EDITORIAL
The Diwali celebrations started
in earnest on Saturday, 2nd November and stretched on to 3rd November
as a consequence of the seers not settling on a uniform lunar calendar. The
South Indian Diwali was celebrated on the morning of 2nd November
and the universal one on 3rd November. As usual the upholder of
tradition, Mr. Mani, announced the arrival of the mother of all Hindu festivals
with a burst of crackers at 3.30 in the morning. This dual day Diwali came as a
breather to the folks toiling on the ground making rangoli.
This year's illumination
competition lacked some of the passion and rivalry of previous years as a
consequence of a more benign awards system. With no outright winner to be
proclaimed, most people retreated to their homes after doing the rounds of the
blocks. There was no anticipation and whoops of delight at the announcement of
the winners for the various categories. However, this did not deter the
creative abilities of the residents. The blocks vied with each other for a
lion's share of the eyeballs. C&D was outstanding and G&H not far
behind with great creations. E&F Blocks made Capital of their limited space
and came up with few but notable rangolis. While A&B also put in a lot of
effort, the end result was a little lacklustre with uninspiring sketches and
insipid colours and it showed as they came empty handed in the share of the
spoils. The Madhubani creation under the Club house was the cynosure of all
eyes and was considered the most outstanding piece by the jury. E&F Blocks
took the prizes for creativity and neatness. Their Mohini attam creation and
the dancing Nataraja were outstanding. Drawing the dancing Nataraja is very challenging
as it is very important to get the scale and proportions right. It is very easy
to blunder and this iconic image could look like an octopus! The jury felt that
although the colour was muted, they nailed the illustration. The other
outstanding sketches were the Jamini Roy painting of C&D, the Joker and the
monochromatic yet superb Yin and Yang floor mural of G & H. Both C&D
and G & H lost out to E & F for creativity by just one mark. G&H
took the prize for illumination as both A&B and C&D were docked 9 points
each by the jury for violating the 'no decorative lights code'.
The Sports Day was held on 10th
November under clear skies. What alarmed me most was the depleting rate of both
participants and audience over the years. For example, at one time, the under 5
age group for picking the toffees used to boast a strength of at least seven or
eight children with their parents in attendance adding to the raucous
atmosphere, where the parents and residents' favourites, were being egged on to
grab the maximum toffees. This year, the number had dwindled to just two girls.
Likewise, in former times the number of ladies and gents participating in their
respective events had to be split into two or three heats as we could not
accommodate all of them in one race. This year we had to cancel items because
there were not enough participants. I wonder if it is a case of ennui or shrinking
population in the colony or a combination of both that is responsible for the
dwindling participation.
Be that as it may, sibling
rivalry started in earnest with the picking of the toffees, where the younger
sibling bested the older one with the lion's share. There was healthy
participation only in the age range of 7 and 12, amongst girls. The field
amongst boys, ladies and gents was very limited. The Savarkars turned in a
great performance with all the family members notching up victories. I was
gobsmacked by the sheer speed and yardage of Kunal's victory in the 100 metres
sprint. His feat was truly amazing. Anjali Garg, Shreeya Srikant, Shreeram
Prakasan and Vidya Nair showed their athletic prowess by coming first in
multiple events. Women's power was in evidence in the "Tug of War". Stung
by the pasting they got in the event last year, the eves mustered their forces
and mounted a strong challenge and hauled the men to their side in the first
try of the best of three. The men marshalled reinforcements and pulled one back
in the next try. The women not to be outdone, dug in their heels in the third
try and yanked the men off their perch who fell at their feet, hands folded in
supplication. In the girls vs. boys "Tug of War", numerical
superiority of the girls was too much for the boys and they succumbed in
successive tries.
The wanton digging that is
going on in all of Alaknanda to make covered drains has left the area as a
bombed out war zone with nary any space for pedestrians and shrinking the
already limited room for cars. If that was not enough, the process of digging
is not monitored by any supervisor. Recently, in the process of digging with a
JCB outside Shivalik Apartments, a massive tree got uprooted and as it fell, it
narrowly missed the car of Aruna and Raju. Due to Raju;s presence of mind he
could ask Aruna to slam the brakes; as a consequence only a few small branches
fell on their car and they escaped from what could have been a very tragic
incident. The callous ways of the civic authorities are shameful, to say the
least.
