Growing up in Yamuna - An Early Settler's Tale

Sipping tea the other day with the folks, watching the new weekend cricketing entertainment provided by the Georges next door, my grandmother was recounting the families that had moved into YA in its earliest days of existence. It struck us that we were possibly the oldest extant residents here. The two families who had moved in before my grandparents have since sold their houses and left – the Krishnans directly across us, whom I used to address as Caesar's parents (Caesar being their dog); and the Bhagwats below, who used to be visited by the political bigwigs (I remember Aruna Asaf Ali deigning to pay a call once). My grandparents, we realized, were the third set of occupants in the 'colony'. How appropriate that word sounded, when I thought of the Mayflower-like truck in which my grandparents had probably brought their possessions – a sofa set and a dining table, in use even today – home to roost.

They moved in sometime between January and March 1980, after which the rest of the residents gradually started trickling in. By the time I was born, about a year later, there were half a dozen cars, and almost the entire colony was occupied. Flipping through the family album recently, a photo arrested my attention: of myself as a two-year old peering through the gap between the concrete parapet and the skirting below in the verandah of my grandmother's house, looking out onto an empty expanse, car-less, tar-less, people-less… That was what Alaknanda looked like 'in the early days'.

It was very uncommon to be living in anything with the title 'Apartments'. A request made to the autorickshaw driver to be taken to 'Yamuna Apartments' would be met with the response, 'Yamuna paar'?! The numbers of the houses had still not been painted on the walls, and several people were unfamiliar with where their own houses were located. My aunt tells me that our neighbours oftentimes mistakenly walked into our flat, thinking it was their own!
The only road that reached YA was through the DDA flats behind, near the park, with a mountain of mud in between. It would be an adventure to reach the DTC bus stop in the mornings everyday. My mother, for example, got her foot stamped upon by a cow that was annoyed at being disturbed – of course, this is something than one may encounter even today.

Where Nilgiri Apartments and Narmada Apartments stand today, was a wild jungle, which has now been tamed into what we know as the Jahanpanah Forest. The closest grocery store was a mile away. A family joke goes thus: my mother visited the shop to buy cheese, and was much disgruntled when she received the reply, "kaisi cheez, kaunsi cheez", returning home with the stout refusal to ever shop there again, claiming this was a locality of uneducated people who didn't even know what cheese meant! My grandmother recounts of how they, like so many others, would often visit their old localities in another part of Delhi to make their monthly purchases. Soon, the residents realized that self-sufficiency was more intelligent than wasting time and resources to go elsewhere, and allowed an old familiar vegetable seller from Karol Bagh (where several of the founding members lived), Girilal, to come and set up shop here, next to where the dry-cleaners stand today.

And of course, there is Yamuna's association with the Oriya plumber ☺ Bharat babu, who is our resident Sanatan's distant relative, was much more than the ordinary plumber – he was the caretaker for the colony, regulating the water supply, doling out the daily milk even, from the tiny room by the side of the badminton court where the canteen operates today.
The handful of north Indians who had braved outsiders' warnings and settled in YA, were welcomed, and were, in jest, given honorary Iyer or Nair or other such suffixes to make them feel at home… Some, like the Sikh Singhs who lived in B-block, were perhaps insulated from the troubles that ensued during the 1984 riots.

Which brings me to the Co-operative Store – it may have lost out business to the grocery stores in the Alaknanda market today, but it was a lifesaver during the riots, where the colony found itself self-sufficient in basic food resources.

Power cuts were the norm rather than the exception, but the best part of it was that it gave the children a much larger space to play hide-and-seek in: the whole colony would be plunged in darkness for hours on end!

Festivals were occasions for all the people to mingle with each other. Navaratri would be spent flitting from house to house, collecting coconuts and pan leaves and kumkum, after duly admiring the newest Kanjeevaram sarees, and the latest addition to the neighbours' golu collections. Onam would mean a big 'sadya' in the Community Hall, and the fierce pookolam (floral rangoli) competitions under the clubhouse. And the New Year would be counted down with an Antakshari game and chocolate cake. The highlight every year, though, would be the annual Diwali mela, a wonderful tradition that Mohan Narayanan brought with him from his youth in Kidwai Nagar, which has been kept up almost uninterrupted since.

The colony did not have too much green space when it started out, and it was the wise decision of CS Menon uncle, in one of his terms as President, to plant the Gulmohars and the Neems that we see today. I am sure he is glad that the younger lot are keeping up his environmental fervour, and continuing to keep the surroundings green.

'Bandar' visits were also more frequent then – I recall our immediate neighbour's home being paid a visit by a giant monkey, who regally walked into their kitchen, and raided their refrigerator once – the neighbour, who was in the bedroom, had presumed it was her maid who had entered the home. The simian presence is seen even to this day, nowadays even accompanying regular morning walkers in their daily strolls.

This tale by no means does justice to the nearly three decades that I have spent in this complex. Many interesting anecdotes remain buried in the knapsack, kept for another edition!

It was a young Yamuna that I grew up in, where the uncles were sprightlier, and the aunties were more energetic. Today, the daily kolam still shows up on some doorsteps, but is a rarer sight than before; and Subbulakshmi's resounding 'suprabhatam' is less frequently heard in the mornings. But what is heartbreaking is when the new chowkidar asks, "Madam, aap kahaan ja rahe ho?", making me feel like an intruder in my own home.

Sumathi Chandrashekaran

(With lots of memories and inputs from fellow settlers Geetha (H-107) and Sudha(A-310))