Origin of Srijan Midlands Community

Srijan Midlands (Central Landscaped Garden) - Year 2014

Srijan Midlands is a residential complex in North Kolkata. It's near to Dum Dum Airport, B.T. College Bus-stop, and mailing address is as follows.

Srijan Midlands

83 Jessore Road

Kolkata - 700132

It falls under the area of Ganganagar Post Office, Airport Police Station, and Madhyamgram Municipality.

Srijan Midlands is spread across 233 Cottahs and comprises 308 apartments/flats ranging from 2BHK(824 - 946 sq.ft.) to 3BHK(1092 - 1260 sq.ft.). It is really a popular residential project developed by Srijan Realty Ltd. and has almost all the featured amenities and facilities of a standard housing complex. More details about Srijan Midlands is available on its official website - www.srijanmidlands.co.in

This article narrates the story of the evolution of this society, starting from it's Facebook Group 'Srijan Midlands Community' (SMC).

Srijan Midlands's Construction (Block 8) - Year 2009

In the year 2010, I had decided to start living in my own dream home at Kolkata. Therefore I bought the flat at Srijan Midlands (SM) with my wife Madhurima. As per the commitments from the builder we had started planning our next new life in SM at 83, Jessore Road, Kolkata. Later in that year, we realized that the builder is going to delay and deviate from the possession date due to some issues at their end. But I was determined to execute the planning as per our schedule, which was done on the basis of the possession date, documented. So I started the movement to chase the builder to get the possession in time, which is known to many of our SM residents.

I alone could not do much, so I needed to contact other owners of SM. The very first thing, I needed, was an advanced and easy communication medium. An online forum can be a good idea, I thought. So I started searching for some forums about SM over the internet. No, I didn’t find anything good, except a group on Commonfloor. I had joined that group of SM on Commonfloor but, I continued thinking for a better platform. I was looking for some service which could be accessed from mobile and very close to our existing habits. There was a group on yahoo too, but I have less preference for Yahoo as compared to others like Google and Facebook. Yes, Facebook is a top social networking service in present time, and my requirement is also about social networking. So I started checking Facebook. I found one Facebook page, which was professionally created by someone. I thought it might be by the builder. Facebook pages are open to all, whereas I needed a closed forum exclusively for the flat owners. I come to know that Facebook has a similar feature, named “Closed Group”. I select this option, and create the Group - Srijan Midlands Community (SMC)!

Srijan Midlands's Construction (Central) - Year 2010

Quickly, I started adding the flat owners as members of the SMC Group. Meanwhile, I had to write a description for the group. The group description had to be short and air the primary characteristic of my dream society i.e. hi-tech society. So I wrote the description accordingly and tagged it to the group. Now obviously I had to increase the number of members which was started only with three, including my colleague Samarendra Ghosh, my wife, and me. But it was very challenging to increase the number of members as I had no such contacts and upper hands. I decided to take advantage of the other discrete things on the internet around SM like Commonfloor, Yahoo, Facebook Page, etc. Even I tried to contact some owners in offline at SM’s construction site on my weekly or bi-weekly site visits too.

The first member out of my search is Satyajit Roy, who created the aforesaid Yahoo Group. Later on, I come to know that the Facebook Page for SM was also created by him, not by the builder. Satyajit da made me an admin of that page and I started promoting the group using that page as well. Now we are using that page as a public interface of SMC. Then slowly the member list is increased by Krishnendu Das, Snehendu Ghosh, Biplab Kumar Nath, Muzibour Rehman, Mousoom Sinha, Santu Pal, Suman Kar, Santanu Mukherjee, and so on. I continued adding members, and it increased to 150+ today and approaching to 200 soon.

To maintain and grow the group better, we needed some admins. So I had to increase the admin team by adding one or two very active guys like Mousoom Sinha. Luckily he also had the same schedule as mine to start life in SM. Satyajit Roy also joined in our admin team and started adding values to the group not only thru online presence but also by devoting time for our face to face meetings in the construction site time to time.

The group really started yielding positive results, and I continued to make it a central hub of communication for the SM community. I was active on Commonfloor group too, and one day I had been promoted to Admin of that group. It was a surprise for me because I got a database of SM flat owners there. I utilized that database and all the features in those groups to unite all the flat owners in one group. As a result of this, the members were started moving from Commonfloor group and Yahoo group to the Facebook group. On account of this, a partial credit goes to the Facebook team too, as they had started adding really nice features and cross-platform apps on Facebook rapidly.

Srijan Midlands's Construction (Driveway) - Year 2011

Meanwhile, I started cleaning the internet for a better and unique presence of Srijan Midlands over the globe. One day I found that another group is created on Facebook for Srijan Midlands! But that was not so active for many months. The group had a few members, and I had to bring those members into our active group too. I discovered Biplab Kumar Nath as the creator of that second group. I communicate and convince him to delete that second group in order to bring all the people in a single group. He agreed and deleted the group.

Progressively, I started realizing that my society is going to have so many good people. It was a thrilling fact for me. The quality of people inspired me by a manifold to continue my voluntary work for the group, and I try to flow the same spirit to others as well.

We are moving into Srijan Midlands - 03-July-2011

Eventually, Mousoom and my family started living in SM with a great excitement and pleasure from the 1st week of July 2011. At that time also SM was an under construction site, so we had to face a lot of troubles besides the joy of new life. However, our resolution was not to let the builder deviate from the agreement signed. We bravely faced all the challenges but didn’t leave our home. There was a little different scenario with Swagata Das, who was also started living at the same time in my same block. But he was in huge trouble due to his little child with them in that underdeveloped environment. Consequently, he was bound to shift to other better place temporarily. We continued and started calling other owners on the site for various meetings time to time. Everyone responded very positively, it enabled us to bring both the builder and the owners on one table. Our group started getting success little by little, and a few other flat owners like Ekanistha Dutta, Sukdeb Bhowmick, Satyajit Roy, and so forth also started living in SM. We were also happy to see this, as previously it was really bothersome to see only the labors around us! Finally, we started commemorating our festivals with the celebration of 31st December 2011, and life started getting smoother in SM after a continuous struggle of 6 months.

New Years' Eve 2011 @ SM

The journey of the group is flourishing now, and many new colors of life are getting added to it. Various festivals and events are making the group stronger. Today people are so active on it that it may be hard to differentiate the group anchors from the common members. People are started saying about their good experience with the group. Owners are acknowledging the help, they received from the group, to set up their home and property at SM. Outstation people are really a great fan of it, which has simply enabled them to live virtually with SM residents. These facts are well known to all SMites today and adding a true sense of asset to the group for our community.

If you are an owner or tenant in SM and not a member of the group yet then I request you to LIKE our Srijan Midlands’ Page on Facebook using the link www.facebook.com/SrijanMidlands and write a joining request on that page or message. You’ll need a Facebook account, which is very simple as well as free to create and use. On your request, the Admin team will reply as soon as possible and guide you to join the SMC Facebook Group. The group URL is www.facebook.com/groups/srijanmidlands where you can submit the joining request directly as well.

First Durga Puja @ SM - Year 2012

Wrapping this article up with many thanks to all the members of the group. Also, I would like to convey my special thanks to the group admins and the guys like Biplab Kumar Nath for supporting the group selflessly. I wish for my community to achieve many more milestones over the years ahead with all the growing great teams and families among us!

Finally a Special thanks to the Festival Committee for giving this article a place in the Durga Puja Souvenir 2012. Thank you all.

Written by - Narottam Das

Reviewed by - Madhurima Das