Damned If You Do? Damned If You Don’t.

On Negotiating Democracy in 21^st Century India

We were taught in school that we are an independent democratic republic; that this is a great leap forward from the days of old when kings ruled at whim and subjected the poor to misery and starvation; that our country with the mighty Himalayas crowning its beautiful form was almost a continent – a self-contained, ancient, and bountiful land of diverse people and languages. This was the prescribed content in History, Civics and Geography, and we believed it.

During and after my post-graduate research on the historic Red Fort of Shahjahanabad, I read of the weekly durbars for the poor in the court of Shah Jahan - arguably one of the richest rulers of the medieval world, and ostensibly a self-indulgent aesthete. The poorest inhabitants of Shahjahanabad and the Mughal Empire could walk in right to the courtyard of the Diwan-i-Am-o-Khass within ‘The Most Magnificent Palace in the East’, for audience with their Emperor and seek redressal of their woes. This was in feudal times.

In present-day India, such concern seems surprising, especially since we value foreign relations more than the lives of our people. When the Prime Minister of India claims that the country does not have the wherewithal to distribute excess food to its starving millions - that there is no option but to let it rot - yet finds the resources to give huge sums of money to bail out other countries from economic collapse, it is not easy to make sense of the truths of history and geography and democracy.

In the name of the new god of democratic progress, the poor must acquiesce unquestioningly as their forests, fields and waters are poisoned to make way for factories, power-plants or cities. They must rejoice if they find their names in the list of the compensated few resettled miles away from their own lands; celebrate if they get a job as a factory-hand or a labourer. And resign themselves in any case to sermons, excuses, insults and beatings. For those of us who have been spared such a fate in this birth, there are smaller everyday indignities, which belie our childhood myths of a free, glorious and independent society.

Democracy and freedom in India today is essentially for some powerful people, by some powerful people, and of some powerful people. Free to bestow all the money of the country in the banks of other countries; to morph India into a giant urban fiasco; to dispense justice and reform – or not. With such unmitigated freedom, there is little time and certainly no space to set aside for ordinary citizens, not even in the capital city of independent India. The one little stretch of road, named after the Jantar Mantar – the Observatory established on the initiative of another of our feudal ancestors in pre-democratic times – designated as a token site of protest, is also not available if too many people have the temerity to gather there.

Most politicians and political analysts say such peaceful protests by civil society constitute a threat to the democratic process, even if it is for a purpose that no one can fault – to demand punishment for the corrupt and justice for the wronged; that these are tantamount to holding our legislators, politicians and administrators to ransom; that they disrupt traffic and our economy. So what is ‘civil society’ to do? Continue to put its trust in elected representatives who have repeatedly failed to live up to their promises? Hope that self-realization will come to the mighty? Miracles do happen and most of us still believe in miracles or we would not survive our gross governance. Wait with the proverbial patience of the meek and the underprivileged? But then, three generations is already a pretty long wait.

Now that even the tradition of non-violent protest propagated most famously by the Father of the Nation, is unacceptable in our democracy, does it mean that it encourages its people to do the opposite? To take to violent protest? It would seem not. That would make such protestors enemies of the state, even if they are Indians. And enemies of the state must be exterminated, as our ministers declare. No wonder that for so long the Indian public has been accused of being uncaring beyond their immediate selves and families.

So is there another way to participate in governance, besides being one of those elected representatives who are above the law? How can we negotiate democracy in the 21^st century? As some Indians with integrity and will have shown us, it is by making the powers-that-be realize that they cannot fool “all the people all the time”. That they will not be allowed to utterly efface, mine, dam, and level all the mountains and rivers sacred in memory and tradition; and to continue to shelter the corrupt. That democracy is about majority opinion.

As yet another 15^th August approaches, as Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal among many others unite in expressing our determination for a free and fair country, it is time to tell our new rulers that we, the people of India, are the majority and we have an opinion. They would do well to open their eyes to this reality – and to read the cautionary words of an illustrious Indian whose 150^th birth anniversary we officially celebrate with such fanfare this year:

‘Politicians calculate upon the number of mailed hands that are kept on the sword hilts: they do not possess the third eye to see the great invisible hand that clasps in silence the hand of the helpless and waits its time.’[1]

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[1] ‘The Modern Age’, p.541, The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Volume Two; Edited by Sisir Kumar Das, Sahitya Akademi, 1996; This Edition 2008

Doves on the Landing

Doves on the landing, squirrels on the parapet…and other such sights

I cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be called an industrious gardener. Indeed, I cannot be called a gardener at all. I don’t particularly like examining the soil and its contents at close quarters. But, the combination of a family affinity for plants, a childhood spent in green cantonments, and a dislike of combining vegetable and fruit peels with the rest of the garbage, means that our terrace garden is always full of plants. Some of these elude recognition not only by rank amateurs of my kind, but also the malis who profess to know more and who, occasionally deign to climb up to our third-floor flat to disapprovingly survey the mad profusion in our pots.

