Aasman Ke Niche : Moonlight Dinners at Magnolia

Well, rubber finally hit the road and we had our first moonlight dinner last night with 56 Magnolians in the 4 month to 79 year age range got together in the amphi-theater for a Beer & Biryani theme. Rain gods were kind and it was a nigth of no rains and it was pleasant. What followed was 4 hours of fun and frolik and games and music. We even had Girish read a poem written specifically for the occassion. We had two Magnolia children perform music. The pictures have been uploaded to the web album at the link below.

There were three families that have not yet moved in. In all, a great evening of getting to know each other and some good time ...

http://picasaweb.google.com/achutanrao/AasmanKeNicheMoonlightDinnersAtMagnoliaEdition13Oct2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCOevotzktpeRLA#

Sunday Brunches : Tasty Munches

23 Sep,2009 : Magnolians seem like a bunch of hapy people, always ready for a byte, a cup of coffee and loads of conversation. So, with some inspiration from Sangeeta (C042) and some instant support from Anuradha (B124)

we decided to have a Sunday brunch on this nice warm morning .

What we had was a hefty Sunday brunch and some hearty cricket ( courtesy Rahul Mittal of the sharp sense of humour fame). There was Ravi Idly, Pongal, Kachori, McAlloo Tikki, Fruit Juice, Gulab Jamoon, Fruit Salad, Malbar Ghee Halwa, Sandwitches, Coffee, Chips ..... and a bunch of chaps really full after 2 hours under a warm Sun.

Its not just the food thing : Magnolia is the place we have all chosen to put our hearts and money in to make it our home. There is a lot of positive energy here and some great company. There is already a sizeable childrens' group emerging. The men have found their comaradarie and the women their likeminded group.

Lets make this a happy, throbbing with energy, great living place.

Magnolia distribution lists ... for your info

Hi folks
There are two forums we are using for information sharing at magnolia ....
1) the Yahoo groups. http://groups.yahoo.com/sobha-magnilia
the mail id for this group is sobha-magnolia@yahoogroups.com
you would be receiving a lot of mail on this and a lot of interaction on this as well. I took the mail list from Sobha and have been adding you all to the group. I should be done with the addition of all by tonight

2) Commonfloor
go to www.commonfloor.com and look for Sobha Magnolia
This is an amazing site that caters to the information, interaction needs of apartment owners. Vignesh discovered this and we are a user here.
All the mail ids of Magnolians, that i got from Sobha CRM have already been added here. We will use this for posting information.

3) my blog : there is nothing official about this. This is the blog i will keep writing in completely in my personal capacity. I started this very early and i am hoping this would be a chronicle for those who move in late or join the groups late.

with these three mechansims, we are hoping we will have enough information dissimination mechanisms at Manolia

Frantically catching up. ....

I have been off my blog page for a while .... been a pretty hectic time. But here i am catching up and with posts that cover all that got missed out in the month.

welcome back folks .... happy magnoliblogging... an

Oath of the Tennis Court : the adhoc association meets in the amphi theatre

The avid followers of history would remember the story of the "Oatch of the Tennis Court"

where the delegates of the National Council chose to meet in a tennis court in 1789 when their council building was locked up by King Louis XVI.

Well, it wasnt so bad here. The newly forming adhoc committee tried meeting in the newly forming club house, but found the one usable room was rendered unusable overnight by some fresh construction work. So, we decided to meet in the Amphitheatre on the 13th of September,2009. The key decision was to write a very formal escalation mail to the Vice Chairman , Mr Ravi Menon on various delays and open isues that are frustrating the Magnolia apartment owners.

We may not create something as significant as the French Revolution, but we sure stimulated some action with the escalation. I am sure some of us, the early movers, will remember this picture for a long time.

the faces in thepicture are : A N Rao, Srinivas Shastry, Rahul Mittal, Jerald, Anuradha Shastry

Freshers Day at Magnolia : 30Aug,2009

THis really was the ice-breaker. After the euphoria of a small bunch of us hoisting the flags on a

freshlly installed flag mast on 15th August, we realized there is about 7-8 families living here already and decided to have a mini freshers day. Potluck and high tea was the format.

Boy, i am glad we had this. There is something about the spirit of the Magnolians. The nascent and still forming group connects well, is open and happy to be here. And we sure had a pretty decent line up nick nacks, coffee and tea as you can see from the picture

Who let the dogs out ..... the week that the two dogs would remember

This is the story of two dogs. I call them Tom and Jerry. Not because i love them like i love the Disney friends, but because these two used to create.

The dogs have been living on hte Magnolia site for a few years and they seem to believe they even have a copy of the Khata in their name. The security guards love them because they were the companions before some of us, the early movers, kept them company.

Its not nice having stray dogs in an apartment complex. So, some of us here had an ideological thing about their co-habitating Magnolia that's our new home.

