Delhi Diaries

Delhi is a monumentally stupid place. It has a ‘poverty of culture’. In simpler words, it’s randomly thrown in idiocies interwoven to drag it on.

The following four descriptions capture Delhi’s bitter-sweet aspects.

Rains, mall and India’s foreign policy

  

It was august 2010. After I had checked out of my hotel in the morning and had finished my work by noon, I still had a lot of time with me before my train to lucknow at 2200.

Thanks to my short stay at noida in NTPC during early 2009, I knew that Great India Place(GIP) at noida was a good ‘hang out’ place. So, with a travel bag on my shoulders I decided to spend rest of the day at GIP.

GIP is the usual “happ” mall of the metros. The window shoppers outnumber ‘some quick bite’ shoppers which in turn outnumber the real shoppers. People as usual do not act ‘usual’ in these places. If you are in a mood for fun some day, just try this. Start speaking in local dialect hindi in the mall. I have tried it at McDee.

 “Bhai saab, burger ka size kya hota hai?” “Excuse me” replied the counter boy. “Matlab ki size se hi to pata chalega ki kitna lena hai, ya ek se hi pet bhar jayega?” He looked at me in the same way as I had first looked at Tushar Kapoor wondering how he can be a hero, here of course he was wondering if I was human or not. After dropping my act for time being, I paid the money for a burger and coke. But, again when he was going inside to get the order, I shouted, “Badhiya garam burger layiega”. I will leave the rest of the description for you to experience. ( As if you want ! :P )

On that day, I had no mood for fun. I just sat outside the mall on a marble sit-on place and took out a book on India’s foreign policy. You can say I am weird in my own sort of way. But, when you have been declared unfit in the morning for most of the jobs of a major examination just because the power in one of your eye is more than 4, you tend to do such weird things. I sincerely thank centuries old medical policy of UPSC in the world of modern day healthcare for making my life even more interesting.

I was not much interested in reading, so it was more like look around and hide your face sort of thing. Not many people read in the lawns outside mall was the first thing I noticed. In fact there were less ‘people’ as such and more ‘couples’ out there. But these things hardly mattered when India was thinking of aggressively pursuing its quest for nuclear energy on the world stage. But again, all these things hardly matter when God decides that it’s time to rain. So, it started to drizzle. Going by the hearsay that Delhi rains hardly last, I took shelter beside the nearby billboard.

A little boy also came and stood by my side. I had seen him earlier playing around the place. I won’t describe his clothes and appearance to drive home the point that he was poor. Probably son of some street vendor across the road. We exchanged smiles.

It started to pour heavily. “Chal daud ke aander chalte hain” I suggested the boy that we must run inside the mall to avoid drenching further. “Kya?” he shouted. The noise of big raindrops falling on tiled surface made the conversation difficult. I caught hold of his hand and ran towards the mall entrance.“Ander jane nahi deta hai”. I ignored his words.

Panting and cleaning my specs of waterdrops, I pushed the boy to pass through the security check. “Saala! Fir aa gaya tu? M*#*d kitni baar bataya ki idhaar ghusega to tang tod dunga”. The security man hurled all types of abuses towards the boy and pushed him back into the rain. I again caught hold of his hand. “Ye mere saath hai”, I pleaded forgetting the fact that with a soaked travel bag, wet old formals and poor small town dressing sense, my own image was not much better than the boy. “Ye to chor hai, tu kya isse chori ki padhai padhata hai?” Security man tried to crack a smart joke as he had seen me with the book earlier. I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t. I just kept looking at them. I could feel the dampness inside my chest. “Bachche hain, jane de, kaise bheeng gaye hain”. One middle aged man requested on our part. The security men allowed us in with a command to remain close to the entrance and not to roam inside as it will make the floor of the mall dirty.

I took out a towel out of my bag and gave it to the boy to dry himself. I had no intention to dry myself up. People deliberately tried not to look towards us. Small kids were curious but parents were alert not to let young minds pollute. We stood for about half an hour, hand in hand. Water kept dripping out of my body onto the floor.