The more direct of them, tell me outright, that I simply must not grow more than one plant in a pot. Snehanshu, who likes method in all things, and expends much effort in buying and hauling pedigreed chandni, bel, juhi and other such lovelies up the long flight of stairs, heartily concurs. But there’s the rub. I don’t actually plant anything. The nearest I have got to deliberately planting, is when I pushed in the seed of a particularly sweet mango in one of my seemingly unoccupied pots. And nothing has emerged as yet. But then, like Contrary Mary, How does my garden grow?

I attribute it essentially to luck and laziness. Since I do not have a compost heap, I liberally distribute tea leaves, apricot shells, fruit and vegetable peels and other such things in all my pots. And nature does the rest. So, we are constantly being surprised by new vegetation. The four pomegranates which are now taller than me, sprung up themselves. I have also, in various stages of growth among the bougainvilleas, hibiscus, champas and lilies, three jamuns, two chikoos, lots of musk-melon plants, beans, pumpkin, and one tenacious green which has been variously identified as bathua, jakhia, and a wild non-edible. This summer, we had an exciting time tracking tomatoes as they changed from yellow flowers to green to yellow to orange to red fruits. All in all, we harvested about 70 tiny ones, and they were a great attraction to the children in the neighbourhood, and very sweet to eat. They grew themselves in pots designated for statelier plants, who have now reasserted themselves. I myself think, it’s a more efficient use of space, though this arrangement cannot strictly be called tidy.

The birds and beasts, at least, seem to like my casual scattering of seeds – and crumbs. The regulars in our terrace are a rakish bulbul with a particularly endearing tousle-head and his family, three polite doves (who incidentally were born and grew up on the old deer-antlers on our landing, and have merely moved further in, I suppose), many nameless blue-rock pigeons (I understand that is the attractive name they go under) who ponderously upset whatever they can, and one vociferous crow. On occasion, we have also been privileged by the visit of blue sunbirds, brown sparrows, bright green parrots, and once even a family of little weaver-birds who built their nest in one of our larger plants. And then there are of course, the squirrels, baby lizards, moths, butterflies and wasps who have adopted our terrace, and like the Camel with the Arab, now believe that our rooms are as much theirs as the terrace.

So altogether, it’s a full house.

Plain Tales from Doon - Third Instalment

Some Further Exchanges Between Garhwalis and Kumaonis…Telephonic and Otherwise

My father, belying Onial Mausaji’s general pronouncements on the differences between the Kumaonis and the Garhwalis, fits in quite contentedly with the vagaries of the Ghyldiyals. His military training may have something to do with it. But it seems to me that his motto of “Quick march”, (without any attendant fear of where he is marching to!) is only partly due to his life in the army. For it seems to have been his creed even before he joined the NDA. As a fairly little boy, Papa was once on his way home with Bhawani Chacha - his slightly younger brother – when he spied a ladder-seesaw contraption. It was hanging from a tree, part of an obstacle course for training soldiers. Before Papa could finish his very natural investigations into its possibilities, Chacha’s hold gave way. From his position half-way up the swaying rope-ladder, Papa found himself whizzing through the sky. Landing a great distance away with a nasty cut over his bleeding lip, he needed the imperative attention of several surgical stitches. That, he explained disarmingly, was the reason for his attractive lop-sided smile.

Since, neither that experience nor others that followed have ever shaken Papa’s impatient fascination for the new and the curious, he continues to have varied and exciting experiences. His nonchalent optimism rivals and occasionally complements Mummy’s characteristic concern for cleanliness, to produce some interesting situations. One recurring object that he never ceases to tire experimenting with, is the cell phone. His cell-phones retire sooner rather than later under the pressure of his random punches or their outdated technology – depending on Mummy’s interpretation or his. While drawn to their mysterious charms, Papa resolutely refuses to take them seriously – or indeed take at all, whether on his daily walks or his round of golf. Conversely, when he is in the vicinity of his phone, it is generally switched off. So, the family knows better than to call him on his cell phone – which is just as well. He also changes the phone companies he patronises, adding greatly to the custom and confidence of salespersons.

