Issue No. 158 I October 2014

EDITORIAL

The new members of the Managing Committee have hit the ground running. An e-governance administrative module is being worked upon by the President with assistance from Sumathi  and is on the anvil for implementation. The module, if implemented, will ease the administrative load on the office and at the same time provide all the residents the required tools to monitor their complaints, dues and other matters concerning the Society.

Dandia, the music and dance gala in the Badminton Court on 1st October, 2014 did not kick off until 8.30 pm, well past the starting time of 7 pm. This delay was not only due to the house calls being made by the ladies for Navaratri but also because office returnees got caught up in a nasty traffic snarl near Savitri Cinema on account of Durga Puja in CR Park. Those who got caught in the gridlock mentioned that it took them nearly two hours to negotiate the short distance between Panchsheel and home. When Dandia eventually got under way, the usual group of dancers which includes Sudha, Meera, Prema, Anu, Seema, Sujata, Jayashree, Purnima, Deepak, Satish, Sreekumar Madhu were joined by newcomers Sharada of E-304 and Chandrakantha of F-004. Radha Mani and Asha Nair needed a lot of cajoling to show their dancing skills and were by no means found wanting. The children, Samiksha, Advita, Kiana, Vanshika, Sahana, Tanvi, Sahana Iyer, Vedika, Saishaa, Ananya, Shreeya, Shreeja, Aparna Krishnan, Aparna Varma, Samarth, Shreeram amongst others, were joined by the older girls, Aishwarya, Manishaa, Medha and Nandita who all showed the latest moves that they have internalised through watching Bollywood movies, The weather was so enervating that it felt more like 1st July, rather than 1st October. Fortunately, there was some liquid nourishment to shore up the flagging spirits, besides dosa, vada, bhatura channa, chowmein, rolls, brownies etc.

Modi's clarion call for a "Swachh Bharat Andolan" rang out from Rajpath on Gandhi Jayanti, a platform he used to address the nation on the imperative to keep our environs clean. He eulogised Mahatma Gandhi and stated that it would be a travesty of justice if we did not heed to the Father of the Nation's plea to keep the country clean. It made an impression on most but not all. When the crowd cleared from Rajpath after the address, one could see a litter of empty water bottles, sundry pieces of paper and other trash. To imagine that this had been left behind by people who had just a few minutes before taken a pledge not to litter or permit others to litter, shows that the message did not travel home. Be that is it may, the nation is awash in euphoria and everyone is singing hosannas to Narendra Modi.

Ramlila and burning of the effigy of the demon King Ravan and his siblings has become a highly sought after event in the Yamuna calendar. It always brings an element of mystery and surprise. This year, it was a multilingual rendition of the Ramayana in English, Tamil, Hindi and Marathi. Samiksha as Manthara showed great felicity in mouthing dialogues in Marathi which is not her native tongue. However, the Tamil dialogues, although spoken by children whose mother tongue is Tamil, was very amusing. It just goes to show that we may be seeing the beginning of the end of the usage of vernacular languages in their daily lives with our children not wanting to adopt them. The Marathi dialogues were penned by Prema Manoj.

Riya Ramabadhran, who traditionally used to script and direct the Ramlila handed over the baton this time to Shreeya Srikanth and Aparna Krishnan, who did a commendable job. The three of them were at hand to compere the show. Shreeja as Ram and Poorvaja as Ravan looked the part. Tanvi as Seetha looked demure and dignified. Mani as Lakshman made the part look easy. Aryan as Kumbakaran carried quite a punch. Aditi played the role of Vibhishan as the master himself. Shantanu fits like a glove in any role that requires dancing although he did not set his tail on fire as Hanuman.  Kiana as Kaikeyi shone in the role. Sahana as Soorpanakha looked too pretty for that role and her dance jig on the stage was cheered by all. Radhika as Jatayu tried her valiant best to stop Ravan in his tracks but in vain. Anjali, Shivashri, Advita, Sahana Venkat, Ananya, Shaswath, and Saishaa played multiple roles as Kings, vanar sena and asur sena to good effect.

The pyrotechnics which brought Ravan and his brothers to their knees, lit the twilight sky. Mr. Ramabadhran donated the effigies of the demon king and his brothers. If that was not enough, he has donated two computers to the Society office. We are indeed very grateful to him for his generosity.

After a gap of seven years, the Diwali Mela was held in the lawn. It brought back fond memories of the times gone by. The attendance was a trifle less than yesteryears on account of people in the neighbourhood not knowing that we are back in scale. Besides, there were five other melas in Alaknanda and CR Park on the same day. All in all, the people who attended seemed to have had a jolly good time. However, it was back breaking work for the few who had to work day and night over the previous fortnight organising things for the stalls, making posters, selling tickets, arranging sponsors and sundry other things. Prashant got his crew consisting of Prashant Junior, Nandita, Medha and Aishwarya amongst others to take care of the decor and planning of music for the request stall. Thomas Abraham helped out with the posters for external publicity.

Sudha Eswaran put her might in getting volunteers to man the rest of the stalls. She was ably assisted on the day of the Mela by C.V.Balakrishnan, Shashank, Vikram etc. Victor Thomas and Narain from the staff did a lot of manual work. Mercy took care of handling outside stall holders and collections. No mela of this scale can be handled successfully if it were not for the efficient cash management by Sudha Sundaram, Sumathi Chandrashekaran, Geeta Narayan, K.M. Chandrashekaran and Anita Suresan. Sumathi and Sudha helped in reconciling the accounts, as they have always done in the past. Finally we are very grateful to all the children and adults who manned the stalls. For the visitors, Yamuna melas always offer the highest variety of games stalls that you would ever witness in a mela. We were not lacking in food stalls either, with food offerings to suit all palates. The biryani was great, even if the chicken pieces were a trifle mingy in their inclusion.

