City Improbable- Writings on Delhi

by Khuswant Singh

  In the dying days of 2006, the media returned. They were visiting Noida’s ‘House of Horrors’, not a funfair ride, but a quiet suburban residence, in Sector 31, where the decomposing body parts of more than twenty people, most of them children, had been found. Two men were arrested—the house-owner and his manservant. There was a New Year media frenzy, with tales, some true, some false, of cannibalism, vampirism, organ-selling and necrophilia. The house-owner, it turned out, was well-connected, and educated at elite Indian schools. The TV stations tracked down his former classmates, who scratched their heads to find anything interesting to say about him. His son blamed the servant. The servant’s wife blamed her husband’s employers. The parents of the dead grieved in front of the TV cameras, and a hypnotized, disbelieving public were interviewed in the streets and the shopping malls by bright-as-a-button reporters. ‘How could this happen?’ asked the voice of the people. ‘Because no one listened to us,’ responded the grieving parents. It gradually emerged that the police had ignored the parents, had sent them away when they tried to report their missing children. Most of the parents were low-caste and poor, and seemed unsurprised, though very angry, at the way the police had treated them.

  I hurriedly skirted Noida. It had become, temporarily, a synonym for serial killing. And Delhi’s politicians seemed delighted that the killings had happened on someone else’s turf. Noida is neither Delhi, nor not-Delhi. It is a protrusion into Delhi’s natural space, a kink in the city limits. It certainly feels like the rest of the capital. But because Delhi has no jurisdiction here, it is a place with even weaker planning laws, where many of those escaping from the sealing laws have relocated. Factories cravenly pump bilious smoke into the atmosphere, and there is a very significant (for a walker) lack of pavements. One main road did have a pavement—and a man who appeared to be guarding a yellow bucket. I peered inside. The bucket was full of water, submerged in which was a large and varied collection of wristwatches. I asked the bucket’s guardian why the watches were underwater. He looked at me as if I was very stupid, and said with a look of disdain, ‘because they’re waterproof’. As a regular purchaser of cheap and unreliable waterproof watches, I had never been shown such evidence of their effectiveness, and asked the price. Paintis—Rs 35. I couldn’t believe the price: it was as if I’d been offered a Salvador Dali for twenty dollars. I was too stunned to bargain and handed over the money, less than the cost of two cigarettes in London. The watch had a smart utilitarian black plastic finish, and told the time. Ever since I’ve taken pleasure in asking my more plutocratic, materialistic friends to guess how much my watch cost compared to theirs.

  As I examined my new purchase, using my fingernails to detach a sliver of loose plastic, a convoy of television outside broadcast vans drove past, heading for the House of Horrors. Relatives of the dead children were holding a public protest against the police. But Sector 31 was not on my route, and I was secretly relieved: the house and the drains outside had become a macabre tourist destination for the people of Delhi. And the ‘tourists’ were shown glum-faced on TV, helping to look for bone fragments in the open drains, as if panning for gold. ‘Sicko’, as my children might say; though still not one-hundredth as sicko as the original crime. In all my time in Delhi, nothing has shocked its inhabitants so much as the Noida killings. But no one quite dares mention the worst of it: these children, all children of the poor, were tortured in terrible ways before they died; dismembered, according to one account, while they were still alive. Panning for bones might be one way of dealing with the trauma.