The Quiz competition with
Sumathi got underway on the 23rd of November, 2013. Unfortunately, the date
clashed with the Annual Day celebrations in two schools where many of the
colony kids are studying. Consequently, the parents of these children could not
participate in the Quiz. We could barely muster enough participants to
constitute four teams, namely, "Yamuna Ke Sholay", “Filmi
Freaks", "Blockbusters" and "5 Idiots". Sumathi
decided to pick a very plebeian subject, “100 Years of Indian Cinema”.
Bollywood and cricket are considered the two main religions of India and
Sumathi fell prey to cinema’s faux charms. Nevertheless, as is her forte, she
came up with a very engaging and craftily made quiz format. The lead changed
hands several times but eventually "Yamuna ke Sholay" constituting
Seema Chari, Kirti, Savita and Vishnu Prasad took the first prize and
"Blockbusters" constituting Aseem, Bhavani, Lata and Vidya came
second. Seema has been a winner in all editions of the Quiz thus far, thereby
establishing her status as 'Diva of Trivia'.
I happened to go to the
bijou residence of Vidya and Sreekumar Madhu which has seen a recent makeover.
I am amazed at the versatility of present day women. Vidya has skilfully
transformed her old kitchen door into
the dining table top and sideboard flank and used the original pelmets as table
legs. Her eclectic taste and funky ideas have made the humble Yamuna abode into
a charming and esoteric pad. With amateurs turning out to be such hot
designers, the tribe of professional interior designers seem endangered.
We have had very generous
contributions from Yamuna residents for the scholarship winners. Mr. N. A.
Seshadri (D-103), Sudha Sundaram (A-310), Deepa Rastogi (G-003) and P.K.K. Nair
have contributed Rs. 1,000 each for the scholarships to be awarded to the Class
XII toppers in the colony and to children who have excelled in sports at the national
level. The Society also received gifts from Mr. P. H. Narayanan of C-007 and
Poornima Narayanan of B-002 for the winners in other fields.
The Annual Day programme on
30th November, 2013 turned out to be an unqualified success. When
the programme started, it seemed we would see a repeat of last year’s
relatively low turnout. But the crowd soon swelled up and we had a full house.
Mr. Bhotlu, one of the senior most residents, was at hand to give away the
prizes to the winners in academics, sports, quiz, painting competition and illumination
competition amongst others. The absence of a Chief Guest really helped matters
as we could get on with the programme on time. The invocation song
choreographed by Subhada and melodiously sung by her and Seema Chari really set
the tone for the items that followed. Sreekumar Madhu exercised his corporate
heft with CII to enlist an acoustic professional to set up the sound system.
Consequently, the sound quality was outstanding.
The variety entertainment
programme started with Guru Vandana, a Bharatanatyam recital by Sahana Savarkar
and Saisha. Unfortunately, the music tripped twice thus derailing the girls and
driving Netra who had worked so hard training the children, to tears. The item
that followed was a solo Odissi performance by Dakshina. Her graceful dance was
an eye opener. "Kolattam" by
the ladies was the item that followed. Looking resplendent in their
Kanjeevarams and set to a catchy Tamil ditty, the ladies who were trained by
the very able Sukanya Sundaresan, were very graceful and executed the steps to
perfection. It was refreshing to see the ladies do the dance after several
years. The Odissi dance that followed was choreographed by Radhika Samson and
performed by the quartet of Sahana Iyer, Aaria, V.Radhika and Bhavna who had
delighted us at the Janmashtami festival. This item was however, a departure
from the conventional Odissi dance as Radhika brought a contemporary jazz twist
to it. It was well appreciated by the audience. It was time to up the tempo and
in came the children with the song medley of southern pot pourri. The group of
children led by the irrepressible Sahana Savarkar sang with gusto and did not
get a note wrong in a language alien to most, if not all. Credit for this
exemplary performance goes to Subhada who has trained most of the children in
Yamuna in the subtle art of singing both classical and folk. Poorvaja came on next with a popular film
number. The audience joined in. While Poorvaja sang very well her body language
displayed a kind of diffidence. Her mother told me that she is a lot more
exuberant when she sings at home. Stage fright could throw off a lot of people
made of sterner stuff. It was time for some dance and in stepped Aditi
Ganapathy and Vedika Arora who changed the tone from the preceding classical
and folk song and dance sequences. They did a self choreographed free style
dance number which showed their creative skill.