I would like to thank Satish Padmanabhan, Manoj, S. Krishnaswamy, P.H. Narayanan, Meera Venkatachalam and Dr. Abhilash Pillai for the Raffle prizes. Sreekumar Nair arranged the sound system  gratis. We are indeed grateful to another major benefactor who did not wish to be named. He took care of the tent costs and provided one crate of beer free for fishing the beer stall. The irony is that no matter how successful the Mela may appear it is not a self sustaining activity without sponsors. In the light of this, the support received from the aforementioned people is invaluable.

  

The cars in the colony are getting bigger and snazzier by the day. Deepak Varma has got a new monster on wheels. It looks like twenty-five horses on adrenaline. More such acquisitions could pose a big challenge to the already constrained space for parking.

It was a case of déjà vu as the Diwali illumination did not live up to the glory years of the competition. The rivalry of the past was missing as A&B became the runaway victors cornering two first place and two second place finishes in all the four categories. Their theme, ‘Mythical Creatures’ was very well executed on the ground. Their rangolis and overall effect was excellent  and all the judges unanimously endorsed this view. They, for a change had a record number of participants.  G&H blocks which set the standard by which other blocks were measured in the past, has somehow lost their mojo. Their effort since 2012 has been that of a 'has been'. Their theme ‘ International Dolls’ was unique but the rendition was well short of their own previously high standards. I felt their illumination was the best, a view however, not shared by the judges. They still won the second prize for "Theme" and "Rangoli" categories. C&D and E&F fought valiantly although they were woefully short of hands. C&D got the first prize for their ‘Navagraha’ theme, but most of their illustrations looked more or less similar. The navagrahas were depicted by a truncated saptagraha with Rahu and Ketu having ostensibly been dropped as no resident wanted these two planets with malefic influence depicted in front of their homes! E&F had an outstanding rangoli depicting a prancing Mowgli in the forest and a three dimensional rendition of Ka, the serpent. They won the first prize for illumination and second prize for overall effect.

A pleasant departure from the past – there was no acrimony after the decision of the judges was announced and there was cordiality all around. I hope it stays this way in the future.

It is now time to direct all our energy to the forthcoming Annual Day scheduled for 22nd November, 2014. A lot of planning and rehearsing is required to put up a show to match the high standards set in the past. Volunteers who wish to participate in the variety entertainment programme should get in touch with any member of the Sports and Culture sub-committee by referring to the list of members displayed on the Society office notice board.

The badminton and TT tournaments for all age groups will be held between 2nd and 10th November 2014. Those who wish to participate in these events should give their names to Raju Krishnan of F-103. For those more cerebrally inclined, the Annual Team Quiz competition will be held on 15th November in the Badminton Court. The theme this year is 'Games People Play'. Participants should give their names to Sumathi Chandrashekaran of H-107 who will then constitute the teams. The Sports Day will be held for all age groups in the main lawn on 16th November 2014. Please turn up and participate in running and other events. Those who are not physically in a condition to participate should come to cheer the participants.

SNIPPETS

Tejaswin Shankar of G-306 is going to become the next big star from Yamuna. He is the current under-18 national champion in high jump. He will be representing India in the junior Asian Games in Incheon in Korea later this year.

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Arjun Kohli who is working as a Senior in KPMG has moved into C-203 with his sister and parents. Arjun is working with KPMG as "Senior". He loves travelling and reads extensively on current affairs. In his school days he was a good cricketer and lawn tennis player. He can be reached on 7503486551. His sister Aneesha is studying Bio-technology at Imperial College, London. His mother, Mrs. Chanchal Kohli is a teacher at NDMC school in Netaji Nagar. She loves cooking. She can be reached on 9818114844. His father, Mr. Praveen Kohli, is a working as a consultant in the IT domain. He loves interacting with children and acts as a soundboard to about 200 children in Faridabad. He was a national level basketball player in his youth but now devotes his time on spirituality. He can be reached on 9999514642. We welcome them to Yamuna.

HOME TRUTHS

15 ironies that exist in India

- Indian parents want their children to stand out in a crowd but expect them to do what the crowd is doing
- Politicians divide us, Terrorists unite us.
- In our country you have to look both ways to cross a one-way road
- It's okay to piss in public but it's not okay to kiss in public
- Everyone's in a hurry but no one reaches on time
- It's dangerous to talk to strangers but it's perfectly okay to marry one.
- Swear in English and people think you're cool. Swear in Hindi and people think you're uncouth.
- Most people who fight over the Gita and Quran have probably never read either book.
- In our elections we don't vote for the candidate we like the most, we vote for the one we dislike the least.
- Ours is a country where sayings like "Ladki Ghar ki Laxmi" and "Ladki Baap ka Bojh hoti hai" coexist.
- India ranks 6th in the number of billionaires per country. It's also home to 1/3rd of the world's extreme poor.
- We’d rather spend more on our daughters’ weddings than on their education.
- The shoes we wear are sold in air conditioned showrooms. The vegetables we eat are sold on the footpath.
- You need to have studied till class 8 to become a peon. You don't need any educational qualifications to run the country.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS - NOVEMBER 2014

DATE	EVENT	TIME	VENUE
15.11.2014	QUIZ COMPETITION WITH SUMATHI	7.00 PM	BADMINTON COURT
16.11.2014	SPORTS DAY	9.30 AM	MAIN LAWN
22.11.2014	ANNUAL DAY-REFRESHMENTS,PRIZE DISTRIBUTION, VARIETY ENTERTAINMENT AND DINNER	4.00 PM	MAIN LAWN