Sobha Magnolia 3rd AGM

3rd AGM @ Sobha Magnolia

The heartbeat of any community is the participation of its members, the exchange of views, a few constructive arguments and all the ingredients of a democratic and participative process. The 3rd AGM at Sobha Magnolia today was just that. While we can always have more, there was pretty good attendance (we used to have just enough audience to be able to pick folks for a new association), active participation and people genuinely keen to participate. We are the famed 'argumentative indians' so, one must allow for a bit of that and that is what makes the proceedings lively.

What should not be lost in the whole melee is the great job the outgoing MC has done in focusing on tangible results and good execution. Bringing Kaveri water, Khata, Service Tax issues to a logical closure was non trivial accomplishment.

Getting the right office administration team set up in the form of the CEO, the GM and the accountant team should surely help in the ongoing operationalization of the various processes for running the complex.

Augmentation to the physical infrastructure, be it the fence around the pool, raised height of the road facing compound wall, shelter for children waiting to board their school buses or the ramp connecting the complex to the Bannergatta Road ( would be vital if we need emergency access to the complex) are bound to make the complex more complete and I am sure none of us would grudge the rise in the property value these adds bring in .....

As in any such venture, there are always more things to do, but the 3rd MC should sure be proud of where they are handing off the mantle of the association to the new association.  I wish them the very best in their endeavors .....

Magnolia Foodies at work ....

Its been a while since I last posted my Magnolia blog post ... had a good reason to resurface today...


There is something about good food, getting together for a good laugh and comeradarie .... Magnolia, in short.

Well its not long before the food lovers discover each other , find an excuse and head out. We decided to dedicate this saturday Breakfast to Idli-Vada-Upma-Coffee at good ol' Brahmin Coffee in Shankarapuram ....  


Jay& Padmini, Nestor, Krish, Indraneel&Geetanjali, anrao, vimala and house guests, Padmanabhan & Raji with their son Aswin and his family ....  we had the quorum.


Brahmin's coffee never lets you down ... the chutney pouring and drowning the hapless Idlis ( hmmm), Vada ( aha) and Upma which soon disappeared and to be washed down with a glass tumbler of filter coffee.


The happy relaxed looks are a credible endorsement of the happy tummies .... .. I love it at Magnolia.


The next foodie voyage would be for destination Malleswaram for Vada at Veena Stores, Benne Masala at CTR and Ragi Dosa at NKB ....


If you are a foodie sworn to the cause of genuine mirth at the thought of great food .... do let us know ...


a n rao, a001

Magnolia Celebrates 3rd New Year Day with a display of incredible talent

Its been a while since I wrote my Magnolia Blogs. Used to be pretty regular just after we moved here in July 2009 (the only owner to have moved in then). Travel and work took their toll and my blogs stopped as you can see.

Magnolia decked up like a bride

But when I saw the spectacular display of talent by the Magnolia children during the New Year celebration yesterday, I said I must get back to my writing ... to capture the moments in the life and times at Magnolia and to share with the Magnolians who coule not be there yesterday.

Beauty, Poise, Dance .. Magnolia
Children were a joy to watch

The next Jet Li, Bruce Lee?

We started Euphoria on 15th August,2009 with our first event : flag hoisting. The whole purpose was to start early as Magnolia fills in and to bring the residents here together in the spirit of co-habitation and community living dotted by good feeling, friendship, celebration, fun and combined accountability for the upkeep of this property : Magnolia, that we have all chosen to live in.

Golden voices of Magnolia

The New Year Celebration yesterday was a part of the same intent .... Sangeeta, Sunitha, Urmila, Sobha, Vimala, Babitha etc., did an incredible job of organizing the event and the following dinner.


It was a visual delight to see our children go on stage to deliver scintillating performances : our own very Bruce Lees, Ballerinas, Country singers, Classical singers and dancers and not to leave out our teens firing up the dias with foot tapping music and dances ...

Our Own Swan song

The best part was the attendance ... this really was the fist time the Amphitheater filled up ...

Magnolia Teens Rock

It was my privilege to have captured some of the moments in pictures so i can capture them for posterity and share them for those not present ...


Dear Magnolians .... I wish you an incredibly happy New Year. I wish you health, happiness, wealth, success, peace and harmony ... I wish you a song in your heart, sprint in your step, stars in your eyes and an eternal smile on your lips ... May you always have all that you ever cherished ...


Look forward to keeping the blog alive .... tell me what you think ...


a n rao, A001

Green and getting greener : Magnolia landscape enters its first spring

Dear co Magnolians,

Its been a while since my republic day posting. Thought i would get back to you with something different this time. As I walked around the complex, the sudden urge and inspiration to photograph the landscaping in the complex and share it with you all. All i had was my blackberry ...

I am sure you would pardon me for the bad quality of pictures. I used the blackberry and not the Nikon i usually deploy ..

Be that as it may, the greenery in the complex is really settling down and started looking pretty as we approach our first spring in the complex ( remember that the first occupants moved here last July as monsoon set in). Its great to see the multi hued flowers bloom and smile back at you as you go round the complex. The lawns are getting in place, the plants stabilized and are begining to grow. I am pretty certain this would be some great place on the eye by the time we reach the Christmas of 2010.

As always, i am enclosing the links for the pictures I uploaded to my picasaweb..

http://picasaweb.google.com/achutanrao/GreenMagnoliaPicturesFeb2010#

happy viewing ....

by the way, we are pretty close to clocking a half century in terms of occupants who are already living in Magnolia ...

warmest personal regards and wishes ... an ( A N Rao, A001)

Magnolia celebrates the Republic turning 60

Indian Union has now been a demochratic republic for 60 glorious years. Magnolians met for what happens to be the 13th event here to hoist the flag, meet and great and celebrate the Republic Day on this 26th of January,2010.

Srinivasa Shastry, the president of the Magnolia Condominium Association hoisted the tricolor and kicked off the the tradition of the association President updating the residents on the state of the complex.

All good things must end in what's among God's best creations : food!!!.  It was great to have over 70 residents there joining in munching medu vada - idli -pongal and catching up.

Well, that's what life at Magnolia is about. Bonhomie, friends, happiness and good times.

Wish you all a memorable Republic day .... watch this space for the next event.  ...

your neighbour blogger ... a n rao A001

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 .....