The business end of the evening
started with the Tamil play, "Pativrata". The story was conceived,
written and directed by Mrs. Pattammal Murthy, popularly known as Pattumami. Even
the jewellery and accessories were designed and handmade by Pattumami. Talent
seems to oozing out of every pore of her body. The play was about examples of devoted
wives from Indian mythology. A woman was supposed to be loyal to her husband physically,
mentally and spiritually, traits unfortunately not in evidence in today's
world. Competent performances by the entire cast kept the audience amused
throughout the duration of the play. Kudos to Pattumami for such a fabulous
job.
The Bollywood hit
"Lungi Dance" was replicated on the Yamuna stage by the young brigade
under Radhika Samson’s guidance. A tribute to Rajnikanth, the kids showed all
the famous mannerisms of the demi-god! The scene then changed to the
accomplished professional duo of Rangu and Ramanan playing the bass and lead guitars
respectively; to make it a trio they gave a moniker to their laptop which was
playing the percussion background by calling it McMohan Venkataraman. They
played three of their own compositions, a blend of classic rock with influence
of Carnatic music. One of the numbers featured Radhika Samson dancing to the tune
like a ballerina. There was pedigree in evidence here. We were well past 8 pm
by then. In the normal course, half the crowd would have drifted to the food
stalls and the rest would have melted into the night. It was not to be on this
night. Everyone was waiting with bated breath for the grand finale featuring
the Indian take on spaghetti westerns – "Sholay". But they had to
wait for a peppy dance number by another group of kids tutored by Netra and
Anu.
I might seem the odd man out
who hasn't seen “Sholay”. After I witnessed the Seema Chari written and directed
version of the iconic film, I cannot imagine that the original could have been any
better. The play was engrossing, engaging, entertaining, enthralling and
downright witty. Nothing could have bested this effort. All members of the cast
got into the skin of their characters. Nanu as the bumbling cop, Abhilash in a
triple role as Surma Bhopali, Daku and Bhanjara, Deepak as Viru, Raghav as
Gabbar, Rekha as talkative Basanti and Subhada as the mausi were particularly outstanding.
While they were flubbing their lines in the rehearsals, when put under the arc
lights, they were the consummate professionals, reeling off their dialogues as
though they were born mouthing them. The taut script and awesome acting kept
the audience glued to their seats. The seductive quintet in the dance number
were also raising the temperature among other things. I have reasonable cause
to believe that an alternate career awaits Seema and the entire cast at
Bollywood.
SNIPPETS
Radhika Samson lit up the
stage in IIC on 2nd November, 2013 with a scintillating Odissi performance. Her
unhurried and graceful movements and tremendous balance spoke volumes of the
dedication and rigour put in her practice sessions. A smiling countenance
greeted the audience throughout the dance recital. She is training under Smt. Sujata
Mohapatra, a leading soloist and disciple of late Padma Vibhushan Guru
Kelucharan Mohapatra. A Nritya Bhushan from Pracheen Kala Kendra, Radhika is
also an artiste of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations. She is also
proficient at sitar. Her students are lucky to be taught by such an accomplished
artiste.
******************
A-309 has a new tenant in
Meshach Arun. He is the Operations Director for India with an NGO called Hope
Education. His wife Usha works along with him. He has a son who is in Class XI
and a daughter who is in Class VIII. Both the children are studying in Mumbai.
Mr. Arun shuttles between Mumbai and Delhi spending equal time in both places. He
can be reached on 09004469199.
*******************
Three flats in Yamuna have
got sold in this month. The flats that have changed hands are B-006, H-002 and
F-003. As a consequence, Amitava Sanyal
and Katherine Rose of B-006 have moved to Chittaranjan Park. Amitava and
Katherine's presence will be missed.
CALENDAR
OF EVENTS - DECEMBER 2013
DATE
|
EVENT
|
TIME
|
VENUE
|
24.12.2013
|
CHRISTMAS CARNIVAL
|
6.30 PM
|
BADMINTON COURT
|
31.12.2013
|
MID-NIGHT CAKE CUTTING TO
USHER IN 2014
|
MIDNIGHT
|
COMMUNITY HALL
|
