Disclaimer: I am not going to write about urbanisation
as if I were an expert, nor am I going to critique Urbanisation, because I am a
slave to it too...
I recently
joined the journey of the millions of rat-racers on the streets of Delhi.
Delhi, the capital of India. India, the cultural potpourri of the world. The befitting capital of a country where culture
could mean a million things. From wine-drinking page-3 exhibitions, to the bedmi aloo poori at 8:00 am in Daryaganj, all of which are generated by a million minds interpreting “culture” differently,
Delhi is mayhem of affairs. (You’ll know if you read till the end =))
I recently
changed jobs, and had to change my abode, from my mother’s nest in West Delhi
to miles away in the south- Kotla
Mubarakpur. My office is in Mehrauli,
the oldest settlement of Delhi, or Mihirwali-
as it was called in the days of Raja Mihir so from Kotla to Mehrauli started
the journey of millions in one. I told my mother, when she asked me where the
apartment was, “Its South –ex, ma..” to which she responded, “Well, that’s too
expensive na?”, and when I said, “Its actually Kotla Mubarakpur,” the expression went straight from concern
and worry to disbelief and shock... “You are not living in that rat-hole”,
she spat out. But I had to. And why not, it is we who made this rat-hole. It is
we who judge the same place in three different ways when we say INA Market,
Kotla Mubarakpur and South Ex Part II market. Geographically, it’s all the same
when you walk in and out of all of them regularly.
Kotla Mubarakpur
is an Urban Village: a settlement that rapidly turned from a village/
agricultural land into a crossword of roads, buildings and shops that seem to
have cropped overnight, in a hope to meet the needs of the coyotes and
road-runners, Beep Beep.... Almost all urban villages of south Delhi have a
million stories wrapped in one, because many are historic villages, dating back
to the Tughlaq/ Khilji dynasties and showcasing many scattered remnants of
ruins in their Chowk, Mod and Gol-chakars. Like the Tomb of Darya
Khan, which is on a roundabout near the INA Market, or the Tomb of Adam Khan at
Mehrauli bus terminal, where my bus journey terminates on my way to office each
day.
My obsession
with the term “urban villages” goes back to my days in college when we studied
urban design patterns and town planning theories, the very oxymoron was an attraction.
Why I call it a “rat-race/ rat-hole” is because everyday thousands of Indians
run out of their shackled up so-called homes, buildings made solely for one
purpose- to make rent from the alien office-goer who needs a roof to cover his
head; And every evening, they all scurry back into the ratholes. This is true for
Kotla, but the vice versa is for Mehrauli. They scurry in each morning, and scurry
out every evening.
And these organs
of the city- ‘urban villages’- seem to breathe, live and behave like organisms
in themselves. Just organisms dressed in mismatched clothes, like a turban of a
Kathyawad on top of a suited European banker. Every day I see the juxtaposition
of opposites camouflaged behind the chaos: The designer studios and glazed
armoires of antiques, right in the heart of the dilapidated and withering
ruins, or next to them. It’s too romantic to refrain from discussing.
It is so
captivating, its almost like transcending through time within metres. At one
turn you are smack in front of the Qutb Complex, the next you are in front of
Kimaya, and Studio by-Dunno-who-Narula, and theatre by Dunno-which-philanthropist,
designers’ and their exclusive boutiques; another turn and history smacks you
again into a tight Terminus doraha(a
two-faced fork in the road), right in
front of the winding steps to Adham Khan’s Tomb.
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Adham Khan's Tomb opposite Mehrauli Bus Terminus
|
Let us leave the
architecture out, but the shear presence
of the building can be felt the minute you see it. It is hard to rub history away, but the real challenge is in keeping
the culture of our ancestors alive, and yet not letting it become a hindrance
to progress and development. The amount of relief that I get just looking
at those who sit on the lawns of Darya Khan’s tomb or on the steps up the
plinth of Tomb of Adham Khan, in the evenings, as a respite from all the chaos
outside is inexplicable. It feels like the stories of the millions who would
have lived in the day and age when these buildings were not museum pieces but
were alive, would have been worth a tell. Some of them, especially those on the
steps of Adham Khan’ tomb look like regulars, locals who gather there every
evening for chit chat and friendly banter.
It is hard to
understand what it is that makes me want to switch places with those sitting on
those steps and lawns. Maybe it is a manifestation of the fact that in every Delhite, there is always going be
a sense of belonging and attachment to the history of the many layers of Delhi
built on top of each other. And yet I always walk away, sitting in my rickshaw as
I say to myself that there is no hurry for me to experience that lawn or those
steps. Because these structures will be
there, tomorrow, the day after that, and the day after that. They won’t run
away. It is perhaps this- taking it
for granted that it will never perish- that Delhi has lost more than 200 of
its old historic structures over the years.
Like the other
day, our boss agreed to let us get off earlier since it was World Heritage Day
and we decided to head to the Qutb Complex, which was a walking distance away.
When we asked our receptionist to come along, she simply said, “Qutb? Yahin pe toh hai! Isme dekhne wala
kya hai?” (“Qutb, well it is right here, what is there to see in that?”)
To this I just
smiled and thought to myself, “You’ll never understand”, but your children
will, when you’ll tell them one day, “Yahan
pe kabhi Qutb Minar hua karta tha, magar ab bas uski ek manzil bachi hai, unn
dinon ticket lagti thi isko dekhne ki...”( There lies the only remaining
floor of the Qutb Minar, where there used to be such a monument that we had to
buy tickets to enter the complex, in those days.”
Dekhte Dekhte, sab kuch badal jayega(things will change, as we stand and watch)... and the story of
millions will just perish, in every time we overlook the possibility. But bas ek baar (just once), when we get
down from our rickshaw and enter the complex, instead of running back into our
rat-holes, we will feel the city breathing underneath us.
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| Darya Khan's Tomb at the INA Market Gol Chakkar Courtesy: By Mayank Austen Soofi... urf The Delhiwallah, Source: www.flicker.com |
Maybe that is
why this oxymoron- “urban village”- still lives and breathes alongside us.
Because even if it has effectively ruined the historicity of Delhi, it is not
that it merely grew out of its own. It grew because we take our heritage for
granted. And we are short-sighted when it comes to progress. We carved these
buildings out for our needs and blamed socio-urbanisation ...but who makes
society- we do. We always would like to get into our rat-holes faster, caring
two hoots about the world around us. And one day when we come out, that
historicity is in shambles under piles of rubbish and ignominy.
To some, culture
lies in the designer boutiques bordering on the edge of authentic and ethnic to
obscenely expensive, thriving on the rehem(grace)
of the bribed babus. And to some it
lies in sitting religiously everyday on the steps to the tomb that has been
there for centuries.
Who’s going to tell me the stories of those millions
we lost?
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