Something about blogs and what is in it for us?

Blogging has been around since 1999. But, not many people are used to it, especially in India. As you would've expected, people closer to the IT and who regularly use computers are on the top of most such new technologies, most of the time. But, not the same with commoners. So for everybody's benefit, let me introduce you the blogs and its concept. No, no, I'm not going to give this lecture myself. In fact, many others have already done it, so why do it again? So, go ahead and get educated from here or from here (if you're really want to catch up with the history of it or already is an advanced user!). I also have written about blogs, when I initially started writing on my own blog; if you're interested, checkout the posts (5 parts in all) titled "Welcome to the wonderful world of blogs" here.

Irrespective of whether you read the above sites or not, I wanted to introduce you to the two very interesting features in most blogs today. Typically, all the posts in a blog are authored by a single individual. Anything becomes monotonous, when a single individual is controlling it and everybody else is audience. This is true especially of blogs. So, nowadays blogs encourage more collaboration among multiple people as in co-authoring, initiating/holding discussions, brain-storming and so on. In fact, many small teams (both personal and professional bodies) are using the blogs successfully to build up their communication infrastructure today. So, why not us? Read on...

Q.Did you know you can leave comments for the posts I add to our blog?

A.Go to the bottom of the post you want to comment on, click on the link 'Comments', type in your comment and a word verification (if you aren't already logged into the google accounts). You'll also be required to identify yourself as either a google account holder/blogger, or one who wishes to reveal some personal details, or one who prefers to remain anonymous. That's it! Your comment will be sent to me as a private email; once it is processed by me, it will get displayed in the site. This is a very important feature of the blog, because people can participate and express their opinions about what I'd to tell. But, here you can't start writing something completely detached from the original post. If you want to do that, the next feature is for you.

Q.Did you know that you can write-up your own posts to our blog?

A.This is another great feature of the blog, where it allows other interested people to post their own articles, ideas or thoughts. Currently, I'm the sole author of this blog. But, if any of you want to join me in sharing their experience or viewpoints, please send in a note to me. I would definitely like to partner with you in authoring this blog!

Happy Childrens' day!

I wanted to post this yesterday, but got pre-occupied with some other work. As you may know, yesterday was Childrens' day - November 14th is the birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of our nation. He used to love children a lot. So, after he assumed office in the year 1959, we celebrate Nov.14th as children's day in India.

While you celebrate the day actively at your schools and homes, here are some thoughts for the day...

On this day, most schools all over India celebrate the event. I said most, since I'm not sure about the government run schools or certain others like poor homes and juvenile homes. They hardly get their daily needs fulfilled, so where from they will derive the energy to celebrate these special occasions? I'm sure most of them wouldn't have heard about childrens' day at all - a day, ironically, completely dedicated to them. We aren't even talking about those children who doesn't even get a fair chance to go to a school - what about them? I don't know...

Did you know?

While 20th November is universally celebrated as Childrens' day, in India this day falls on the Nov.14th! There are some other nations of the world, that too celebrate it on a different day than 20th November.

and the winners are...

Here are the results of the various competitions held during Diwali, this year. Each of the winners will get a star added against the respective apartment number, if they're from Palm Court and against their name, otherwise. The points chart is displayed in the ground floor open space. The chart will continue to be used till the Diwali '08. Whoever gets the most points at that time from each of the following categories, will be suitably rewarded!

Sub-juniors [Aravind, Param, Ghana, Tanay, Abhinav, Renesh, Rakshan, Sanju]

Banana Race – Aravind (G7) [27.7 seconds]

Lemon Race – Param (G1) [27.3 seconds]

Memory Game – Aravind (G7) [6/12 items], Tanay (Daffodils) [6/12 items]

Juniors [Siddharth, Sitanshu, Vishnu, Rakshit, Sushmit]

Banana Race – Sitanshu (Daffodils) [20.8 seconds]

Memory Game – Siddharth (105) [11/16 items]

Sub-juniors & Juniors

Slow Cycling – Param (G1) [37 seconds]

Musical chair – Sitanshu (Daffodils)

Polo Race – Siddharth (105) + Sanju (G5) (14.1 seconds)

Seniors [Palm Court and Daffodils]

Mine game – Ms.Priyanka (Daffodils)

Donkey’s tail – Mr.Bopanna (301), Ms.Priyanka (Daffodils)

Polo Race – Mrs.Shalini (101) and Mrs.Seema (G4), Mrs.Savitha (105) and Mrs.Latha (301)

Musical chair – Mrs.Reji (304)

Hip Hip, Hurray!!!

We continued the Diwali celebrations during the weekend, with unseen vigour and enthusiasm from all those involved. On Saturday, we held a drawing session for the kids (about 15 in all). Participation from the kids was near to 100%. Every one of them were present at least 10 minutes before the event, making noise and running around playing, creating the right ambience for the session. Not only did the children drew and painted brilliantly, but also marketed their presentations well. They went to all apartments and invited everybody to come and see their paintings! Because of the renewed tactics, some people came down and appreciated the creativity of our kids! Bravo, children!

Same day evening, we held many games for the kids. All games were held at the basement, while the drawing session was in the ground floor open space . There was 'just about' good participation in the event, although it wasn't quite satisfactory. Many people preferred to stay indoors, when their own children enthusiastically joined in all the games. We noticed that some of them, perhaps unable to withstand the noise coming from outside, peeked out of their balconies! All the children, irrespective of their winning the game or not, were presented with small souvenirs. I must tell, you kids rock! Keep up the spirit, all of you!!!

All our complaints about the meekly numbers in which people turned up during the previous days, was more than compensated by our Sunday program. Although, the morning 'Sudoku' introduction and challenge wasn't much different in terms of attendance, the enthusiasm really caught up during the evening and was at its peak at about 6 pm on Sunday. With the lip-smacking food stalls being our star-attraction yesterday, there was no stopping of people's eagerness to join the events. Several times, we felt we should just shove off the games, and have only the food joints. Anyhow, it was almost that! The spirits were just flying high everywhere, or so I felt! I believe, Palm Court has never ever seen this kind of togetherness before, even when we had the dinner get-togethers a few times in the past. All of this happened only because of the support and participation from all of you Palm-Court'ees and those of you who joined us from the Daffodils. Hats-off to Mrs.Shiny & family (from Daffodils) for maintaining their enviably high spirits, all through out. The dosa-stall idea was simply superb and an instant hit! Here is the list of stalls we put up yesterday and their owners:

Dosa: Mrs.Shiny (Daffodils), Mrs.Maya Devadas (107), Mrs.Priya Prakash (G5)
Pani Puri: Mrs.Seema Vinod (G4), Mrs.Shalini Rajendran (101)
Tea stall: Master.Siddharth (105)
Game (dart) stall: Master.Sitanshu (Daffodils)
Payasam: Mrs.Reji Krishnachandran (304)
Pakora: Mr& Mrs.Agarwal and Master.Sushmit (103)
Junk Food & Juice stall: Master.Aravind (G-7)

Thank you all of you for making it such a wonderful event! But, I can't end it here without thanking the seemingly unstoppable, ever-flowing enthusiasm of our new association bearers - Mrs.Sitalakshmi Anand (President) and Mrs.Savitha Hebbar (Secretary)! Now, the next in line to thank is all our guests from the Daffodils for your coming, joining and cheering for the winners! Last, but not least, I wish to thank all our tenants whose participation in all events were amazing, especially the Sunday morning session when, in fact, none other than the tenants came in!

In totality, it was such a huge success that I will be enamored with it for quite sometime to come. I'm sure you all are looking forward to holding similar events in the future. Me too!!

PS: I've posted some photos here of our events. Here are some more taken by Anirban (305, Palm Court) and Umesh (105, Palm Court). If anybody else have have any more photos, please share with me - I can post of all them to the same location.

Memorable start with Diwali '07 celebrations!

Yesterday, we welcomed the Diwali '07 at Palm Court in a grand way! Everything went as planned, although the attendance for the evening sessions were far less than we anticipated. The morning session on Rangoli was really well-attended, thanks to the new president and the secretary, who went to all apartments personally and ensured that we've enough people joining us! We'd 4 entries in all for the Rangoli designs - three from Palm Court (103, 105 & 207) and one from Daffodils. The Daffodils entry won it hands down (Congratulations, Ms.Shiny!), and the runners- up was from 207, Palm Court. Both these entries were exquisite in their innovative designs and on their detailing. The submitters of the these two designs also did a real great job in transferring their paper-work onto the floor, which took them nearly 2 hours. The enthusiasm displayed by them and all that who came in (including ladies and children) and helped them with the colors was absolutely fabulous. I hope the co-operation & togetherness displayed by all participants during the session would be continued forever into the future! And to those of you who missed the session, I must say that you missed a lot of fun.

