Issue No. 171 I November 2015

EDITORIAL

Yamuna Apartments is an architectural marvel. It was described by BBC as one of the ten most iconic modern structures of Delhi, when it was built. Even today we get visit requests every year from architecture colleges to enable their students to study the layout and design of the buildings. At the time it was built, it was way ahead of its peers. Let us not mar it by indiscriminate exterior alterations at the time you renovate your flats. What you do inside your flats is your business–– except for tampering with load bearing walls––but what you do to the exterior walls, flooring outside the front door, fancy name plates and number plates on the serrated walls, is not desired. The exterior AC wall units in many flats have been so badly installed that the thick cables run for a great distance on the exterior walls, which makes it an eyesore. These cables can easily be channelled inside the house and POP applied and nobody will know that there is cable running inside. Many residents have  adopted this method. We would urge those residents whose cables are running outside the flat to redo the same as suggested above. Please also do not run the cable TV and telephone wires externally. You can easily channel them through the shaft. Rectification of these irregularities would help us restore the old glory of the Apartments. Once the Apartments completes fifty years we can apply for a heritage building tag and we could well become the only heritage apartment complex in the whole country to sport such a tag. Please co-operate to achieve this singular milestone of which we can all be proud. We are indeed very grateful to the founding fathers of our Society who chose this design.

I had written the aforementioned piece when news came through from Kunal Savarkar that Yamuna Apartments has been shortlisted for a heritage tag. It seemed like a prophecy. What an honour it would be if we get it!

The staircases of our apartments are cantilevered structures. They cannot bear the load, on a sustained basis, of potted plants. This was highlighted by Mr. T.S. Narayanaswamy, the structural engineer of our complex, and on subsequent occasions, by Kunal Savarkar's father who is also a well known structural engineer. After an advisory was sent out some years ago, residents removed their potted plants from the staircases, but now the pots have reappeared in many staircases. The other big enemy to any building structure is water. It seeps through the cracks and crevices and corrodes the steel structure that is holding the staircase. Many staircases which are washed on a regular basis are exhibiting dangerous cracks on the underside. Once the steel structure completely corrodes, the staircase can collapse without warning, thereby causing collateral damage. Watering of the plants also allows the excess water to seep through the cracks and damage the structure. In the interest of preserving the building and for your own personal safety, please remove the pots from the staircases immediately. If you must, you may retain a tulsi plant in a small pot and that too with a tray underneath which will trap the excess water.

The Diwali Mela this time was grander on variety of stalls, decent on footfalls, but poor on sales conversion. Barring food stalls which did reasonably well, both the games stalls and sales stalls had more gawkers than takers. Alas, the viability of holding a Mela in the lawn is in serious jeopardy. With limited sponsors and costs of tents, generators and sound systems rising and revenues not matching cost increases, it spells the death knell of the Diwali Mela in the lawn. Besides  the dwindling population of the colony and lack of volunteers to take on various tasks, it is well nigh impossible to take on this activity on a sustained basis. Unlike in the past, due to increased traffic and parking problems, we have to depend on Yamuna residents and immediate neighbours for footfalls.

It is a practical problem. If you leave out senior citizens and very small children, there is virtually nobody in the colony who is not gainfully employed or otherwise engaged in various household chores and managing children. It is high time somebody volunteers and takes on the baton in order to continue this tradition if you don't want to see its demise . Prashant senior and junior, Aishwarya, Nandita, Anirudh and Netra did a great job with the theme and execution of the Music on Request stall. Sumathi and Poornima were very committed and helped in organising the Lucky Dip stall. Sumathi was also very meticulous in managing the finances. Amongst the children Kiana deserves praise for organising the children to manage the stalls. She shows the potential to be a very good organiser when she grows up. Mr. S. Krishnaswamy was very generous in providing several items for the lucky dip and Hoopla stalls. We are indeed grateful to Meera and Venkat who gave several prizes for the Raffle stall. Satish Padmanabhan arranged the sponsorship for the Sony stall. Anand Mahadevan reimbursed the cost of generators. Unlike the previous year all the raffle prizes were claimed this time.

