AFVOA Newsletter 03 of 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 03 / 2020 Page 111 of 167 The day Ms P got discharged from the Hospital, she greeted us all with a big beaming smile and announced that she had arranged dancing partners for all of us and its up to us to arrange a grand party befitting the occasion! Since we had also seen prospective female dancing students accosting her at the Hospital, we had no doubts as to who were going to be our dancing partners. There was much excitement in the air and we got our best suits ready. Four of the bachelors found some innocuous and frivolous reasons to visit Jammu (70 kms away) in the following weekend, with one unstated agenda – that of buying a pair of dancing shoes! Interestingly enough, in the biggest Shoe Stores, we ran into four married officers who had also come down to Jammu with the same agenda. Our silly mission stood exposed but the kindred spirit generated out of this bound us all together much stronger than before and we vowed to make the Dancing evening a great success! We soon found out that Raghunath Bazaar, the famous and the biggest market place in Jammu, had not heard of dancing shoes in its lifetime! Interestingly enough, there were many ornamental चरण पादुका on display, the kind that Prince Bharatha took back to Ayodhya from Lord Ram (Raghunathji) about 7,000 years ago but sale of dancing shoes were still a few decades away! We gave up the idea, prayed at Raghunathji Mandir and returned home disappointed! When we started planning a social evening for the following Saturday, Ms P came to us with a special request (supposedly from those prospective dance partners) that the event be planned for the following Wednesday instead, as most of the ballerinas would be available only on that day. Though this seemed unusual, we didn’t look too much into it as we were already rehearsing those tricky dance steps virtually in our minds with those attractive young ballerinas! One of the over enthusiastic Bachelors among us, without our knowledge, had arranged ‘live band’ from the Army! While this band played exceptionally well on the Parade Ground enthralling the parade participants and the audience with numbers such as “Saare Jahan se Accha”, “Touching the Sky with Glory” and odd filmy numbers such as “meri pyaari bahaniya banegi dulhaniya”, this band was not particularly suited for a Ballroom dance! Ms P was livid when she got to know of this arrangement but a diplomatic faux pas with the Army was averted when the Band Master excused himself as the event got rescheduled on a working day (Wednesday).