Please visit their creative work at the Open Space in the Ground Floor at Palm Court. There are some photos available here.

And when the evening came, the diyas were lit on the ground floor all over, which made the Rangoli even brighter. Then, some of us went out to celebrate with the fireworks and crackers. We were in less numbers, and none of us really had a very hefty budget for this Diwali. Most of us were content with the common sparklers, flower pots, rockets and some of the common items among the 'children's special'. But, thanks to the get-together celebrations at 203, Palm Court, it was undoubtedly the most amazing & memorable Diwali I ever witnessed in my life. I really don't have enough words to express the grandness of the event. The celebrations lasted around 2 hours from 7 pm to 9 pm, with not a single moment of dullness in between! I came to know that the budget for the crackers and fireworks was liberal and placed at around Rs. 25000/-, but shared equally (by all working members of the group). I don't exactly know, how much this worked out for them, but this is a great model to emulate for the rest of us. All this left me wondering, can Palm Court residents do the same? If each of us put in around Rs.500/- (which is more or less each of us spend on the fireworks, anyway), we will have around Rs.15000/- that will give all of us one fantastic night of togetherness to remember for the rest of year! Is this practical? I think it is. I would like to get some comments from everybody on this, so that we can plan out our Diwali '08 well in advance.

See you all this weekend for the rest of the Diwali '07 fun:-)

Diwali '07 celebrations

Palm Court Fun Club had been discussing on various ideas on how to celebrate Diwali this year, during the whole of last week. We wanted to do it differently this year, compared to what we did last time. Last year's Diwali was celebrated with a few programs and ended quickly with a dinner. It has almost become a routine at Palm Court, that we don't think anything beyond a dinner for a get-together. This year, we decided to stress more on the programs, and not the dinner (don't worry, we've something similar instead!). Not because, we wouldn't like people to dine together - it's a nice idea, but we wanted to do something more. So, we've decided to celebrate this year's Diwali over a period of 3 days - Thursday, Saturday and Sunday - with loads of interesting games for all age groups. Diwali day will start with the Rangoli in the morning, and the evening will witness diyas lighting up the building, ending the day with fireworks/bursting crackers. Saturday will be kid's day and will have variety programs organized for kids. Sunday will be seniors day and will have programs organized for seniors - both men and women. We hope that with the new style of celebrations we will be able to reach out to everybody and that all of you will welcome the change with enthusiasm!

I'd sent out a detailed circular with Raju (and the program agenda on all 3 days), so please check it out and ensure your participation on all 3 days.

Can we all be a little more responsible?

The new executive committee met yesterday for around 1 hour and discussed a few action points for better governance of Palm Court. I am not part of the committee, but was curious to know what was happening and hence joined in the discussions for sometime. I particularly became interested in this comment by one of our members. She commented that we've a very bad mechanism of waste disposal at Palm Court. I assured her that we'd been trying out various options during the past several months, including a visit (by some volunteers of the committee members) to individual apartments and advising people to exercise some restraint in hap-hazardly disposing off waste. Looks like it didn't work again.

THis is exact quote from the member - Couple of days back, a bag full of waste (near the first floor lift) was found lying open with all the waste material spread around, inviting dogs and the likes. Apparently, somebody was too negligent about the whole thing. It is very less possibility (my assumption) that any of the residents have done this, so the only possibility left out is that the one of the servants must've done this, to avoid going down and disposing it off in the bin near the transformer.

So, please advice all your servants to be a little more cautious about this aspect. Please remember, small matters like this are crucial to our better living here and each of you must contribute your best towards our common cause!

We framed different rules at different times, some of them worked , some didn't. Here is the latest one, for the benefit of those who missed it. Leave the waste material neatly and securely tied up in a cover outside your apartment during the morning (9'ish) and it will be carried off from there into the bin outside (placed near the transformer) by our house-keeping staff. If it gets any later than this (beyond 9 am), you'll need to carry it yourself to the bin (ever wondered what is the black-colored thing looking like a Pandora's box sitting near the transformer?).