  As the weeks passed, the coverage of the Noida killings disappeared into the inside pages, and spawned a series of sidebar stories. Noida’s reputation, as a middle-class sanctuary for those who can’t afford south Delhi prices, has been badly damaged. House prices dipped dramatically, and some local residents have called, successfully, it seems, for the media to refer to the ‘Nithari’ killings after the Noida slum where most of the victims lived. Then there is the great drain debate—in which it was pointed out that if the drains had been covered, as many local residents had been demanding, the body parts might never have been found. Others point out that if the drains has been cleared more regularly then the body-count would never have reached double digits. And the great death penalty debate has returned, with Afzal Guru still hanging out on death row. The Internet news forum sadists are back on form, demanding that the ‘killers’ should be executed without trial. One of them says, ‘give them wounds that could not be healed, let them rot by the roadside to be eaten by stray dogs’; another demands that they be treated like the children they killed, and be cut into small pieces by the relatives of the victims—though lex talionis doesn’t appear to extend as far as cannibalism. Most bizarre of all was the way the alleged killers themselves became victims, when making a regulation courtroom appearance. A group of lawyers dealing with other cases heard that the Noida killers were in the building and rampaged through the corridors searching for them, in full view of the TV cameras. The manservant was wearing a balaclava and managed to avoid being identified by the lawyers. The house owner was less fortunate. The lawyers pulled at his arms, as if they wished to dismember him; they grabbed his hair and his beard. He collapsed on the ground, unconscious, and shielded from the lawyers, but not from the TV cameras, by some terrified policemen, who stretchered him off to hospital.

  Inauguration

  JAANU NAGAR, BABLI RAI, SHAMSHER ALI AND SURAJ RAI

  Translated by Shveta Sarda, this piece has been written by the young writers of the Cybermohalla Collective. Since mid-2006, these writers have been questioning, gathering, conversing, writing and unravelling the new ‘resettlement colony’ of Sawda-Ghevra, emerging in the northern frontier of Delhi. These writings can be read as much as a record of a time and place, as of the act of making and thinking together.

  1

  Recognizing the pitch of the whistle, a flock of pigeons turned sharply in its flight, waylaying a few pigeons of a neighbouring flock startled by this sudden intersection. The boy continued to whistle, guiding his pigeons towards himself. He scattered grain on the roof on which he stood. Their wings flapping furiously, the pigeons alighted on the roof. The boy counted them while they pecked lustily at the grains. Each time he spotted a pigeon from another flock amidst his own, he grabbed it and pushed it into a cage. Then he set his own pigeons free to fly once again in the sky.

  An old mendicant walked through E-block with his monkey, asking for alms. Young children trailed the monkey. The monkey growled, assumed postures to frighten them away. Asserting their claim over their territory, a pack of local dogs circled the monkey. Fear and play interlaced. In life, some live with modest, others with momentous fears. And there are those too, who are weighed down by fears they are yet to encounter. Whenever we begin to express our fears, we talk about that which makes us or might make us fearful. But what do these fears do to us, how do they affect us in our daily lives? This remains unexpressed within us.

  Standing by the street, a boy thought up a mischief. He set up two chairs in the middle of the street. Sitting down on one chair, he called out to every passer-by to join him on the other. He inquired about the well-being of those who accepted his invitation, he talked generalities. Some played his quaint game with him, while others turned away, uninterested and unimpressed.

  Sitting nearby, a little girl nibbled at a fragment of a red brick. With the portion that she wet with her saliva, she drew shapes and lines on the ground. She was creating and erasing worlds on her whim, and this pleased her. Here, where there is pressure that the form of all things be fixed and stabilized according to rules, making these meaningless drawings probably brought her quiet. Every new contour emerging within Sawda-Ghevra is being measured and scrutinized. When the scales of this measurement will become particularly severe, and when they will be temporarily relaxed, this no one can predict. In this context, the simplicity with which she drew, then erased what she made, to begin again, seemed poigna
nt—it struck some chord in the onlooker.

  A woman appeared at the window of her first floor. ‘I am roaming far more in my dreams than I can possibly roam in Sawda-Ghevra,’ she said. ‘I was at the shrine of Lattu Shah Baba just recently. There is so much spiritual depth and quietness there. I could see myself sitting by the shrine, offering namaz, seeking the saint’s benevolence. I saw Babaji asking me about the good and the bad in my life, and me answering him. Then I saw myself going towards the shrine of Haji Ali—angels were carrying me to it. I was dressed in white clothes; I was flying. Suddenly I saw that the fridge had caught fire.’

  Drawing attention to himself, the madari called out, ‘Don’t go away yet! Keep watching. Our dangerous feats continue. Now coming before you is a thief who will fool policemen and escape.’ A boy of about twelve cut through the crowd, whirling a pair of bamboo sticks. Taking off his shoes outside the bright circular stage, he somersaulted through the entire space within seconds. Ten policemen appeared, but they could do no more than stave off the bamboo sticks and protect themselves from blows. Before they could even register it, the boy danced away from them and escaped.

  The cool breeze gathered a storm-like velocity. It began swallowing the clouds. It carried dust from the earth skyward; the sky turned darker. It was as if gravity slowly loosened its hold over things, and they flew towards the sky. The wind howled. People ran into the shelter of their houses. Some dashed out again, to quickly gather up the clothes they had put out to dry. Many doused the stoves they had lit outside their houses. Food would be cooked later. An old woman stuck her head out of her frail house of bamboo mats, to look. Just then, strong torrents of rain lashed out from the sky, forcing her back in.

  2

  The Municipality had marked out the piece of land adjoining G-block as a cremation ground. But the new residents got together and placed a bust of the poet Valmiki there immediately after their arrival. That was the year 2006. The placement of the bust was still tentative. Then after some time, an idol of Lord Hanuman was placed alongside the poet’s bust. Now devotees of Hanuman began to frequent the place. Then one day, a cobra appeared, pursued by a mongoose. People saw the mongoose attack the cobra. When it sensed so many pairs of eyes upon it, the mongoose grew afraid and escaped. Some people carried the cobra and lay him beside the bust of Valmiki. They tended to his injuries and offered him milk mixed with turmeric. Different things were tried to revive the cobra, but he died after twenty-four hours. Everyone gathered again, to perform his last rites. A pedestal of bamboo was built over the cremation spot. A male form of a cobra was skillfully moulded out of clay and set up over this pedestal. People contributed money for a havan to purify the space. Thousands of mantras were chanted. Crafting the space through its inner dynamics, people slowly built a temple complex, in a gentle contravention of the Municipality’s plan.

  3

  The man with the drums played on his drum and walked through J-block, his eyes scanning his surroundings. He paid no attention to the hullabaloo around him. He looked past it, to some point far away. But whenever he did reach that point, it was as if by virtue of having reached it, his relation with it would end. His eyes would always be set ahead of him. Up ahead, some goats were nuzzling around in a sack, trying to chew the cauliflowers in it. Till he was far from them, he kept looking at them; but when the man with the drums reached them, he moved his gaze past them and walked on, as if his destination lay further ahead. Did he even have a destination? He didn’t halt anywhere, but only kept walking. When my niece was much younger, why did my mother scare her by saying, ‘Don’t fuss, or the dhol wala will take you away’? She used to say the same thing to me, and possibly both my elder sisters too were kept in check by evoking this same figure. A drummer beats his drums, and amid the crowd that gathers around him because of this noise that he produces, his eyes lose their focus. Drawn by the sound, the crowd follows him, but maintains a distance. Weaving a web of glances around him, the drummer disappeared into K-block.

  4

  To

  Respected Madam President

  Republic of India

  New Delhi

  Madam,

  To fight back the rising wave of communalism in our country, Muslim fakir Rabb Baba, on 26th January 2007, the Republic Day of our nation, set up Lord Shiva’s temple in Sawda-Ghevra J.J. Colony, on the vacant land near G-block, with the assistance of the local residents.

  The development of this temple, a symbol of all faiths, is impeded by the rules of the government, which remain unmindful of the faith and feelings of the local population which is deeply attached to this place. Thousands of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and followers of many other faiths pray in this temple everyday. When Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians gather in this temple complex and offer prayers to Lord Bholenath—it is a sight worth seeing. Established without any government support, this temple, which promotes national unity, communal harmony and brotherhood, begs the government and you to protect it.

  The land on which this temple has been built has lain barren for years, and, moreover, no government scheme of any national value is applicable to it. Today, on 26.11.2007, local Hindus, Muslims and followers of many other faiths pledged their custodianship of it and formed the Shivalaya Communal Harmony Promotion Committee. This committee, apart from taking on the construction of the temple complex and the development of a herbal garden around it, will work to spread the pure feelings embodied in this temple to the common man and, in this way, strengthen national unity, and help the government and the people in uprooting communalism, casteism and terrorism from this country.

  Therefore, in the context stated above, we urge you, in the interests of the nation, to make available one acre of land to the aforementioned committee at rates that are in accordance with those for religious establishments. Alongside, we request you to ensure that the forest department grants us plants for a herbal garden and the National Foundation for Communal Harmony under the home ministry grants us monetary aid so that the temple committee may be able to develop the unused land around the temple, for public use.

  Sincerely,

  Shanta Rani

  Chairperson

  26.11.2007

  5

  The bus halted at the bus stop of Sawda-Ghevra. Its passengers emptied out and vanished into different blocks.

  The brick kiln right near K-block stood out sharply under the blazing sun. But, from time to time, it would suddenly disappear, engulfed by the thick haze of smoke that it emitted. Some children stood in the lane that leads into the block, intently looking into a house whose floor began at a height—as high as these children—from the level of the lane. Inside, a man, a knife in his hands, butchered hens. The children edged closer to the door.

  A boy stood inside the school in B-block. On the other side of the gate another boy of the same age sat on a bamboo mat, with eatables that he meant to sell laid out around him. The two boys looked at each other for a long time, unblinking. The weight of the gate caused it to slowly unhinge itself from the walls.

  The room that will soon be open to the public as the Mother Dairy in G-block is now complete. A few days ago, electricians had descended upon it with their tools and implements to install the fixtures: Where should the machine into which tokens will be inserted be placed? From where will the milk flow out? Where will the machine that keeps the milk cold be located? Work continued for four to five days. As for how the Mother Dairy will look—it will look exactly the same as all other branches all over Delhi.

  A Tata Sumo with ‘Government of India’ written prominently on it drove into the colony. From the two loudspeakers that had been fitted on either side of the car, a voice emerged, informing the colony dwellers that a camp will be set up on the 27th, 28th and 30th of that month, for installing electricity meters. Everyone was required to bring their parchees—which show they have been allotted the plot on which they are staying—and election I-cards with them to this camp. They will then be provided
with forms, which they will have to fill so that electricity meters may be installed in their houses. The vehicle of the Government of India moved along the main roads of the colony, repeating this announcement. People followed it and asked the officials, ‘And what else should we bring with us?’ An officer in the car replied, ‘Listen carefully to what we are announcing, remember the dates, and make sure you come to the camp which will be set up at the bus stand near B-block. Don’t forget to bring your plot-parchee. And now go, tell everyone in the inner lanes about this announcement.’

  In M-block, most people have got their house numbers engraved on the cement walls of their houses. These inscriptions state the block that each house belongs to, and the plot number. These brief introductions of themselves, provided by each house, are so prominent that they seem as if they would jump out from the walls at passers-by. Naive about the purpose this serves, someone smiled and asked, ‘Why not get a nameplate made and hang it near the door instead?’ A young woman, her skin dark like the evening, dressed from head to toe in pink, smiled kindly at this naivete and replied, ‘This way everyone ensures their plot number is marked out distinctly, as being separate from that of their neighbours. When one’s identity remains tangibly before others, it stays firm.’ Not far from her, in the park, a cyclist declared loudly that he would keep cycling in the same spot for the next twenty-four hours; that he will eat on the cycle, sleep on the cycle, and even change his clothes on the cycle; and that by cycling in the same spot, he will dig a deep hole in the ground.