I had thought of ending it here only. ‘Water kept dripping out of my body onto the floor’. But it is too much emotion thrown into a single line. We talk of lot many things, how India is becoming a global power, how the lack of rain fail to cause famines anymore, how these modern shopping complexes reflect India’s rising fortunes. But beyond all these rains, mall and India’s foreign policy, lie a basic human value. Years of fighting with the divide of black and white and the divide of caste, we have created a new divide in our Indian society, the divide of class.

You may have noticed many times poor people, rickshaw and cycle walas helping the car wala when the car gives trouble. But how many times have you noticed a car wala helping a rickshaw wala to change the punctured tyre? Just ponder. 

Hum bihari hain

  

Delhi metro is like little Delhi. It shows all the character of the place. It shows how our population is concentrating towards the metropolitans. It shows how hawkish is our modern society towards women. I will dwell into something different.

I was coming from GTB nagar metro station on yellow line. The metro surprisingly was not much crowded. After few minutes of journey, I heard some commotion nearby. It involved two women. They were the eighth and the ninth passenger on the seat for eight, somehow managing to sit together on one and a half seat. Both women had small kids on their laps. One woman had husband with her, the other had her little daughter with her. The husband and the daughter were standing. I will name the women as h-woman and d-woman.

The h-woman had asked the daughter to stand up to make place for her as she had a child with her. Both women were blaming each other for the discomfort they were facing in sitting. The kind of languages and abuses they were using is left for your imagination. But I could easily make out that they were from Haryana side. Now, you can imagine wilder.

One thing that was easily observable was that the crowd loved it. I think watching women fight fascinates men. Everyone was all smiles and they were eager that the women must take the fight to next level, probably a WWE.

Till the time women were abusing each other with the usual mother-sister-daughter stuff, it was within the comfort zone of all people concerned. It was socially acceptable. Suddenly, the h-woman said something which was highly inflammable and totally unacceptable. “ Tere jaise BIHARI metro mein baith kaise jate!”

The effect of being blamed a bihari was catastrophic. The d-woman retaliated, “Saali, khud hogi bihari, mein bihari dikhti hun kya?” I checked my head; no I didn’t have horns unlike other people. Even till-now inert husband jumped into action. “#@#, bihari kaise boli?” The crowd also in-puted some expert comments. “Bihariyon ka kaam hi hai gandagi failana, metro bhi nahi chodda”. I looked around myself, no there were no dirt falling off me. I take bath almost daily, also I never speak in such language, nor have I heard people speaking in such abusive language in Bihar.

I think I alone was not deeply hurt by the scene. One fellow sitting fourth next to d-woman stood up and went up to her, “aap wanha us seat per baith jayie”. The fight subsided as both women got comfortable seats. That fellow then faced the women and crowd and said in a heavy tone, “aap log nahi, hum bihari hain”. He boarded off the next station of Chandni Chowk.

Chutki, Pinki and Blacky & Pinki

  

Teased by someone that I don’t watch girls from my balcony, I decided it was time to explore. It was not tough. I could find nine girls within my range of ‘watch’.

I zeroed in into three and a half girls. The half girl, I named – Chutki, she was a little girl of age around ten. Her parents were labourers working in the construction of a building next to mine. The other girl, I named – Pinki, she was the nanny in early twenties. She took care of the baby in the ground floor flat just opposite to my rented room. The other two girls, I named – Blacky & Pinki, they were girls in their twenties. Probably they were daughters of the landlord of the house diagonally opposite to mine.

I couldn’t help but repeat the name Pinki, the names depended on the colour of clothes they usually wore. And, girls seem to wear pink a lot. It’s not that I am complaining, I love them in pink.  ;)   

Chutki woke at nearly five, the same time as I woke up. While brushing my teeth, I could see chutki’s mother giving her a bath. They didn’t have a bathroom, as you can notice. She didn’t go anywhere during day, no school. Her mother prepared meal early in the morning itself; because she wouldn’t find time to cook as she would work till 6pm. Chutki helped her mother cook. She played with her little brothers on the chips and sand piled for the construction work. In evening, she would watch other kids of the colony, I mean the clean kids, play cricket. I knew the two worlds can never mix but I was curious if Chutki actually sometimes would ask them to include in the play. As long as my observation goes, she never asked. I think she was old enough to realise that she was the invisible half of India.

