Vesak @ Anderson Flats

May 27, 1983, Vesak day. First Vesak as a teenager. I was living in Anderson flats. Anderson flats is a community on its own, 20 blocks from Block A to Block U (there was no O block), 40 houses in a block, four floors in each block, ten houses per floor, five houses on each side. Home to 800 families and roughly home to 3,200 individuals. Each block is a family of its own; the open layout makes it more like community living. One can’t talk about Anderson flats without talking about bus number 198; at that time, the only bus came near Anderson flats, and it was named the most crowded bus on earth. I don’t remember traveling in 198 others than on footboard.

Vesak preparations at Anderson Flats will start a few days early, preparing for the inter-block Vesak Kudu (lantern) competition. One of the best times of the year, at 13 years old, I am not part of any planning, but I sit around and listen to all the conversations. I was living in F Bock, there was a youth committee named Sporty F, and all the Aiyas and Akkas were preparing for the Vesak Kudu competition. I remember going to the sporty F committee meeting on the ground floor, and I have to carry my chair from the second floor.

The second floor had some key members, so our floor became the HQ for planning and discussions; no one told me to start building the Vesak Kudu. One night in the middle of the night, I woke up and heard the sound of someone cutting bamboo pieces; I could not resist, opened the main door went out to join the team.

The competition looked heavy, with rumors coming from different blocks on what they are planning to create. The plan is one big Vesak Kudu at one of the entrance that is the entrance facing the E block. The base design was a lotus, but it was more fusion; now and then, new ideas were added by the team, the Aiyas were coming up with dazzling ideas; I was not sure it was to win the competition or to impress all the Nangis around them. While the experts handled the main Kudu, folks like me were assigned with the job to create one Atapattama for each house to hang it on the balcony, now that is 40 Atapattamas in total, and it needs to be the same size, which means the first job is to cut and shape 960 same size bamboo sticks.

All the Atapattamas to be pasted with white color tissue papers, which is 240 same size tissue papers. The main Vesak Kudu was getting into shape, and everything was handcrafted, even the lighting system to make the colors to change in sequence; one of the Aiya was working at Siedles, so he was the master of all the lightings. Then someone came up with the idea that we should have different colour Atapattama for different floors. We are already halfway through pasting white tissue papers to Atapattamas, so no one is ready to go back and start all over, then came a brilliant idea from one of the Akka, she said, let’s keep white tissue paper. Still, we will cover the bulbs with different colour papers for each floor, so when you look from outside, it will look like different colors Atapattamas, everyone accepted it. She scored some brownie points among the Aiyas.

By now, we have started to hear that our real competition is D Block. They have the best design for the main Vesak Kudu and planning a few last-minute surprises inside the block with decorations. Everyone is in a panic mood. While we are confident about the main Vesak Kudu design, everyone wanted something extra on each floor to make the total package more attractive to the judges. Everyone is tired, and the next day is Vesak day and the judgment day. We don’t have time and energy to create something outstanding in the next 24 hours; all were sitting in the corner of the second floor overlooking the children’s playground and cracking our heads, one of the aunties who live opposite our house made plain tea for everyone. While sipping the plain tea, the Aiya who was working at Siedles asked everyone to pay attention and said he could do something where each floor lighting will move sequentially on and off from top floor to bottom floor.We already made each floor Atapattamas to match the Buddhist flag color, which means if we can get the lights on and off each floor, it will look like the flag is moving. Everyone got excited, a few Aiya’s went inside the electrical room and start trying few things. After few hours of trying still no luck, we could not get the lights on and off; it is already getting late, so everyone decided to return to our homes after a failed Attempt.

Vesak day morning, while everyone is happy about what we have created, still there is a missing piece and fear of losing to D Block. The judges are expected only after 7:00 PM, since it is a Friday, I know it is going to be vegetarian lunch followed by Idly or Dosa for dinner. I was in my room reading a book. I saw two of the Aiyas running between the floors with walkie talkies and giving a lot of instructions, I was not sure what was going on, so I came out, the balcony lights were on during day time, and I could see based on the instructions given from the walkie talkie the lights in each floor was getting on or off, precisely what we were trying yesterday. I was not sure how Aiya’s got this done until when everyone was again gathered on the second floor, and the secret was revealed, yes they have found a way to cheat. The idea is just before judges come to our block, two of them will go inside the electrical room with a walkie talkie and another person with the walkie talkie outside; based on the instruction from outside, the two persons inside will manually unplug and plug the fuse so to everyone including judges it will look we have done something to automatically on and off the lights. Everyone was ready to go to any extreme to win the competition and not prepared to give the winning title to D block.

Now we are fully ready for the evening, I had early dinner, and everyone was below the block waiting for the judges. Few were walking around to find where the judges are; we heard they are starting from Chitra lane side, which is around U block, probably they are coming backward. 20 blocks to cover, so judges are going to take some time, in another 20 minutes the breaking news came, D block lost power which means if the judges go there now D block will just get disqualified. While the sporty side of sporty F feeling bad for D block, genuinely, everyone was happy to hear the news. The judges came to F block; the key members explained the design, the judges walked inside got impressed with lights moving floor after floor without knowing the risk two guys are taking inside the electrical room. Next, judges went to E block, we all followed them; D block is still without power, and based on information all around, we are all set to win the competition. Next, judges went to D block; the minute they walked in, the power came, everything was glowing. The outside Vesak Kudu was beautiful, and inside the block, they had few exceptional decorations.

The judges had few more blocks to cover, and everyone was gathered between A block and B block, and the winner was D block. We came the first runner-up. We all walked out even before the second runner-up was announced. While walking towards F block, one of the Aiya said the trick D block played was, kept everything in the dark when judges walked in and suddenly on the lights which made everything exceptionally beautiful, almost crying Akkas were comforted with his statement. We all collectively agreed that D block cheated by faking a power outage and won the competition while packing our walkie-talkies inside the box.

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