Life has been pretty interesting at OH since last one month. There was an amalgamation of political and cultural activities in OH.
Almost 4 months ago, the builder of OH has handed over the maintenance and other issues to the society residents. Few people were nominated by residents and did all the assigned jobs of taking over from the builder. As usual, there is always another group who want to take hold of things for reasons best known to them. Lot of muck and abusive language was used on the whats-app groups for the people who were doing the job and spending so much of time and extra efforts to setup the systems.
Though lots of rubbish is being thrown to these people, they were undeterred and did their job with honesty and conviction. They did a real good job. This was proved by the election result, which was won hands down by their team of 11 people. So, on 25 September, 2016, OH has got it's first elected management committee and thankfully, all the colourful language is stopped for the time being. It must be a great relief to all the people who are not used to such colorful language. It was the worst kind of language, I have ever read or heard in my entire life.
It actually shows the deterioration in society and I felt bad and sad that I am part of this kind of society. I have grown up in the extremely learned atmosphere of university campus and had lived in the corporate colonies of public sector giant, Indian Oil Corporation where people were very careful and respectful towards each other. They were culturally much ahead.
The OH management committee has 11 elected members. It comprises of chartered accountants, senior bankers, doctor, engineer and successful businessmen. So, a lot of experience and skill sets is there in the team. I wish the new "ELECTED" management body good luck and expect high standards of living in OH.
As the navratri fever has been gripping the city, how can OH community be left behind? The garba classes have started at the onset of September. A garbs tutor was invited to do the job. Another class was organised by some resident garba lovers . The practice time was around 9pm as it was convenient for the "annapuranas" to finish the dinner of the families.
I had also joined a class, but somehow on the way, I lost interest as the fun of dancing was being lost in complicated steps. I think, it was important for the trainer to teach complicated steps to satisfy his ego but as a learner, I felt lost in 1,2,3,4, left and right. Unfortunately, this class has created an aversion towards dancing in my mind. I did not try to remove it at all. I was more interested in clicking pics this time. May be next year, I will tap foot on the beats.
The festival arrangements were taken care by a newly formed Navratri Committee. A small temple was erected in the lawns with divine mother's picture. Every day, an aarti to please and request for blessings in the glory of divine mother was performed which ends with the distribution of prasada. The prasada was contributed by the residents. After the routine aarti and pooja rituals of half an hour, the garba fervour started and it went for almost 3 hours and some times more. Few stalls were erected which served popular food items like idli, sambhar, pav-bhaji, paani poori, ice cream and many more. It was fun to sit and watch the enthusiasm of residents. The women took great care and lots of efforts in dressing and makeup.It was time to catch up with friends, have fun and real great festivity. It went on for 10 days. This year , many days were spoiled due to rains. It has been said to be the wettest navratri ever.
In Gujarat, there is a tradition of eating fafda and jalebi on Vijaydashami . On the last night of navratri, the fafda-jalebi shops are open almost whole night. They do a brisk business in few thousand crores in just one day. This year, I also had the chance of going out on a night to relish fafda jalebi at midnight. It appeared as if whole city was on roads and almost all the fafda jalebi joints were serving to their full capacity. Finally, we reached a joint in Prahladnagar , where we could park our car. It feels good to be part of the festivity of the city crowd.
On Vijaydashmi , arrangements were made to serve fafda jalebi in the society. Fafda is eaten with sweet gujarati kadhi and raw papaya chatni. I loved the papaya chatani and will make it some day. Fafda is made from besan chickpea flour, lots of oil and soda.
Its always good to analyse the jobs done. The scale of celebration and arrangements were better than the last year, but there is always scope of improvement.
- Decoration was better than the last year.
- DJ for all the 10 days was great. How about having live music and singing next year?
- In-house dinner "MAHABHOJ" on Navami was good. I like all dishes, except bhindi, which I do not like otherwise.
- The food counters to serve mahabhoj, were very less as compared to the coupons distributed. People have to wait for at-least 30-40 minutes in line. No one wanted to visit again to fill the plates because of long ques, much food is wasted as people fill their plates to avoid next visit.
- The less number of distribution counters on Vijayadashmi were again a pain in neck. Just one counter ? The distribution system needs improvement.
Have a glimpse of the festivities in OH:
