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S. Srinivas

03 March, 2019

February 2019 I Issue No. 210


                                                                                                   
                                                                  EDITORIAL 

It may sound strange and paradoxical that global warming is causing frigid weather in February. What global warming has done is change the direction of the trade winds in a phenomenon called polar vortex whereby cold wind from the Arctic is coming into the lower latitudes and has given us record low temperatures in December, January and now in February. In fact, strange things have happened. Chicago in USA had colder temperature than the North Pole! In the southern hemisphere, several parts of Australia witnessed 50⁰ centigrade and a massive hole has appeared in a glacier in the Antarctic.

The India Art Fair happened to be on the coldest day February has witnessed in several years. It was cold and windy. Naturally, nobody wanted to go out when you could snuggle up under the quilt with a hot cup of tea. Anyway, few of us braved the elements and went to the show and were rewarded with an eclectic display of art work from around the world. What is fascinating about  artists is their innate ability to think out of the box and come up with such esoteric works that one begins to wonder as to how the artist’s mind works. Fortunately for us the weather warmed up in the afternoon and we could luxuriate in the balming effect of the winter sun. In order to contain the crowds, the organisers had increased the price of the entry ticket to Rs. 700 which was rather steep I thought.

The following day too was rather cold and gloomy in the morning. The on-the-spot painting competition slated for that day at 10 am had to be deferred to 11 am for the fingers to thaw sufficiently enough for the painters to be able grip their paint brushes. The cold weather did not deter the painters who assembled in good numbers in the park armed with pallettes, paints, brushes, crayons etc. The participants had to choose between two topics viz. “Enchanted Forest” or a science fiction topic,  “Space Odyssey” or something incorporating robots.. Some of the participants combined both the topics and came up with their own interpretation of the theme. Since Art has no boundaries, one could give reign to one’s imagination. There were a riot of colours and the participants had a jolly good time. Children of all age groups and adults too took part. Mrs. Seetha Venkataraman distributed Cadbury’s chocolate to the participants and bystanders. The judging of the paintings was done by Anandita Gopal, (daughter of M. Anand). Anandita was all admiration for the quality of work by all participants but she had the onerous task of picking only three winners per category.  Those who made the grade are listed in the table below. The potluck lunch which was to follow the painting competition saw another set of indulgers. It was past two o’clock and the salivary glands were on overdrive. As soon as the dishes were laid out there was a bee-line for the food and it got cleaned up in no time.



PAINTING COMPETITION RESULTS-2019
PRIZE
AGE CATEGORY
NAME
ADDRESS
1
         5-8 YEARS
KIAAN NATHAN
A-107
2

REHAN KONNERMANN
C-206
3

AKSHARA RAM PRABHU
H-002




1
10-12 YEARS
VANSHIKA ARORA
A-106
2

ADWITA NAIR
B-107


SAHANA V IYER 
E-101 
1
2
13-15 YEARS 
ANANYA SATISH
A-106
3

SAMIKSHA NAIR
B-107


KIANA ABRAHAM 
A-008 



1
ADULTS
LUTZ KONNERMANN
C-206
2

C.VENKATESH
E-101
3

PRABHU RAM
H-002

There is a thriving sub-culture amongst the young mothers in Yamuna. Ananditha Anand Ganesh conducted an artist workshop in C-001 organised by Anand Mahadevan’s other daughter Namagiri on 1st February, 2019. It was a workshop on Dutch painter Van Gogh. The colourful paintings done by the children were so amazing that I began to wonder why I too did not get the benefit of the training by this artist. who has done her Masters in Visual Communication from Birmingham City University in the UK. I have told Ananditha that one day she should conduct classes for adults as well. The enthusiasm of these young mothers is so infectious that it spreads a lot of good cheer. They take it on themselves to conduct art and craft sessions to spread their knowledge and skills to the children. Priyanka Nathan of A-107 engaged the kids in a Basant Panchami workshop. Basant Panchami is a festival that marks the begining of Spring and is dedicated to Goddess Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and music. Priyanka started the workshop explaining the significance of knowledge and learning in our lives. This was followed by a singalong on Saraswati while the kids enjoyed plaing the manjira. This was followed with three crafts sessions (the girls made their own yellow flower tiaras and the boys decorated the book marks) It concluded with an aarati done by children with small electric diya thalis. The children were all given batashas as prasad. Amongst the men, only Lutz engages the children in getting them to rig things up. They rigged up a winch, a pulley, a crane and such other things by mounting it on the jungle gym in the park. He has also crafted a bird feeder from coconut shell. This will enable them to grow up to be capable handymen.

For those appearing in the Board and sundry other exams, we hope you peak at the right time and give your best and not worry about the end result. There is a future for everybody.

The upwardly mobile youth of today like to live in style. The number of luxury cars in Yamuna have doubled over the course of the last month. Is prosperity knocking on everybody’s door or is it a sign of the times?


OBITUARY

Mrs. Thara N. Rao, mother of Mr. N. Ravi Rao of H-105 passed away at Max Hospital, Saket at the age of 85 years. She was ailing for a while and the end came on the morning of 21st February, 2019 at 5.30 am.

The members and residents of Yamuna convey their heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families.


SNIPPETS

After a three day wedding extravaganza in Hyderabad, the celebrations concluded for Sravan (G-303) and his bride Usha with a reception at the Delhi Gymkhana Club. The place was decked up beautifully with flowers and fairy lights albeit in a very sophisticated and understated way. Sridevi and Satya welcomed all the guests and there was a fair sprinkling of guests from Yamuna. Sridevi could be spotted from a mile away, with her diamond necklace shining like laser beams. The sartorial turnout of Yamuna ladies was so amazing that they took one’s breath away. Sravan looked dashing and debonair and Usha looked very comely. Usha who has done engineering from IIT, Kanpur and MBA from IIM Ahmedabad  is working with Grofers. She has now got a job in Dubai and joining Sravan there. The couple is headed to Kenya for their honeymoon amongst the wildlife of Masai Mara!
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Tejaswin Shankar does not believe in resting on his laurels. Recently, representing Kansas University, he leapt an incredible 2.28 metres to win the Big12Conference Men’s high jump title. That is another feather in his cap.

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Mr. Puneet Sehgal has moved into C-203. He is an interior decorator by profession and has moved from Goa where he lived for seven months. His interests include going for walks and playing badminton. His wife Mamta is a housewife. She loves to cook, play badminton and is interested in home décor. Their elder daughter Nitika is 12 years old and is studying in Class VII in K. R. Mangalam School. She is interested in Art and Theater and is very good painter. Their younger daughter, Hitika is just three years old and loves to dance. Puneet can be reached on 9582278253.

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Kaushal Bhardwaj has moved into C-204 with his wife Deepika Shori, brother Keshav and sister-in-law Neha Dogra. Kaushal works for APTIV, formerly Delphi as a senior engineer looking after Northern India sales. Deepika is a corporate lawyer with PRA law offices. Keshav works as a Process Manager and heads R&D in Ambrane India. He is parallely running his own company called Droyd Generators manufacturing power banks which he sells through e-commerce sites. Neha works as a network engineer with IBM. Both Kaushal and Keshav are very good dancers to Bollywood music and Keshav has won several prizes in dance competitions. In the next Annual Day a slot has been reserved for them. Deepika loves to read and Neha has interest in learning foreign languages and is currently learning French. They can be reached on 9910830189.

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Pankaj Maniyar has moved into B-006 with his wife Amrit Kaur. Pankaj works with Benetton India Pvt Ltd as treasury operations manager. His wife Amrit Kaur is an entrepreneur and distributes luxury products like Swiss watches, jewellery through e-commerce sites. Their motto is to ‘live the good life’ and to live up to it, they travel extensively around the world. Pankaj is also passionate about sports, particularly soccer and cricket. They can be reached on 9818841612.

We welcome all those who have moved into Yamuna and hope they grab their chance to integrate well with the community.


Letter to the Editor from Mihir Bhatt, A-308

April 17th 2016, was the day we entered Yamuna with plenty of hesitation, apprehension and scepticism about the city, people and culture. Coming from Maximum City which we still identify as Bombay, Delhi in lot of ways was a shocker. Dark streets, old buildings etc. Our landing in Yamuna was by sheer chance as we had almost finalised another home in Narmada because nothing was available in Yamuna. But on the day of paying token money to landlord in Narmada, by chance we came across a flat in Yamuna. Rest is not history but a lovely experience. Courtesy Mr. Nair we made A 308 our nest in Delhi. We cannot thank him enough for the same.
Mohan played pied piper for us as we started settling down in Yamuna and started seeing life in Delhi as not so bad after all!!! Mohan ensured that we were part of all festive & social gatherings of Yamuna. By the time Durga Puja came, we were swinging to the harmonious riverlike sounds of Yamuna. From Diwali to Christmas and New Year to Annual day, it kept getting better and better. Countless wonderful souls were added thru melting pot of Yamuna to our lives. Kunal, Seema, Raghav, Rekha, Madhavi, Julius, Abhilash, Shekhar, Anu, Poornima Narayanan, Poornima Satish, Satish, Sujata, Anand, Aseem, Savitha, Shubhda, Arun, Jayashree, Lavanya and many more.
Megh has spent some of his best years in Yamuna and learned a lot. His circle of friends kept getting bigger and better. Falguni came in to her own in Yamuna and her dance, art and culinary skills peaked during festive parties thanks to Mohan’s relentless persuasion.
As Gita (Bhagvad that is ..) proclaims , change is constant. One more change is coming our way calling us back to our home turf Mumbai. As we prepare to set sails for Mumbai once again, we are filled with memories of our first day in Yamuna. Never did we think that we will have such wonderful memories which will make it so difficult for us to leave Yamuna behind. But Yamuna is not a colony, it is actually a way of life flowing from the time immemorial. We would like to thank each one of you for making our stay unforgettable in many ways. There would have been occasions where any of us would have hurt someone knowingly or unknowingly, we would like to sincerely apologise for the same.
In the end we would like to say “You can take person out of Yamuna, but you can’t take Yamuna out of person.” Wishing you all a lovely, joyous & healthy life ahead. See you guys soon. Do expect us on festivities in the years to come.
Thanking you all
Falguni , Mihir & Megh
We can always be reached on Mihir – 98206 99767 ( mihirzee@gmail.com);Falguni – 98334 73073 ( fmbhatt@gmail.com )  


CALENDAR OF EVENTS FOR MARCH, 2019

DATE
TIME
ITEM
VENUE
21.3.19
10 AM
HOLI MILAN IN THE PARK





30.3.19
7.00 PM
COOKING COMPETITION FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS
BADMINTON COURT

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