Issue No. 129 I May 2012

EDITORIAL

The Alaknanda Academy, after a chequered history, shut its doors. The space was handed over to the Society on the first of the month in good order. Whilst there have been concerns and issues in running the Academy, we would like to place on record our appreciation of the role the Academy played in the formative years in fostering a culture where children could learn and appreciate fine arts. Many of the Academy’s children are pursuing fine arts as a career option. Times have changed and the priorities and interests of the children have changed dramatically. Of late the Academy could not play the same role and it relied for its sustenance on students from the neighbouring colonies. Be that as it may, we appreciate what Mrs. Rani Menon accomplished over the last 25 years and wish her all the best.

Activities in the Yamuna store were in a limbo ever since Mr. N. V. Seshan had been battling with health issues and the other committee members became non-residents. However, the store got a new lease of life after the General Body elected new committee members who are all residents. While Bharti Ramakrishnan and Seetha Venkataraman brought some order in the filing systems, Mr. Ganapathy sent out a message for residents to help spruce up the store one Sunday morning. Mr. & Mrs. Padmanabhan, Mr. Ganapathy, Raju Parameswaran, Mr. Krishnaswamy, Poornima and myself spent some hours rearranging things, cleaning and organising stocks etc. The end result was very satisfying and the store appears well stocked and organised. It is still early days and efforts have to be made to get the sourcing and inventory management sorted out so that residents get their groceries at the lowest price in the neighbourhood.

We have reasonable cause to believe that only three students from Yamuna appeared in the XII th Class Board exams. Of the three children who appeared for the exams, Madhuri Janki Zutshi of C-006 and Mukesh Eswaran of E-101 gave their consent for reporting their result in the Chronicle. Madhuri secured a very impressive 95 % marks in Humanities and Mukesh got 80.6% marks in Science. Since both of them are the toppers from the colony in their respective streams, they have ensured for themselves the scholarship that is awarded to the toppers from the Society. Congratulations! You have made us proud.

Residents are advised not to keep their garbage bags outside their front door overnight. The resident cats prowl around foraging for food and these bags offer them plenty of left-overs. They rend the bags apart and the garbage is strewn all over, making a mess of stairways and alleys between the blocks. Residents should hand over the garbage bags to the Jamadars or Jamdarnis only when they show up at the door in the morning. Talking of cats, one of them has recently produced a litter of kittens, thereby compounding the problem. Unfortunately, instead of hunting down the rats in the colony they are quite content on foraging for food from garbage bags, thus making a nuisance of themselves.

If your belly arrives in the room a second before the rest of you does, then you are likely to be on first name terms with hypertension and a host of other ailments. The problem with a tumescent belly is that once you have it, it’s well nigh impossible to get rid of it in spite of whatever exercise you do and diet plan you follow. At best you can arrest its further growth. My very good friend, who happens to be one of the most active souls in the colony, plays badminton everyday and yet is unsuccessfully fighting the battle of the bulge. The best prescription to not have a protruding belly is to not let it make its appearance. Teenagers in their growing years have the most voracious appetite to take care of their energy sapping activities and to grow both vertically and horizontally. But once a person has achieved his or her full growth by the time they hit 20 or 21, they should gradually reduce their calorie intake to only maintenance levels. Unfortunately, most people continue to eat in the same vein while their lifestyle becomes more sedentary. Here lies the problem. So, if you do not wish to have more than a fleeting acquaintance with diabetes, hypertension, knee problem etc watch what you pop into your mouth. Avoid junk food, eat less and move your limbs and do not just wiggle your toes sitting in front of the telly with your feet up on the centre table.

To fetch a pail of water is the mantra that Jack and Jill gave us, but it has take on a more urgent import given the impending shortage of water. The sinuous pipe has made short shrift of the clunky bucket. So also the shower and other water guzzling mechanisms. Let us stop short of our profligate ways and give another lifeline to our modest bucket which helps us conserve water. It is estimated that having a bath with a bucketful of water can save at least another bucketful compared to using the shower and maybe ten bucketfuls compared to bathing in a tub. Let us also not hose down the car and instead use just a bucketful to clean the car. There, of course, is no better way to water the plants in dusty cities like Delhi than to give them a thorough wash using the hose. That exception apart, hail the pail.

I must be considered hair-brained for suggesting “Rain Dance” in the lawn in June after having written at length about the impending water shortage. I cannot however, mask the disappointment writ large on the children’s faces who have by now come to view the “Rain Dance” as an annual event in our social calendar where they can frolic in gay abandon. In some ways we try to mitigate the effects of our wasteful ways by not watering the lawn for a couple of days prior to the event which, by the soaking it gets on the fateful day, would not need any watering for a further two days. So, folks head for the lawn on the evening of Saturday, 16^th of June, 2012.

Delhi witnesses a spate of robberies during the summer due to people locking up their houses and going on vacation. While we have asked the security agency to be more alert and increase night patrolling, we as residents need to exercise more vigil. In case any of your neighbours go on vacation, please keep a watch for any untoward activities. Residents should also question strangers, if found loitering in the colony between 10 pm and 6 am.

It is a matter of great pride that Yamuna Apartments is featured in a BBC website amongst the iconic buildings of Modernist Delhi. The picture is dated 1981 and is quite devoid of vegetation. The present picture of the apartments would definitely look more pleasing to the eye. Our Vice President Mrs. Seetha Venkataraman drew my attention to this website. Let us be proud of where we reside and live up to the lofty standards eulogised in pictures and columns of elite publications by diligently observing the rules framed for residents which can be perused in the Yamuna directory.

Despite an advisory in the April 2010 issue to replace MS glazing in the balconies with aluminium glazing, not many people have done so. On that occasion, a glass pane got dislodged from its moorings, fell down and seriously injured a resident who had to get 18 stitches to repair the damage. In case a pane slashes the neck it could prove fatal if it severs the jugular. Steel glazing secures the glass pane with putty which due to temperature variation, eventually becomes brittle and gives way. As opposed to that, Aluminium glazing has channels in which the pane gets secured. On the 28^th of this month, a glass pane from a steel glazing in E-Block got dislodged and narrowly missed a resident. Those residents who still have steel glazing adorning their balconies or kitchens should immediately have them replaced with Aluminium glazing lest the consequences of a mishap prove too costly, notwithstanding the possibility of criminal culpability if the victim or the victim’s family sues.

A Doctor will operate from Shop No.6 in Yamuna most probably from 1^st June, 2012. Dr. Sharma is an MD in medicine. He has agreed for a concessional rate of Rs. 300 for Yamuna residents and Rs. 200 for senior citizens in Yamuna. Medical help in close proximity will do a world of good for the residents, particularly senior citizens.

SNIPPETS

The stork called in for a second time at C-001and brought a bonny girl to Namagiri and Prabhu Ram on 24^th April. Oops, we missed reporting the good news in the last edition of the Chronicle. Yamuna remains an exception to the general trend in the country. With the arrival of the newborn it will swell the population of girl children in the colony which is already skewed in their favour. Namagiri and Prabhu will have to guard against sibling rivalry from Adhya. Grandparents Anands will have a busy time babysitting.


On the thirteenth day of the mourning for the soul of Mr. Seshan which fell on 2^nd May, 2012, the family had invited residents and friends for lunch in the Community Hall where Mr. Seshan’s favourite dishes were served. The family wish to convey their gratitude to the residents of Yamuna for their support and help in their time of grief.


Girija and Mohan of D-001 have become proud grandparents a second time around. Their double delight came in the form of twins born to their daughter Nitya and son-in-law, Uday. Nitya delivered twin sons on 15^th May in a London hospital. Girija was in London to babysit their daughter, Isha while Nitya went through labour. Nitya and Uday are delighted that they got two at the labour of one!


Srilakshmi of B-201 has got the perfect score of 10 CGPA in the Xth class exam. Unfortunately, it was not a Board conducted examination; hence she will miss out on all the brouhaha and not enter the annals of Yamuna scholars’ history. We will however, not allow her day in the sun to go unheralded and record her achievement in the Chronicle for posterity.

MIRTH CORNER

TEACHER: Why are you late?
STUDENT: Class started before I got here.
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TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor? 
JOHN: You told me to do it without using tables. 
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TEACHER: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water? 
DONALD: H I J K L M N O. 
TEACHER: What are you talking about? 
DONALD: Yesterday you said it's H to O. 
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TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn't have ten years ago. 
WINNIE: Me! 
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TEACHER: Glen, why do you always get so dirty? 
GLEN: Well, I'm a lot closer to the ground than you are. 
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TEACHER: Millie, give me a sentence starting with ' I. ' 
MILLIE: I is.. 
TEACHER: No, Millie..... Always say, 'I am.' 
MILLIE: All right... 'I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.' 
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TEACHER: Now, Simon , tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating? 
SIMON: No sir, I don't have to, my Mom is a good cook. 
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TEACHER: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested? 
HAROLD: A teacher

CALENDAR OF EVENTS FOR JUNE 2012

DATE	TIME	EVENT	VENUE
16.6.12	6.30 PM	RAIN DANCE	MAIN LAWN
EVERY SUNDAY	6.30 AM	CLEANLINESS AND ECO DRIVE	AT DIFFERENT LOCATIONS EACH WEEK