Where There's a Will There's a Way

That is the title under which my friend forwarded me a model Will. Probably a gentle reminder, “Come on old man, you better make a will before it is too late.” Perfectly within his rights, and well meaning too. For, only the other day Aunty’s friend was watching an 8.30 to 9 pm television serial with her visiting elder brother. During the ad interval, they decided to have their dinner. She hurried to the kitchen, and returned with the first steaming hot dosa, only to find him having become dearer to God. 

Yes, uncertainty is the name of the game; it is thus never too early to prepare for it.  A friend of mine, too meticulous to a fault, plans all his activities on that premise. He has set everything in place, and had even got on hand his last wish, a Rolex Perpetual Oyster watch. A duplicate one, he whispered, “but nobody can differentiate it from the original, Sir,”, he dared. “Maybe so, Raghu (name changed), but each time you look at, it will remind you it is not original,” I said - to myself, not to him. Why to bring him down from a top of the world feeling. Also, in hot pursuit, he bade farewell to his irresistible indulgence, stock market, from  9 to 12.30, and 1.30 to 4 pm, with a punctuality that even decades of his attendance at office can’t vouch.  “At this rate, long back you must have written your Will too,” I asked, taking an affirmative response for granted.  “No, I am fully busy and plan to do that as soon as I touch 80,” he asserted. I wondered what was so sacred about that figure, and what was the guarantee. Remember someone came to meet Arjuna one evening and he sent him back with the words, “You see me tomorrow morning.” Bheema laughed, and Arjuna asked him, “What is there to laugh about, brother? “No, just admired you are so certain that you would live till tomorrow morning.” 

Then comes being busy. Take this hyper busy CEO who suffered from perennial headache but didn’t have the time to consult a doctor because the entire Organization depended on him for direction and he had no time for anything else. The one or two he managed to consult suggested a morning walk, or to listen to music in the evening. But who has the time, he dismissed. Ultimately he agreed to the suggestion of adoctor who was a psychologist as well to spend ten minutes under a particular banyan tree in a designated desolate place for three mornings. Right in front was an epithet that read, “Here lies the body of a person who thought without him the world cannot exist.” Wisdom dawned, and now he believes it is the busiest man who finds time for everything.

Then there was this Parsi couple who vowed never to travel by air together so that in the unlikely event of an accident, at least one member will be alive to take care of the family. May not seem  convincing since both were past their prime and their children were happily married, and on their own. 

Speaking for myself, writing a will has been my favourite pastime, next only to writing a blog, the only difference being that the Will never gets shared. The first one was when I prepared a will for my elder brother when he was terminally ill at a young age of 55.  It could be anybody’s turn, I felt, and prepared mine too, with nothing more than a broken chair, a shaky cot, and some leaky vessels to boast of as assets. Since then my Will underwent changes each time I acquired or relinquished an asset so that I didn’t bequeath one that no longer belonged to me, and leave instead a legacy of problems for my beneficiaries.

With a long-haul travel on the cards, I said travel we shall together unlike the Parsi couple, but we shall prepare a valid Will well before. And this model Will came in handy to update the acquisition and disposal status yet again.

V V Sundaram

Maple 3195

27 January 2018

Fortnightly Round Up

The year 2018 started off on a happy note with SFV community gathering in large numbers for a gala New Year eve.  Since then a host of activities seem lined up.

Lohri, the festival to mark the harvest of rabi crop in the North, was celebrated with equal verve in SFV, to the accompaniment of scintillating Punjabi folk tunes to which one just cannot resist giving a gentle hip movement, to say the least. Others went for a full blast Punjabi bhangra. It was a nice evening with couple, young and old, offering puffed rice to the bonfire before taking a round or two of it. It was very well attended and everyone enjoyed the happy-go-lucky Punjabi dance as well.

It is also Pongal in Tamil Nadu.  Orissa and Assam also celebrate it as a day of harvest festival, as I learn. In any case it is Makar Sankranti all over India. Again, it is on this day that pilgrims from all over India walk barefoot miles over to have a darshan of Lord Ayyappa in the mountainous Sabarimala.

SFV is equally busy on another front – commercial though. Sobha Developers have put out their stock Now or Never sale - for the N’th time. We learn the last flat in Alder is sold out, and this event on 13 and 14 Jan is for one that is coming up diagonally opposite Ebony, in 25 floors, if the corridor news is correct. One Ebony resident who specifically selected the forest-view side, is ill at ease at the prospect of having to face every morning a 25-storey concrete jungle. He is painting his drawing room to give it a dense forest look, no doubt an apology for compensation. Yes, he is, no joke.

That reminds me. Right behind the swimming pool, and in direct view from Maple 3, …5 and …6 series balconies, the erstwhile labour camp area is being cleaned up giving rise to a fear if another apartment complex in the offing.

Amidst this flagrant human invasion into their domain many reptiles, hitherto minding their own business, have begun to show up in the complex in their bid to move to safer areas. The other day it was the turn of russel viper, a venomous snake in the area where days before we celebrated the New Year Eve. Fortunately, some worker in the complex captured it in a bag and relocated it to a safer destination.

And today, my friend Sanjay Saxena, who has a knack of spotting them, took snaps of a full-grown snake mounting a tree on the other side of the Joggers park wall. In fact there were two of them. He guesses them to be python. No wonder more morning walkers have switched allegiance to the Alder cycling area route.

Quite undaunted, attempts continue unabated to dislocate the bees to anywhere outside the complex. The honey collected in the process, unadulterated as the promoters call it, is being sold to residents. The last booty was shared this evening.

The volleyball ground in Alder has been brimming with activities. Last week it was a throw-ball league match. There were many spectators, each supporting the spouse or mother. One person asked me, “So, Sir, which team have you come to support?”  “The underdogs,” I said. “But there is none, both are scoring neck to neck,” he quipped.

To end on a personal note, I had asked for old editions of Motu Patlu comics for one of my grandsons. Apparently it has been discontinued long back. So I rang up the publisher in Delhi. He returned the call to say he could lay his hands on six or seven titles, and asked me to remit payment through Paytm. With my limited knowledge I did. When I telephoned him to confirm I have paid, he clarified that, instead of paying his company, I have recharged his mobile. Nonetheless, he would send me the books, he reassured me. But I had to receive them by 18^th, and he had charged me only for Registered post. Gracious as he was, he again agreed he would send them by courier instead. Doesn’t it reinforce the age-old saying that all human beings are born good - it is only circumstances that turn them bad or indifferent.

V V Sundaram

Maple 3195

13 January 2018

The Year That Was - SFV-specific

Time and tide waits for none. One more year is on its way out, yielding place to yet another, with renewed hopes and aspirations.  This is the time for fresh resolutions, some to live by, and others to be written off after a while. It is also the time for stocktaking.

Day by day amenities improved in SFV.  More and more guidelines of community living were getting streamlined. The waste management rep is working with military perfection. The complex is buoyant with plenty of cultural activities. The flora and fauna of the premises could easily be the envy of many other complexes.

The MC members did a commendable job in their respective spheres be it the noticeable one as those above, the less visible security supervision or accounts management. Thus if a best performer is to be identified all could legitimately stake claim. The winner thus will be the MC team as a whole. Kudos.

The occupancy rate in the complex has increased in leaps and bounds. Maybe, before the next academic session, there will be further influx. More the merrier.

Moving out of the building, the 100 ft Vajarahalli Road, which seemed deserted when we moved in, is abuzz with constructions – residential and commercial. Many shops, small and big, have sprung up, not excluding some liquor shops some of which always wear a festive look. The Balaji layout too with its row of shops has undergone a facelift. It now looks somewhat presentable.

The young couple at the SLV hotel is happy serving their ever-increasing customers in their inimitable limited-service style so that they don’t compromise on the upbringing of their two small kids.

Some of the residential complexes in the vicinity display the board, ‘Ready to Occupy”, though “Still to Occupy,” would aptly describe the status. Against this backdrop, the ground digging for one more fairly big complex has just started behind the ‘bottled water station.  Must be an incorrigible optimist. Or, maybe, when the metro work is complete, there will be more inhabitants. As for SFV, Alder, the last of the lot, has few or no apartments for sale.

There are traces of buses plying along the Vajarahalli Road, passing through Turahalli forest side. With more vehicular traffic one has to exercise more caution to cross the road with no divider to provide built-in control to traffic.

SFV security agency is being replaced with a new team – black cats? We shall keep our fingers crossed what is in store for us.

As I hammer out these lines, the New Year eve celebration in the Alder parking area is in full swing after a sumptuous dinner that was arranged to usher 2018. May the year 2018 bring happiness, prosperity and better wellbeing to everyone.

V V Sundaram

Maple 3195

31 Dec 2017