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Blog pic
S. Srinivas

04 June, 2017

Issue No. 189 I May 2017

                                                                                                                  
EDITORIAL

With the onset of summer in right earnest, there will be a void in the cutural calendar for the next few months. Not that it should concern most, as many plan a vacation either to their home town or have plans to go on holidays within or outside the country. For those who feel holidays are dear, hibernate at home as the torrid heat outside could give you a heat stroke which you should much rather avoid. The only thing about summer that I like is the arrival of the king of fruits, the mango. Depending on the month, the juiciest of mango varieties make their presence with Alphonso, safeda, dassheri, chousa, langda and the like. For variety, it is the season for watermelons, musk melons, cherries, plums, apricots and litchees as well. So, go on a fruitarian diet.

After a recent surprise inspection of the meter rooms in the colony, BSES wanted to impose a hefty penalty for sundry material stored there. After giving assurance that the meter rooms will be cleared of all things forthwith and not allowed as a storage space, they let  off the Society scot-free. Residents are advised not to store anything in the meter rooms lest it become a fire hazard and our building goes up in flames like a tinder box. This matter gains further credence because on 16th May, 2017 H-006 had a short circuit and a major fire was averted by timely action of the residents. Braveheart Chandrakantha Purohit of F001 battled intense heat and leaping flames to venture into the flat and smash the window with a projectile so that others could throw sand and water inside to contain the flames. Kudos to her, Anand Sundaresan and several others  Like in most tragic incidents there is  always a silver lining in the dark clouds The residents were at home so the flat could be accessed from outside to control the situation. Had this happened when the residents were not at home the whole of H Block could have gone up in flames.Due to a plethora of wires and cutouts, the meter room is much more vulnerable to short-circuits.

Whilst on the subject I would like to give an advisory to all residents not to remove or change plugs from the socket while the switch is on. I find that that this is a common practice especially these days when people are plugging in devices like mobile phones and laptops for charging. Little do they realise that when they pull out a plug or insert another plug when the switch is on, for a momentary period of time an air gap is created which leads to spark generation which over time erodes the contacts and creates a permanent gap. This permanent gap between plug and socket will then be a source of permanent sparking which may not be visible to you. Over time the plug heats up and when it exceeds the threshold level can burn and could be a cause of fire. If the plug is hidden behind a cupboard or a curtain it could lead to a major fire and your flat could get gutted. A little caution can save all the bother.

Mr. R. C. Natarajan of C-106 who is an consultant to BSES has very kindly put out an advisory of the do's and don't concerning the use of electrical gadgets in the portal and notice boards. Please take cognizance of the same to avert any mishaps.

Yamuna Apartments was featured prominently in an issue of the Hindu listing it among the 10 most iconic modern buildings in Delhi. This feature was carried by the BBC some decades ago as well. We should be proud of this heritage and retain the facade in its pristine condition. Instead several residents have made extensions to their balconies and installed monstrous grills which project beyond the plinth area.  Split AC's are installed with metres of fat cable running on the facade instead of taking the cable within the flat by scooping out the plaster, burying the cable in the wall and masking it with POP. This way neither the facade nor the inside of the house will be an eyesore. Whenever residents are told not to do any of the aforementioned things they retort by saying that they are only following what others are doing. If people keep pointing at others without seeing the fault in their own actions we will end up looking like the ramshackle tenements of DDA. Lets wake up and put a stop to this. There should be zero tolerance for any acts of transgression.

As usual Yamuna students have done exceedingly well in the XIIth Class Board Exams. We are very proud of their achievement.Their results are reproduced below. As expected a girl has outshone the boys. I wonder why they are called the weaker sex. In all aspects except physical strength they are the stronger sex. Doesn't matter, we will lick our wounds and move on. Maybe men are more happy go lucky whereas women always want to prove a point.


S.NO
NAME
ADDRESS
% MARKS
STREAM
1
RIYA RAMABADHRAN
E-201
95.25
SCIENCE
2
YOHAAN ABRAHAM
A-008
91
SCIENCE/HUMANITIES MIX





3
MURLI NARAYAN
H-006
86
SCIENCE

The H Block basement has now been painted and new lights have been installed to improve the illumination. Unclaimed motorcycles/scooters have also been removed and being handed over to the police. A CCTV camera has been installed strategically to ward off any petrol thefts and acts of vandalism. In view of the foregoing, residents who park their two wheelers on the surface are advised to move them to the basement. Parking of two wheelers on the surface hampers free movement and the staff also do not clean the area where they are parked.

SNIPPETS

It was very thoughtful of Mr. Debabrata Das of B-304 to donate two Milton cold water dispensing jugs of 10 litres capacity each to A Block and H Block guard rooms. We thank him for this very kind gesture.

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Yamunaites are making a name for themselves far and away. Mr. and Mrs. Nagarajan's (A-202) daughter, Shruthi has won the grand first prize at the National  music competition in Singapore. I have not heard her sing. The next time they visit Yamuna we should get her to sing for us, Great going, Shruthi.

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Mr. Kislaya Singh has moved into B-306 from Kalkaji. He works as Sr. Manager, Buisness Development (North India) with Premier Shield Pvt Ltd, a company operating in the Security Services domain. His other interests are socialising and watching movies. His wife Puja is a housewife and freelances as an apparel designer. She may soon start a studio for readymade garments. 
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Mr. Rajesh Sharma has moved into A-004 from GK 2 with his wife Sangeeta. Both Rajesh and Sangeeta are engineers. Rajesh is a hydraulic consultant. He represented Gulbarga University cricket team. Sangeeta works in the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. Their daughter Nidhi works in Canada. 

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Ms. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan has moved into H-303 after buying it from the previous owner. Suchitra has passed out of NID Ahmedabad and then gone on to do an MA in Social Design and is teaching at the School of Design, Ambedkar University. She is also an amateur historian and has authored two books on Gujarat –Social History of Gujarat and Social History of Ahmedabad. She has esoteric tastes. She likes Western Classical music, particularly opera, reads detective fiction and has a passion for collecting matchboxes! Her daughter Ayesha after doing BA in history from St. Stephens College, did an MA in Ethnomusicology from King's College, London. After a brief stint in a musical archive she is heading off to University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia for a Ph.D. in – you guessed it – music. Suchitra's son Aniruddh is pursuing a course in Liberal Arts from Asim Premji University in Bangalore. He is a marathon runner and is interested in wildlife conservation. He is also doing an internship with an organisation in Himachal Pradesh which is working on the conservation of the snow leopard. Quite an unconventional family.
We welcome the diversity of all the newcomers to the  Yamuna family and would like to see them integrate seamlessly into the social fabric of Yamuna.

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Pallavi, Mr. and Mrs. Govil's daughter, has been blessed with a son on 19th May, 2017. Pallavi will have her hands full with a lot of nappy changing and sleepless nights. Maybe big sister Anya can play mother to her sibling and take a load off her mother. We wish Pallavi and Abhay happy baby sitting.

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Mr. N. L. Ganapathi has moved his office from H-206 to Safdarjung Development Area. May his practice flourish in the new place, although we will miss his legal counsels at close quarters. 

    
THRIFT TIPS

This is to inform you that medicines are prescribed (by doctors) by brand name & not by the generics (Ingredients). Hence we end up paying more money for the same medicine.
Follow these few steps to know more and start saving on your medical bills.

1. Simply download "1 MG - Health App for India" now it is 6mb software on your Android device. Search the medicine name.

2. Type the medicine name which you are using (e. g. Lyrica 75mg (Pfizer company)

3. It will show you medicine company, prices and ingredients. Click on substitute.

4. Don't be surprised to see that same drug is available at very low cost also. And that too by other reputed manufacturer. e. g. Lyrica by Pfizer is for Rs. 768.56 for 14 tab (54.89 per tab). Whereas same drug by Cipla (Prebaxe) is available ONLY @ Rs. 59.00 for 10 tab (5.9 per tab).