There were two ways people protested. One was my way and the other was Rahul Saxena way. I used to target pebbles at Tom and Jerry. While i missed most of them, they figured out i am not their friend and would not provide shelter on a rainy day. Over two weeks, we were pretty well known to each other. I throw the nearest stone when i see them. Tom runs at my sight and goes off to 1st main Gurappana Palya at my sight. Jerry was smarter. He would just hide from me. But i was not effective at getting the canine pair to leave Magnolia.

Rahul Saxena ( of the B191 fame) was more effective. He threw some 'nicely worded' mails instead of pebbles. He threw them at certain focused folks in Magnolia ( unlike me). And he did not miss like i missed. Rahul's words of protest had their way and lo and behold, the dogs are gone.

That is the story of the life of the two dogs at Magnolia. Tom and Jerry live happily elsewhwere, I hope.

The picture here is of Jerry. I took it when he was in a rather lazy and contemplative mood at 11 in the night in the Magnolia basement. I shot the picture from behind a column so i would have some pictures for my story.

happy reading folks ...

We now have 10 families living at magnolia... an

more on Airtel Broadband at Magnolia

Here is an update on my previous communication on my efforts with Airtel to get them to provide Broadband connections in Magnolia. The Regional Sales head for sales did keep his promise of prevailaling on his planning organization to provision for broad band provisioning in Magnolia. I got a confirmation this morning that they have co-ordinated with Sobha for the procedure, successfully completed the technical feasibility studay on Saturday and are all set to lay 300pair copper from their neighbourhood fiber termination poing.

Mr Somanna, who looks after broadband provisioning for apartment complexes in Bangalore assured me this morning that they will be done with the cabling in under a week.

What it means that we should be able to apply for and get either a transfer or a new connection of airtel broadband services. that should give us some relief. My two broadband connections from BSNL continue to operate with 95% downtime.

I am glad the pursuit with Airtel is working out ...

so folks, happy surfing.

an

Ganesha Chaturthi at Magnolia ... one more first in a chain of firsts at Magnolia

4th Sunday at Magnolia. Can no more claim to be a newcomer at Magnolia. Surely not after celebrating our first festival of beloved Ganapathi Bappa. Doors festooned with flowers, all furniture displaced so we can have a proper pooja place for Ganesha, the music, agarbathi and smiles all around and a ton of eating. There were friends moving in and out, my nephew and niece came over and the mood was festivity. There was a larger percentage of eco-friendly (not painted, as you can see in the picture) Ganesha being sold in Jayanagar 9th block Ganesha bazar and we decided to contribute to being green by staying away from the painted versions of Ganesha.

In all, it was a great note to have completed the first month at Magnolia ... time, indeed, flies. There were a few more families moving in during the week. Mr Rizwan and his neigbour in block B, Sangeetha and family in Block C. We are quickly approaching the magic 2 digit 10 number of families living here. Srini(vasa Shastry) is moving in tomorrow. I am sure that will make the place come alive much more.

As always, i close this blog with a welcome to the rest of you who would be moving into Magnolia soon.

Vimala, my dad and my children join me in wishing you all a phenomenal Ganesha Chaturthi and life ahead that is stripped of all the obstables, bad and unhappy things.

Have a great week ahead ...

Independance day video ...

here is the video i promised i will post ... there were just a dozen of us, but it was a nice and short flag hoisting function..... i published the video on youtube and the link to is is below http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1msqpNQEeu4

Broadband ahoy .....

hi folks ... i am back after a week of hiatus ...
this time with some inputs on broad band provisioning in Magnolia ...
As of now, htere is only one option ... that of BSNL. They implement the connection pretty fast. I had a bit of struggle for a couple of weeks to get the two connections working, but now -- hurrah ho.
So, for now ... the way out is BSNL. Pick up hte form from ms Vasanthi and you will all be wired up in 10 days.
OPTIONS : Airtel declared magnolia premises technically infeasible for broadband ... in plain terms, it only means they do not have fiber or copper running into the building. I escalated to the regional sales and support heads at Airtel and I think i am begining to see some positive movement. I got a call from their chap responsible for all apartment complexes in bangalore. They now got the internal approvals and are planning to lay a 300 pair copper into Magnolia from the fiber termination they have in the IBM premises next doors. They are in touch with Sobha and i offered to help if need be.
So, if things go well,we should have Airtel broadband operational in the next 3-4 weeks.

that's for now folks ... happy broadbanding ...

welcoming myself to the blog - courtesy an rao!!

AN has kindly agreed to let me be a contributor to his blog.
I am deeply grateful for that.
Happy posting to me and happy reading to all of you

anu

Tricolor and a bunch of happy anthem singers ...

When I last reported, the mast was just getting there. We then got around to actually finding a flag, hoisting it the right color up ( not funny ... if you were tying ropes to flags and making them go up masts, you would realize that things can go wrong), sang the anthem and distributed sweets.

One happy family is blooming with a breath of freshness and enthusiasm at Sobha Magnolia, Gurappanapalya, Bannergatta Road, Bangalore 560029 (which, by the way is the postal address).

