Noida twin tower demolition: Neighbours hope to see sunlight after Aug 28

"A family that dines together stays together". The residents of Aster-2 at Emerald Court, Noida, lived up to the old adage even as they counted the hours till the moment when the two illegally built Supertech Towers, just nine metres away from their home, would be torn down in a controlled explosion.

On Thursday night, when the sun set over the monstrous towers, the families parked their worries outside and banded together to dig into bread pakoras and kathi rolls and danced away their hidden worries in a collective dare to the menace next door.

"Mental diversion is very important. If you are living continuously with some problem, you can go into depression. If you relax, play music, talk to people, eat and chat, it helps in diverting the mind," said a resident, an importer of railway components from Russia.

Amp up the moozic! And they did, as the Aster-2 women danced to dhol and foot-tapping Bollywood tracks.

The older men held back and speculated about what could happen during the August 28 demolition of the 32-storey Apex and 29-storey Ceyane honeycombed with 915 flats, condemned to be consigned to dust in the next 72 hours.

The wreckers, comprising 'master blasters' (and not of the Sachin Tendulkar kind) from South Africa's Jet Demolition and the Mumbai-based Edifice Engineering, will ignite nearly four tonnes of explosives planted in 7,000 drilled tunnels, adding up to 15 km, inside the towers deemed illegal by the Supreme Court almost a year ago.

Aster-2's nominated administrator Meenu Rana's idea for the evening bash was to endorse unity and fire-fight the ambers of panic in the 11-storey apartment block, which is now sparsely populated.

"Everybody is so stressed," Rana said. "So, I thought, let's chill out and de-stress ourselves. Stress is not going to fulfil anything. It was important for all to dance and be happy to forget about the stress for a few minutes," she added.

As the 'pawwri' touched a level and dancing became intense, the usual shouts for 'selfies' drowned the sound system as if in anticipation of the first rays of sunlight in 11 years that would shine upon Aster-2 after the demolition of the towers.

And why to forget the return of healthy signals for mobile phones?

Emerald Court's 'Last Tango' was opposite in spirit to the Marlon Brando-starrer by almost the same name because the event at Aster-2''s lobby was full of zest, merriment and Asterix-like cussed determination against a common enemy.

--IANS

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