I could watch Blacky & pinki only in the evenings and on Sundays. They had bathrooms in their home and they had colleges or workplaces to attend. In the evening they would generally come to balcony with a mug of tea with each of them. They would have a packet of chips or biscuit also with them. They would talk and talk and look around. They were conscious that an idiot was watching them. Every Delhi middle class girl thinks that she is the centre of universe and every damn boy will die to have a look of her. I can’t blame them. I indeed was watching them. Sometimes when I returned late in evening from somewhere, I could see them taking an evening walk. They probably thought I was stalking them. I again can’t blame them. It seemed I was following them, in reality I wasn’t. So, these girls were fighting their own battle with daily work/study, with increasing waistline and with idiot strangers stalking them.    

The third girl, Pinki, she had really no routine. I think being a nanny to a newborn is real difficult task. From early morning to late night, she would come out of house any time with the kid in her hands. Most of the times, the kid would be crying and Pinki would do all sort of stuff to make the kid stop crying. It was strange that I never saw Pinki without the kid. It was stranger that I never saw the kid with the real mother. So, Pinki here had a challenge to ‘mother’ a child grow even though she was not the real mother.

I think you will agree that watching girls from balcony really helps to better understand the world around. I suggest you people also start doing the same thing. :) 

The fallen ice cream

  

Karol Bagh is one of the posh areas of Delhi. The population is predominantly Punjabi. You could see long cars standing in front of the beautiful houses.

In the evening, the streets of Karol Bagh become even more beautiful. That is the time when all the pretty Punjabi girls come out on streets for evening walk. I, less out of my pervertedness and more out of the need to walk through the street to go back to my house after studies, usually enjoyed the evening Karol Bagh street.

For one month initially, nothing unusual happened. I was conscious of the fact that there was a certain area in the 9A street where some really beautiful girls ganged up and talked. I tried to look smarter while passing in front of them. I still fail to understand how can you look smarter than you actually are by just thinking about it? Still, you know it helps psychologically.

But I was unaware that those certain girls were more conscious of the fact that I passed before them a few times a week.

So, it started with an ice cream. One day, I was walking back to my house through street 9A. When I was approaching that area, I found that those certain girls came down to the middle of the road. They were four in number, giggling and pushing each other. One of them was eating an ice cream. Suddenly, the ice cream fell out of her hand. She started yelling, “how you girls can do like this?” and some other blah.. blah. They stood in such a way that the path was blocked. I kept standing before them, waiting them to give some way. I find speaking before a new girl the hardest task of the world, so I didn’t speak ‘excuse me’ and just kept looking down pathetically. One of the girls spoke up on my behalf and said, “hey, you can go.” “ Dont worry, her ice cream falls when she.. (more  laughs)..” said other one. “Oh, you..*giggling*..” said the ice cream girl. The whole time I kept looking down, I could feel my heart beating very hard. They still hadn’t given me the way. “Oh, let him go” said one of them and they gave me the way. Feeling very embarrassed, I quickly galloped through, though the chatters continued at my back.

After few days, I again had to go through the same street. This time only the ice cream girl was standing there. I tried my best to act normal while passing in front of her. “Excuse me” her sweet voice paralysed my body. I turned around shyly and tried to murmur ‘yes’. “Can you please... oh shit..” Two books fell out of her hand which she was carrying. Out of my instinct, I picked up the books. They were accountancy books. “Thanks, so sweet of you”. Her green sandals were not matching with her red foot nail colour, I noticed. I tried to say ‘its ok’ though I don’t think it was audible enough. “You new here?” For the first time I looked upto the height of her hands and searched the cover of the book thoroughly, at a corner it was written ‘Class XI’. “Yes, I live in the next street. And you were asking something?” I don’t know from where I got so much courage to actually speak, I think her being in class XI only helped. “No, just wanted to say you are cute”.

Well, well, well, it’s too hard to criticize Delhi now. When young beautiful girl like the ice cream girl calls you cute, you have hardly any complains left with the world.

We exchanged numbers. But that was the last day I passed through 9A street. I messaged her at night – ‘Im 2 old fr u. U hv enf tym 2 grow up & realize dis bt u desrv mch betr in lyf’. I had to take a much longer route to reach my house for the rest of my stay.