HELL IN THE JVDE (KHARGHAR) – A ‘WAR’ MOVIE IN THE MAKING!

First of all, what is JVDE (Kharghar), you are bound to ask me? Well, it stands for Jal Vayu Defence Enclave (Kharghar), an AFNHB (Air-Force Navy Housing Board) colony in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai (Please read: ‘Jal Vayu Defence Enclave Kharghar – How Can It Become The Best Colony?’).

Secondly, why do I have to write posts about this colony? It is simply because after retirement from the Indian Navy in end Feb 2010 I made this colony my home for the rest of my life and whatever happens here affects me in a huge manner.

Thirdly, why this queer title of the post: ‘Hell In The JVDE (Kharghar) – A ‘War’ Movie In The Making!’? Let me explain:

I saw this 1968 World War II film titled Hell In The Pacific (starring Lee Marvin and Toshirō Mifune, the only two actors in the entire film) in the New Empire theatre in South Bombay in a matinée show after I became a commissioned officer in the Indian Navy. The film is a story of two military men, an American pilot and a Japanese navy captain, marooned on an uninhabited Pacific island, who, in order to survive, must accept their differences and work together, despite their two countries being at war.

The film was entirely shot in the Rock Islands of Palau in the north Pacific Ocean, near the Philippines in the Philippine Sea. A curious historical factual coincidence was that somewhere near there, on an island, an American and a Japanese soldiers were actually discovered many years after the war; they kept plotting against each other many years after the World War II ended since on that island they had no means of knowing that the war had been called off.

In real life too, both actors served for their respective countries during the Pacific War. Marvin, who was in the US Marines, was wounded and received the Purple Heart during the Battle of Saipan in 1943. Mifune served in the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service.

And now, perhaps you will understand the title of the post. Retired IAF and IN personnel, despite my best efforts and those of my other well-meaning colleagues, are still at war with one another in JVDE (Kharghar) and they ain’t on a remote island! Who is to tell them that the hostilities have been called off? And that, now, they must work together for the well-being and survival of JVDE (Kharghar).

The following scene from the movie could very well be between the previous MC (Managing Committee of JVDE who were voted out last year) holding by throat the new MC (duly elected) and not allowing it to do its assigned job. What does the previous MC have to gain by it? Well, the same that the British had to gain by their crafty policy of ‘Divide and Rule’.

Last month, the previous MC guys, in a bid to prove that though they didn’t fight the (re)elections for the MC last year, they were indeed the God’s gift to JVDE during their tenure, called for a calling-attention Special General Body Meeting (SGM) of JVDE. The agenda was only one; which is, that the new MC was doing enormous harm by not following the confrontational and spy versus spy approach of the previous MC, which had successfully made disharmony as the way of life in the Society. It was a sheer wastage of time for all of us since they were hell-bent on proving by rhetoric what is against the commonsense of majority of the members.

I had broken my silence of the last few years during that SGM and reminded these members that the number one issue concerning our Society is to actually restore peace and harmony, trust and camaraderie. I was supported by an unambiguous voice vote. Undeterred, the JVDE rabble-rousers immediately after the SGM, renewed and even doubled their efforts to disrupt normal functioning of the Society. As far as they are concerned, every plan and effort of the new MC has to be somehow countered and opposed. Every issue of JVDE has to be connected with the single-point agenda of the last MC, that is, the so-called Encroachment Issue. So far, they have made all out efforts to link Fire Safety of the buildings and the Land Conveyance Deed to the Encroachment Issue. This has been done so as to justify the five years of their tenure that they dissipated on this non-issue to the exclusion of any other scheme for the welfare of the Society.

Take the case of this rabble-rouser group’s strident opposition to Rain Water Harvesting (RWH) on Terraces of the buildings. They already know that it would actually solve the rampant leakages problems in buildings for which in the five years of their tenure they were able to do nothing. They have already sensed the danger to their relevance as rabble-rousers and hence have started an all out campaign not to let it happen.

Two buildings: Tulip and Daffodil (all buildings in JVDE have been named after flowers not knowing that there are people in the Society forever in love with thorny issues) are due for major repairs and hence the works committees of these buildings had approached the present MC for installation of RWH with twin aims: One, it would result in rain water harvesting, which buildings in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai are increasingly undertaking so as to get over perpetual water shortages. And two, the shed over the terraces would keep the terraces dry and prevent the perpetual leakages the top floors face due to bad design and construction. Have a look at the pictures below and remember that since the original construction of JVDE buildings and until now we have not been able to arrest the leakages in buildings; the number two issue facing the Society (the first being restoration of Peace, Harmony, Trust and Camaraderie), that the previous MC wasn’t able to do a fig about because of focus on only one issue: the so called encroachments.

Of course, there are many other measures to keep the terraces clean and dry, in addition to the above. However, the intransigence of some of the members of the previous MC (they actually want the focus to return to a single point agenda of the so-called encroachments) is keeping the present MC from implementing any of these plans.

Time has therefore come in the society whence most of us (if not all of us) must abandon the earlier path chosen by the previous MC of confrontation, mistrust, hostility and suspicion (and doing nothing else) and think in terms of being participants with the present Managing Committee for the well-being of the Society.

I am, by no means suggesting (since some of the rabble-rousers are adept at twisting every word of others) that there should be no opposition to the ideas and plans of the Managing Committee. We should debate and discuss, in civilized fashion, all significant issues of the Society. However, we should shun the highly disruptive approach adopted by some of these people who have vested interests in ensuring peace, harmony and well-being don’t ever return to JVDE.

Let us all join hands in ensuring that ‘Hell In The JVDE (Kharghar) – A ‘War’ Movie In The Making!‘ is stopped here and now and bring home to the handful of rabble-rousers that their disruptive methods are not appreciated and won’t succeed.

P.S. Please do feel free to give your comments below. When the comments on my last article were published, the rabble-rousers had this to say to me: “All favourable comments to your article are by those who have encroached upon common-spaces in the buildings”. However, I publish all comments, whether favourable to me or not, except when comments become rhetoric and even longer than the article itself!