Delhi of today

Men, Matters, Memories

M L Kotru

For someone who has lived in Delhi and lately in neighbouring Gurgaon, for the last 60 years and more I wonder sometimes if this was the Delhi which I came to as a teenager in 1949. Yes, there were very visible traces of partition still around. Like you saw some people still sheltered in the alcoves of the granite walls in Kashmiri Gate, some where still reluctant to leave their abodes in Purana Qilla. But simultaneously I had witnessed the coming up of not particularly well laid out "refugee" colonies. Some were coming up in what is now East. West and South Patel Nagar, some others around Lajpat Nagar. The Green Parks and Hauz Khases were still on the drawing boards as were the Gul Mohar Parks, the Greater Kailashes and Defence Colonies.

The Lutyens city was verdant with giant neem trees lining the well-planned roads that cut across and along the rows of bungalows; the barracks built to accommodate the rash of military offices and masses, required for the Allied Forces, mainly British, still stood in orderly rows. These were inherited after the British left by various Government offices.

There, for instance, was P Block, a barracks, that served as the headquarters of the Press Information Bureau. The Jodhpur barracks, the Princess Park, Central Vista barracks et al had been taken over by Army, the Navy and the Air Force to serve as residential quarters and the mandatory officers' mess. The encroachments within the hallowed Red Fort, enforced by the British Occupiers, in the form of solid granite barracks, were appropriated by the Army which even managed to stay put there until recently with the officers, mess in low. The Jama Masjid was surrounded by a rash of temporary wooden structures, shops built overnight, some of these selling priceless antique books and records and gramophones left behind by the departing Brits.

The Karol Bagh area, particularly down from Arya Samaj Road to Gurdwara Road was home to hand-drawn carts which turned into fried fish, seekh kebab, halwa joints at night, a pertromax providing the light for the patrons. The main Daryaganj Bazar was similarly infested by hundreds of carts, including the one which later converted itself into the famed Moti Mahal restaurant, presided over by its legendary owner, the late Kundan Lal whose hallmark it was to bow down to every customer, trying to reach for the visitors' feet.

Yes, the scene looked chaotic but with all that construction going around us one had hoped that Delhi would grow into a calmer, more organized city. Reminds me of Sergeant Buttons of the traffic police, driving up and down the roads of New Delhi, Lutyen's city essentially, a one-man force keeping the flow of traffic well regulated. Since bicycles were the principal mode of transport for the city then, the DTC under another nomenclature, was in its infancy and for a population one fifth of the present, Delhi boasted of 8 lakh bicycles and it was Sergeant Buttons who would haul you up for the missing bell on the handlebar, for the missing flasher at the rear, for not keeping to the cycle track or driving erratically. Justice was instant. No challans, no bribery; simply your back tyre was deflated which meant you had to walk some 500 yards before the roadside cyclewallah beckoned, "Babuji 'do' paise puncture ke-it became an anna later - and hawa muft". (Two paise per puncture and free air to inflate the tube). If Button Sahab had removed the valve of the tube you were done; it cost another anna. Incidentally, you could rent a bicycle for Rs. 6 a month then).

Good-bye to nostalgia, the following years saw Delhi growing into a megapolis, sadly built by myopic men, who never visualized Delhi's potential as the capital. You see the consequences of their myopia now. Each single or double storey house in Greater Kailash has been converted into five storeys plus mansions thanks to the builders who managed to build at least two residential sets on each floor. On an average each house now has six to seven car owners and the tiny lanes, which Gkeins call a road can hardly take more than one car and with cars parked on either side of the narrow stretch God save the visitor who inadvertently chooses to take his car to the doorstep of the family he is visiting!

Add to this the confusion which the politicians, the municipal ward members, the local MLAs have added to the lives of ordinary citizens. The Delhi Development Authority, and the Municipal staff with their ever growing appetite for graft, most houses, smaller ones included, in the capital have created spaces for shops. The bigger houses like those in Greater Kailash have of course converted what should normally have been a residential place into commercial complexes; these complexes, mind you, are better looking than some of the so-called malls.

A whole house, all three to five storeys of it, may now be a jewellery shop or a guest house or a car showroom or may be offering the latest in computers or music or even foreign fabrics and imported fashion gear. If the shoppers occupy the better part of the road by parking their cars outside these establishments it hardly matters to them. Who cares if an ordinary citizen suffers as a consequence.

That's what brings me to the agitation by so-called "60 lakh" shopkeepers, who thanks to the electronic media, have made lives of the genuine 60 lakhs (we are a crore plus in fact in Delhi) a living hell). Yes, there are some 44,000 unauthorised shops which in the first place should never have been there and which as the Supreme Court has repeatedly stressed must shut down. These shops are complexes are a menace as much in the so-called posh colonies as they are in the smaller ones.

But the politicians, in this case the Delhi State Government and the BJP as well, have joined hands with the blackmailing traders and the result is closing down of schools, burning of buses by people who say closure of shops means death for them. Given their frenzy they threaten to run berserk yet again.

The three-day bandh last month followed by another on November 7 and once again two days late may have paralyzed life in the city but the shopkeepers, acting like performing fleas, never tire of threatening and beating their chests thanks to the bytes-hungry electronic media.

You can any time, if you are a Delhiwallah, see four split images on your TV screen each interviewing one of the law-breaking traders. The Central Government's role in this entire episode has been extremely questionable as much as that the BJP's. Like the Congress - led UPA Government at the Centre, the Delhi Government and the BJP are cannily assessing the after-effects of implementing the Supreme Court orders, an eye always fixed on the upcoming municipal, and State elections.

Anarchy obviously gets priority over genuine democratic functioning with everyone showing no respect for the law of land.

As a footnote I must add what a friend with whom I used to share a popular watering hole in New Delhi. Said he: "Last evening when I came here (the club) it was teeming with people and many of the faces were the same I had been seeing on TV, wailing over the Supreme Court verdict.

Most of them were happily drunk and celebrating another "triumph" on the streets of Delhi. Some poverty! Some threat! Everyone apparently is happy, the illegal shopkeepers the BJP, the Congress, the UPA. Except, of course, the people and the Supreme Court.