30 April, 2017

Issue No.188 I April 2017

EDITORIAL

April started with the screening of Sultan, a movie as rustic as they come. The lead protagonist Salman Khan, is a country bumpkin brought up on the dusty plains of Haryana. With a beefcake body, he fits in beautifully in the popular competitive wrestling circuit. He falls for the fey charms of a lissome damsel played by Anushka Sharma, a feisty wrestler in her own right vying to win the the world wrestling championship. She is a venom spouting, no nonsense feminist who ticks off the wooing Salman Khan. Salman realises that the only way to win her over is to win big on the wrestling circuit. With single minded resolve he toils day and night to win the Olympics and ends up marrying her. This is when patriarchal bias of the rural hinterland takes over and Anushka is consigned to the role of a housewife to bear a son. Tragedy strikes when Salman is out of the country to win the world championship, when his newborn son needs O- blood transfusion, an extremely rare blood group. Not being able to get the required blood, the baby dies and Anushka, grief stricken, abandons him. Being a Hindi movie it meanders eventually to a happy ending with the couple reuniting. The movie had a refreshing lack of artifice. Only a motley crowd gathered for the movie, perhaps thinking the announcement was an April fool prank.

The potluck dinner that followed was a foray into exotic dishes rustled by a few residents. I sampled and relished all. One of the dishes prepared by Falguni, which drew universal acclaim, ascended the scale of Scoville grandeur and left me sweating. Whereupon have we got this proclivity for heightened spice taste?

When it comes to Municipal Elections we did not expect pristine lines to dictate the narrative between parties and immaculate coherence within them. One had to choose a party that fitted one's instincts least badly. None of the parties in the fray had particularly shown any inclination to make Delhi a world class city although they all profess that they will make Delhi like London. London is a far cry. I would be quite happy if we become as clean and orderly as Third World Colombo. I do not hold out much hope. The parties are constantly bickering and trading charges and passing the buck and never owning up to their responsibilty. Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass as to who wins. I have dealt closely with every party and they are all the same, high on promise, low on delivery. For the record, BJP swept the polls.

Global warming is here to stay for the next few million years until the Ice Age takes over. It is the irrefutable cycle of nature. We are therefore more likely to get scorched than frozen to death. Would you rather have a choice? Kunal and family had gone to a hill station in March, 6,000 ft above sea level hoping for some cool mountain air. Instead, he claims it was flaming hot. If that's how hot it was in March in the hills, where does one head to when the summer vacations arrive in May? To the Arctic tundra, I suppose.

It was high time that the legendary three-pointed star car made its presence in the colony. With residents becoming upwardly mobile, the influx of luxury cars will only become more prevalent. The Mercedes, is a car that owes its name to the custom built car made in 1901 by Gottlieb Daimler for Emil Jellinek who  named the vehicle Mercedes after his daughter. The car has a pedigree that only Rolls Royce precedes. Srikant's entry into the portals of the rich and famous leaves us lesser mortals pale in the shade. Compared to his new acquistion, my Accord looks like a wheel barrow. I am in queue for a ride. If I recall correctly, the only other Mercedes that made its occasional presence in the colony belonged to another C Block non-resident, Anand. The colony may have seen even pricier marquee models of brands like BMW, Audi, Landrover etc. but none has the history that graced the garages of Kings, Queens, Presidents and celebrities quite like the Mercedes Benz. Even the current holder of the Formula 1 Constructors Championship is Mercedes.

Talking of cars, in an unfortunate incident, all the tyres of a resident's two cars and some on another resident's car were punctured with sharp instruments. Some residents termed these acts as pranks. To call such vandals pranksters would be underestimating the import such a crime can have on the unfortunate victims. To be subjected to such a vicious act - 49 punctures over 6 tyres- over a period of 10 days - smacks of something more sinister. What the perpetrators achieved by this malicious act is very hard to fathom. It shatters the idyll that we call Yamuna. Behind the pretty edifice and ethos, a blot is emerging.The resident has since cracked the case after some painstaking investigation. That there was more than one perpetrator, several witnesses and many others in the know is very troubling. That none chose to own up or confess reeks of a thought process that nothing is wrong so long as you don't get caught. If there is remorse at the end of the day, there is room for redemption but if there is only regret they got caught,it may only embolden them to doing far worse things from which there could be no recourse. It should be very worrying for the parents. Good values are something that need to be inculcated in the kids so that they do not go down the path of anarchy. Although some names are being bandied about, I do not wish to know who did it. I do not want my mind to be prejudiced by the delinquent acts of juveniles.