It was a cracker of a relatively cracker-less Diwali, which ensured that the following morning was less choking. The Diwali illumination was less grand than yester years. A&B took top honours in all four categories with C&D and G&H garnering second place in two categories each. Kudos should however go to C&D and E&F who were woefully short of hands and resources. They still kept their chin up and competed on equal terms thus keeping the spirit of this tradition alive. It is these moments that make the event more fulfilling than the prizes themselves. The sheer fact that so many residents come down to participate in a mass event speaks of a culture that is both endearing and enduring. The bond that this stimulates, breaks filial barriers and unites the whole of Yamuna into one large family, irrespective of a few disgruntled voices. With time passing by, the population of physically fit residents in every block is diminishing rapidly and their children and new comers do not view these activities with the same passion and treasured heritage. We must however, try our best to keep it alive and hope this rubs off positively on others. The women in their finery looked ravishingly beautiful and many a shutterbug was trigger happy taking a multitude of snaps.

It was a classic Quiz conundrum posed by Sumathi to the participants with her esoteric brand of questions on 20th November, 2015. Five teams participated in all. Audience was prominent by its absence. We have 195 flats in the colony which would conservatively house about 500 residents and we could not muster a handful of people. It is indeed a sad commentary on a colony which at one time prided itself for its participative and co-operative spirit. What a downer it is for the Quiz Master who must have spent days culling out and putting together this unique, very interesting and informative Quiz. It is equally disappointing to the teams to see no support in the form of encouragement and acknowledgement of their answering prowess. At least the students and teachers of whom we have a quite a sizeable number in the colony could have come for the show. They would have gained immensely from these interactions.

Most of the teams were pretty evenly matched. However, a spate of bonus points ensured that team 'Ice Cream' consisting of Antariksh Das, Anita Suresan, Anirudh Suresan and Poornima Narayanan were runaway winners. An unusual name for a quiz team, though. Team 'Mahaghatbandhan' consisting of Kunal Savarkar, Seema Chari, Anirudh Sundaresan and Dakshina Raghavendra took the second prize and team 'Underdogs' consisting of Rajarshi Das, Rajdeep Das, Aditi Rastogi and M. Vignesh came a close third. They proved they were no underdogs. Curtains came down on an enlightening and enjoyable evening.

Underlining the lack of participation and audience support was the Annual Sports Day, held in the main lawn on 21st November, 2015. The start was delayed as we could not gather enough under five-year-old kids to set the ball rolling. Eventually, Saiansh (popularly known as Lakshay) and Kian took part in the Picking the Toffees and Sprint event, to raucous support from the gaggle of children and adults. With a number of events like sprints, sack race, three-legged race, skipping, slow cycling, marathon and tug-of-war lined up for the children, they had enough opportunity to win prizes even if they missed out on one or two races. Saiansh, Shreeram, Kiana, Tanvi and Seema Chari headed the medals tally in their respective age categories. I was impressed with Mala Sundaresan, who, despite the odds stacked against her, competed with younger and fitter rivals, notched up a medal in one event and narrowly missed out in another. The surprise of the day was Anirudh Suresan who steamrolled the opposition in the men's sprint with his dash to the finish. Tejaswin Shankar, our 'Junior Olympics'  hero, although not competing in the event, show cased his talent by ambling in the race while others put all their muscle and sinew to full use to overhaul him.

The marquee event of the day, the tug-of-war was a tame affair. Hopelessly outnumbered, the men were hauled in like a sack of coals by the women. Deepak who was leading the men had to feast on grass as he was mercilessly dragged along the turf by the women. The girls did the same to the boys. The weary lot then went home to some much needed repast and rest.

The most awaited and continuously held event in Yamuna's history, the Society Annual day will be upon us on 12th December, 2015. Owing to the delayed holding of the event the start time will be advanced by 30 minutes so that residents are not burdened by the frigid weather.

I have been informed that the Yamuna Co-operative Store is making losses and is in imminent danger of shutting down. I believe that many residents are taking goods on credit and not paying for them despite several reminders. It is a matter of great concern that we are letting an institution that we all have a stake in, to be bled by our own callous attitude. On an earlier occasion when this happened, the store was revived by infusion of funds by some residents. Much of that money borrowed by them has since been returned. The store managed to survive the onslaught of e-retailers and predatory pricing by neighbourhood kirana stores. We all need to put in our might and support the store by patronising them. I would also urge our esteemed fellow residents who buy groceries on credit to clear their dues at the earliest.

A concerted effort is being made to get the allotment of flats regularised. Finally, after much follow-up the Registrar's office has sent a written communication to the Society to provide a set of documents for each of the members for verification. Seetha Venkataraman and Poornima Narayanan are steering the preparation of 195 files for each of the members with generous help at different times from C.V. Balakrishnan, Geetha Santanam, Sudha Umapathy, Jayashree Mohan, Mohan Krishnaswamy, P. D. Gopalakrishnan, and K.V. Shantha. This task has become very onerous as many of the original files are incomplete. Nevertheless, supplementary documents are being collected to support the anomalies. Carrying of the files, liaisoning and the verification process at the ROCS end is being spearheaded by M/s. Ramabadhran, P.K.K. Nair, P. Krishnamurthy, N. L. Ganapathy and Madhu Nair. This is a very weary process as on any given day not more than 5-10 files are getting verified. The endless wait at the Registrar's office and constant shuttling makes it a very vexing task. Kudos, to all those who have undertaken this work on behalf of the rest of us. We sincerely hope that their efforts will bear fruit.

Owing to some generous funding by well wishers in the colony, the Annual Day boasts of a generous kitty for the distribution of scholarships and prizes. We are indeed very grateful to the following sponsors for this largesse:-

S.NO	SPONSOR	ADDRESS	AMOUNT	IN MEMORY OF
1	K. SRIDEVI	G-303	RS. 10000
2	S.S.EASWAR	D-201	RS. 10000
3	RAJALAKSHMI KALYAN	G-306	RS. 5000	HER SON HARISHANKAR
4	PRASHANT PRABHAKAR	H-201	RS. 5000	HIS MOTHER SRILATHA PRABHAKAR
5	N. GEETHA SANTANAM	C-101	RS.5000
6	RAJALAKSHMI SESHAN	G-103	RS.5000	HER HUSBAND SHRI. N. V. SESHAN
7	N.A.SESHADRI	D-103	RS.1000	HIS MOTHER K.G.LAKSHMI AMMAL
8	K.V.SHANTHA	A-105	RS,1000

Sprucing of various areas have begun with the washing of the Flat numbers on the external grit wall, cleaning and polishing of the meter room doors and fresh coat of paint on the stage wall.   

 

SNIPPETS

Shekhar Nair, Anu, Samiksha and Adwita who had moved to A 004 from B-107 about a year ago have retraced their steps and are now well ensconced in their own abode in B-107.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS FOR DECEMBER, 2015

DATE	EVENT	TIME	VENUE
12.12.15	ANNUAL DAY - REFRESHMENTS, PRIZE DISTRIBUTION,	4.00 PM	MAIN LAWN
	VARIETY ENTERTAINMENT AND DINNER
20.12.15	HERITAGE WALK & PICNIC - QUTAB ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK	10:00 AM	FROM A BLOCK GATE
25.12.15	CHRISTMAS CARNIVAL/CAROL SINGING/WINTER RAMP WALK	6.30 PM	BADMINTON COURT
	MUSIC/DANCE/FOOD STALLS/BONFIRE
31.12.15	CAKE CUTTING AND USHERING IN THE NEW YEAR	MIDNIGHT	COMMUNITY HALL