Anuradha - barkha - Shastry sent you the report of the happenings. Here is some more spice to the story and a bunch of pictures shot at the site by yours truly photo journalist from A001. I knew which side of the camera was the lense and which of the buttons was the click. Rest was easy. We had a bunch of happy faces and good pictures are all credits to the smiling ones on the other side of the lense.

Below is the link to the picasa album with the pictures. Uploaded them at a good resolution. So, they are good to down load and print if you need to.

It sure was fun. We all landed up there and realized something pretty important was missing ..... ooooops ...... THE FLAG.

We then found a tiny flag, hoisted it, sang the anthem and quickly got unhappy how small the flag was. SO, we went and got hold of another flag, this time the right size and some sweets go around with ...

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/achutanrao/IndependanceDayAtSobhaMagnolia15Aug2009#

The Mast is up : its Vandemataram time ... where are you Magnolian?

Sobha got the flag mast installed ... (enclosing pictures) ... so, we are all set for the flag hoisting at 9 am tomorros, Friday 15th August,2009. Look forward to the Magnolians being here in large numbers .....

Week 1 at Magnolia

Its a week here already ... we moved here the night of last Monday 27th July,2009.
I must say the week has been pleasantly smooth ... compared to the 13 previous house shifting Vimala and i were in during our 25 years of marriage. One thought on my mind is ... "i dont want a 15th shift". capturing some essentials for those following us ...

1) Packers : we used leo Packers. The guys were amazingly good. Fast and efficient. Not a think broken and the deal was to pack-move-unpack-arrange( u still need to rearrange). (Baalu .. cell 98453 17563)
2)Milk, paper, water fountain for immediate use before your filter is up and operational : Mr Nagaraj , 98804 72994. They even deliver you Nilgaris bread if you tell them when and how much you want. That works real well
3) On the ground support : Ms Vasanthi , the house keeping supervisor (cell 99722 05789) is very quick and to the point. Whatever little teething issues we faced were fixed in a jiffy. She is very good and supportive.
4) Power : havent had any problems in the week.
5) Security : see the folks around. I presume they are taking good care. Surely hear them making rounds in the night
6) Car wash : If you want some day 1 help till you / your driver figure out water source etc., pl go to item 2. I think Nagaraj has someone do that
7) TV : I went with Hathway. They are already wired up. It took just a day to have 4 connections operational. If you want Tata Sky, the Tata Sky chap is making rounds here. Call harikishan on 934196 1499
8) Telephone : BSNL forms are with Ms Vasanthi. The line ( which is also the intercom) was operational in a week. We went for a Reliance wireless landline for backup. That was operational ( including address verification) in 24 hours.
9) Broad band : BSNL application is available with Ms Vasanthi. Please budget for a week to 10 days to turn this on. Our connection request got filed last Thursday and we got a work order no today.. Airtel declared that broadband connection to Magnolia is technically infeasible ....!!! I dont believe this. They must be working hard to lose business. I escalated to their regional support manager.
10) WATCH THIS ONE : If you are in the lower floors, be careful what geysers you buy. The water pressure is enormous and you will have problems if you do not buy the geysers that can not handle high pressure. The joints will leak.
11) Showers or are you unde the Niagara falls : We are in the ground floor. The water pressure is very high. The shower head design Sobha has chosen to use sprays extremely painful jets of high speed water at you. I am serious. It hurts just standing under the shower. So, we are changing the shower heads. The pressure is great for a rain shower. We just fitted one without pressure pump and the experience is divine!!!!

In all, vimala , the kids and I are really happy with the one week here. Did not experience the frustrations we were ready for. We even went for a cup of tea in the amphi theater this morning. It was great.

We might beat up Sobha for their complete mess up on project management, but i can not but praise them for the quality of the product they delivered ....

please do reach out so you dont have to go through the learnings we went through ...

an, vimala
There is s

I am finally living in Sobha Magnolia

hi all co-Sobha Magnolia apartment owners ...
I started writing this blog a year ago when i thought I was moving into the Magnolia apartment in July,09. The handing over dates, as you know, underwent many a change and we finally moved ... lock, stock, barrel ... into our apartment A001, Sobha Magnolia. On our day 4 here, i thought i should resume the blog. Will keep writing my posts on how things are around us ... It will probably interest some of you ... let me know what you think....
my name is A N Rao ( call me a n). married to Vimala for a little under 25 years. We have two sons.. Anoop,20 years and Shashank, 16 years. My dad Mr Venkateswarlu, 79 spends half his time with us and the other half in Hyderabad. That's us.

Sobha Magnolia : our house warming function

what's a better way to prepare to move into your home than a heart warming house warming function with all your loved ones, family, friends being around. We celebrated our house warming on the 12th of July followed by a Satyanarayana Pooja on the 13th. The apartment wasn't quite done yet, but was a shape fit for running the ceremony. Sharing some pictures from the ceremonies at my online albums.... happy viewing.
www://picasaweb.google.com/achutanrao/