Sadhana's quarterly cultural pot pourri of music and dance called Milaap is a welcome treat in an otherwise dry season. A minor drizzle an hour before the programme tempered the heat enough to make the evening reasonably comfortable.The programme started with three pretty damsels in very attractive attire, namely, Radhika, Kiaana, and Dakshina doing an engaging Odissi dance. This was followed by a violin and tabla recital by guest artistes comprising Danish Ali Khan and Hafeez Ahmed Alvi. There was pin drop silence as everybody soaked in the absolutely spellbiinding recital. The programme rounded off with a Kathak recital by Sadhana faculty member, Sumana Sen. Radhika and Ramanan, please continue to entertain us every now and then by holding such performances.

Mahesh Eswaran has worked hard to make the parking allotment and shifting procedure more transparent to allay fears of any partiality in the allotment of parking slots.The waiting lists will then be put up on the portal for increased transparency.Mercifully, now there is not a single person waiting for a parking slot!

The seepage issue is affecting many residents of the colony. Corroded pipes and thoughtless renovation have made many flats vulnerable. The plumbers are content taking stop gap measures to ensure a periodic and steady flow of income. Kunal Savarkar, an architect by profession, has now stepped in to address the problem holistically and in a manner that would be lasting. However, these problems cannot be overcome in a hurry as there are far too many complaints. He can devote only part of the weekends to this activity. I would request residents to exercise patience and follow his advice diligently.

SNIPPETS

V. Rangarajan (Rangu) C-005 got hitched to Janaki in Chennai on 2nd April, 2017. At the reception held in Yamuna lawns on 8th April, 2017, the pandal was bedecked with white flowers. Rangu in a blue suit with saffron coloured tie and hanky sticking out of the pocket, looked dashing. Janaki was also draped in a similar colour sari and looked quite pretty. I was left wondering if they were flaunting their political leanings. They are headed off to the sandy beaches of Bali for their honeymoon. Balaji and Ramanan had pulled out all the stops with the decor. The pandal looked very festive. They also went hi-tech. A drone camera filmed the entire event. A first for Yamuna. I expected Ramanan to have music of a more classical bent rather than the Bollywood and Tollywood kitsch that was dished out. I can never tire of talking about the bejewelled Yamuna women. They outshone each other with their attire and accoutrements. Anand Mahadevan had lavished his extended family with designer jewellery and they were all on display. We all basked in reflected glory.The spread was generous and it was another occasion for Yamuna residents to socialize in salubrious weather conditions.

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Aishwarya Nair of H-001 got betrothed to Prathyush at Habitat Centre on 9th April, 2017. She wore a designer orange sari which mirrored the marigold floral decorations lining the hall and the alleyway. She looked stunning with her glowing face and sparkling eyes. Eleven maidens with flowers and lamps on brass plates ushered Prathyush to the Hall. Several able-bodied friends of Aishwarya hoisted her on their shoulders to take her to the sanctum to exchange vows. With everybody conveying their approval to the union, rings were exchanged. Prathyush gave a flying kiss to Aishwarya. Mindful of the presence of family elders, he did not venture further and curbed his amorous instincts. Asha had help at hand and was pretty pleased with the heavy turnout of Yamuna friends. A three-tiered cake was cut with photo-ops galore. Barely had the cholesterol settled in my arteries after partaking in the rich and creamy buffet lunch, I spotted the four dessert treat and plunged right into it. What a day!

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Medha Nair of A-003 is no ordinary mortal. After completing her post-graduation in Economics from Johns Hopkins University in Washington, she has been hired by International Monetary Fund, also in Washington, as a Research Analyst. She will be working under Larry Summers, the famous economist. Larry Summers was the former director of President Obama's National Economic Council. Apart from her parents Deepa and Madhu, she has made the entire Yamuna proud.

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With the arrival of the summer vacation, the movement of people in and out of the colony gains currency. It is the ideal time to shift to ensure that the children get admission in schools for the next academic session.
Mr. P. K. Prakasan of B-204 has moved with his family consisting of Shyni, Abhirami and Shreeram to Mysore to pursue his entrepreneurial zeal in a non-banking financial venture. The move of two more children from the colony is really sad. The colony will be a tad duller as a consequence.

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The entrepreneurial bug has also caught Shyam Satish who has moved to Pune with his wife Meenakshi and sons barely a year after they moved into C-108. He is planning his own venture after chucking his job with Goodyear Tyres.

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Ramesh and Revathy Iyer of A-004 have decided to move back to Mumbai after a brief sojourn of twenty months in Yamuna.