On my trip to Delhi, I travelled its length and breadth to cover the entire city for my album “bhraman”. I observed New Delhi has the potential to be world class city that can boast of 1000 years old heritage and a modern engineering marvel side by side, just like London or Paris. But there were many things about the city, neglected by the higher officials and people alike, which made me sad, really sad. This is a post mortem report of New Delhi.
The First Look
When I got down at Nizamuddin Station on 3rd july, exactly after a year, I could see a visible change in the city. The roads were clean and painted on sides, footpaths had beautiful tiles laid on them, and the landscape was beautiful with benches at small distances and trees planted all along the road. The new sign boards on the road side gave Delhi an international city look. The city was covered with expensive agra sandstone to give that “heritage” look. But as soon as I entered Shankar Road from Talkatora Road, it appeared to me that Delhi hasn’t changed at all. The same potholes that were there last year, were still not filled up with tar. The jhoparis on Pusa Road cross-section were still there. When I entered Patel Nagar, I thought I have entered Paharganj. I inferred the development is taking place only where foreigners are expected to come. I see no reason why Rs 20,000 crore were being spend to certain pockets of the city and that too to impress “angrez log”. Rather the money should have spent on developing the city on a whole. This is what I call “post-independence slavery”. And we are champions in that.
(Un)Common Wealth
While I was in Delhi, I read every morning, news or an article about how the games are going to be a flop show. Everyday some person would take up this job of an astrologer, and predict that the games in Delhi would be a dud. I agree the games are affected with delays and bad planning, but now that it has already been done, why can’t we as citizens contribute to make the event a success, a bhagidari. Why is media always so pessimist about everything? They fight to be the first one to report about a falling ceiling, why can’t they point that out to a labour or a thekedar working there, rather than screaming in top of their voices “Games are doomed”.
Delhi government has also failed to promote the games. When South Africa was hosting its first Rugby World Cup post apartheid, Nelson Mandela took personal initiative to see that not only the stadiums are built but also, rugby should be made popular within the country, because he was aware of the concept of “home advantage”. So he personally asked the Springboks captain (South African Rugby team is known as springboks) to travel the nation with his team to make South Africans familiarise with rugby. Result: The entire country was present in stadium to support their nation and as a result The Republic of South Africa won the World Cup in its debut match! Indians living in towns and villages are unaware of any such event taking place in the country and people in cities know about the games only for wrong reasons.
Rs 22,000 crore has already been spent and still there is unpredictability of games in air. They say a decent woman never makes history. I say a decent man can never head a sports body in India. And if this is the case, there is still more than a month, ask Mr Gill and Mr Kalmadi to leave and hand over the job to “the indecent” Lalit Modi.
Uncultured Capital of India
I have spent more than 30 months of last 36 in Bangalore, but still I can hardly identify myself with this city. Not that it is bad; it’s just that it is not Delhi.
But there is something that Delhi should learn from Bangalore(or South India). It is the culture. Delhiites are the least cultured amongst Indians. No wonder when I am asked to recite a vedic shloka or a hymn, I only know Gayatri Mantra or Hanuman Chalisa, that are neither vedic and definitely not a shloka
Every morning when I get up and look down my window I see people drawing rangoli outside their house. If you ever visit a south Indian house in morning, they smell of sandalwood agarbatti that mesmerizes your senses. Each member of the family gets up at 5 in the morning. Take bath, pray individually to god in their dress (which is special one for morning prayers), apply vermilion and only then have their breakfast. And this culture reflects in their lifestyle as well. They dress up simple, women seldom use lipstick. They are warm. They fear god and so think twice before doing anything wrong (there is hardly any person who travels in bus without a ticket, and the ones who are caught are biharis).
On the contrary Delhi is a city made by people who migrated to India during partition and as a result it is a homogeneous mixture of Harayanvi, UPites, Biharis, Punjabis, Bengalis and Marwaris. Cosmopolitan culture exists in Delhi, which is good but Delhi lacks roots, which makes it so vulnerable to outside influences. I wish Delhi was as cultured as any of the south Indian city. As I always debate, rape cases in Delhi is 100 times more than in Gujrat because, Delhiites address an unknown women as “madam” and Gujratis address an unknown women as “ben”(sister in gujrati). Hope someday people in my city would also learn to address a woman as “behen”.
Biharis Are Menace
From my very first post on this blog I have bought the idea made famous by Raj Thakrey (Though I have always opposed his violent way of handling the problem). The government must find peaceful solutions to send the large number of haryanvis, biharis and UPiites who come to Delhi though a middle man via illegal channels, a case of human trafficking. Over the past four years since my family has shifted to Dlf, we have observed the changing demography of Gurgaon, where Bangladeshi females have increased in large number over the years working as domestic help.
Just for the record, Lord Lutyens, the architect of Delhi, had designed the city for 10,000 people. Today Gurgaon’s population is only 25 millions, delhi's is in crores.
Manners First
India must be the only city that allows people to drive on the white line that is marked to separate the various lanes on roads. Despite of the boards put up by the authorities asking people to drive in lane (if they cannot drive ‘inside’ the lane), people drive randomly at any speed, on any lane. When I am driving I always wonder, if ants can walk in line why can’t humans? Also Delhi has a long way to go before someone tells them; by spitting on road we are making our own city dirty. This is a very peculiar habit of Indians, they will ask their housemaids to clean the front of their house and dump the garbage in front of their neighbour’s house. No wonder new low floor buses are as dirty as age old blue line buses. Livelyhood Award to Delhiites for keeping metro clean.
Preserve The History
There are many parts of Delhi, I observed which are left unnoticed by the government of Delhi. Structures like Sheesh Ganj Gurudwara which is such an important reference in History, is unnoticed by the authority, even when it is right in front of the majestic Red Fort. At least the Sikh community knows the importance of the building but what about the State Bank of India building in the old Delhi region which once housed the court of English Rulers-the place where George Berresford and his family was executed by the freedom fighters? Or the Tomb of Aurangzeb or the baolis? Its all lying in shabby conditions with no one even noticing them, neither the government, nor public and most surprisingly not even Archaeological Survey of India. Preserve the heritage, lest we fight for it tomorrow. Just the way we fight for Ram janmabhoomi, if only we had preserved some historic document that proved Ram Temple existed at the site of Babari Mazjid, India would have been a better place.
