them!
Jagmohan Papneja:
Thanks a lot to Shekhawat-ji and Arora-ji for organizing the tour of Kerala that fits the budget of Aam Aadmi. The group will have a great time there with the sight-seeing, local cuisine and warm hospitality.

Day 1190

Pic of the Week

The rugby boys have found a new day job!

Jagmohan Papneja:
The rugby boys launch NaMo tea stall. Wonderful to have NaMo tea stall in Adarsh Nagar. In future we will see such tea stalls in every part of our country. Rugby boys want to send a message that tea vendors can also become P.M.
Bhaswati Bose:
Jagmohan-ji, our rugby boys may be 'badmaash' but they are not 'phekus'! So these tea vendors can never qualify to be P.M.
Jagmohan Papneja replies:
Bhaswati-ji, one can argue as much as one likes, but Pheku not Pappu will ultimately prevail with his tea vendor background. He always puts India first in whatever he does. The NaMo tea stall will flourish and as such, the tea vendor stands a better chance to become P.M.
Bhaswati Bose counters:
Pappu aur Pheku ke beech mein AAP hai Jagmohan-ji! Don't underestimate the power of the Aam Aadmi!
Jagmohan Papneja retorts:
Bhaswati-ji, AAP ko media chane ke jhad par chada raha hai. Ek movie hit hone se koi superstar nahi hota. Moreover, anything which comes up fast, disappears faster. AAP is failing miserably in governing one city and soon it will no doubt get extinguished.
Bhaswati Bose responds:
AAP abhi hai thode kachche / Par hai dil ke sachche... Buddhon ko imaandari ka rasta dikha rahe hai yeh bachche!
Jagmohan Papneja says:
Aap nahi hai kachcha bachcha, Aap bara hi pakka... After all it is the product of Anna Hazare's movement.

Kerala Countdown

Arora is still on a collection drive for Kerala

Arora collects and Shekhawat pockets

Exactly ten days from today, the Kerala tour takes off. At 8:00 a.m. sharp on February 10, a bus will stop at the Garden gate, round up 40 selected people and whisk them to Lokmanya Tilak Terminus – in time for the Netravati Express leaving for Ernakulam. From then on, for the next seven days, they would be on their own, losing themselves in the glorious unknown – anywhere between Kochi, Munnar, Thekkady, Allepey and Kumarakom.
To curb all adventurous instincts, Srichand Arora has provided everybody a copy of the itinerary with details of train coach and berth, timings, local travel, stay, etc. should anybody lose his/her way or stray away from the group. What he has not bargained for is that it barely takes 10 minutes to locate a toddy shop (anywhere) in Kerala. And it can take upto 10 days to retrace one’s steps back to the hotel.
Of course, Shekhawat is with the group. But he has done one good thing in advance. He has broken the group into jodis or pairs, because hotel rooms have been booked on a twin-sharing basis. Each jodi will also share a seat on the bus while travelling and effectively be responsible for one another during the tour.

Fehmida Khan

So should someone go missing – or say, topples over the houseboat ride at night – the jodi-wala (or wali) shall be held responsible. And should both choose to disappear, then God alone help them. It’s ‘God’s Own Country’ after all.
Arora is aware of some members eager to play chhuppan-chhupai or I-Spy (pronounced ‘Ice Spice’) on tours, if only to relive their childhood. It happened during the tour of Kashmir last year when one lady, soon after arriving at Jammu station, did the disappearing act. Arora had provided the group with plastic whistles for this eventuality. Before long, everybody went peep-peep on their whistles, but the lady was still untraceable. A confused cop, alarmed by the sudden ruckus raised by a group of seniors, almost arrested Arora. Eventually, everybody had to surrender their whistles.
That lady is Fehmida Khan and she is on this tour also. Left to himself, Arora would like to radio collar her.
Jagmohan Papneja:
Successful tour management leads to successful tours. Yes, it's a lot of hard work, but it's also a whole lot of fun. Good luck!