Once, we all went to visit Deepa Chachi - Bhawani Chacha’s wife - after her knee replacement surgery. She was at my cousins’ house, 25 kilometers away from ours, a fair distance in the NCR. We all sat without worrying, since my father, as the more frequent visitor to that house, had assured us that he would direct us. As we neared our destination, he casually said that he did not know the house number, but that was all right. He remembered the route perfectly.

After we had circled the colony a couple of times, Snehanshu at the wheel tersely requested that we call up my cousins’ so that we could check the sign-boards announcing the house numbers. Mummy dug out Papa’s phone from her handbag and handed it to him in the front passenger seat. A couple of hasty tries later, Papa declared there was no answer. Luckily, I had in the meantime, managed to get through from my phone. We drove up, amidst my parents’ animated discussion on the proper way to use cell-phones and directions.

Halfway home in the evening, at the conclusion of an afternoon of much conversation, tea and dosas, Papa suddenly enquired, “Aruna, have you got my phone?”

“No,” answered my mother. “You took it from me just before we reached. Remember when you tried to call - but couldn’t - for directions to the house? What did you do with it?”

“I kept it in my pocket…and then on the table next to where I was sitting. I thought you would have picked it up,” remarked Papa in an imperceptibly aggrieved tone. “Never mind if you didn’t. It is safe enough there.”

After a minute, he added “Just call and check. It is there of course, but just let them know”.

I called again. My cousin Vimal, promised to look for it. He found it almost immediately, reposing quietly on the table, and asked if he should come down to give it to us. We were nearly at Noida, and considering my father’s frequency of using the phone, I firmly declined to let him come so far on a smoggy winter’s evening. Anyway, as Papa reminded us, Bhawani Chacha was going back to DehraDun in a few days time. He could carry it there with him, from where Papa could easily collect it since he was planning to visit DehraDun as well.

We all agreed that this was the best thing to do. Almost immediately, he thought of another idea. Arvind Bhai, Papa’s sister’s son, who also lived in Noida, was planning to visit Deepa Chachi the next day. “Arvind can get it back. He is just a few kilometers away and we can arrange to pick it up.”

I duly called up both sets of cousins to inform them of the handing and taking over of the bag. “You can switch off the phone,” I told Vimal. “No, I’ll keep it on – that way Tauji will have a record of his missed calls.”

“Don’t bother”, I told him. “He doesn’t”.

He obviously did not believe me. In due course, the phone came back, still switched on, just in time for my parents’ forthcoming visit to Dehra Dun. I advised my father to keep it handy, and answer phones, to enable coordination of station-dropping and picking. “Don’t worry, I have it with me,” he said brightly. “Yes, the charger too.”

I finally tracked my elusive parents in one of the numerous houses at Dehra Dun the next day, after many phone calls to the houses of aunts and uncles from where they had just left or were just expected to reach. “Why don’t you switch on your phone,” I demanded, justly irritated. “Oh you know, the battery had drained off, and I found the charger I was carrying did not fit,” was the equable answer.

Two days later, we arrived at DehraDun as planned. “Of course, I don’t really need it now that you all are here and we will travel back together,” Papa said, after he had thanked us profusely for restoring his charger to him, retrieved from its hideout inside the cabinet in his study. “Your mother, as usual, must have tidied it away - you know she can’t bear to see anything lying around”.

“Indeed? You must have got mixed up with the charger of one of those innumerable phones that you persist in buying.” Mummy countered.

And they steadfastly stuck to their individual explanations.

© Anisha Shekhar Mukherji

More Plain Tales from Doon

The enumeration of the eccentricities of the Ghyldiyals was received rather enthusiastically by those in the family who were ‘half-and half’. Most of the full-blooded Garhwalis reacted by a studied silence or by retrieving superior anecdotes from their own store of tales worth telling. My father, from his Kumaoni vantage point of an objective onlooker, was the most appreciative.

“But you haven’t written about our Ghyldiyal”? he encouraged hopefully.

Our Ghyldiyal, is of course my mother, Aruna - or ‘Urhna’ as she complained her mother-in-law, my Dadi, insisted on calling her. The youngest of Nani’s three daughters, the family traits are not immediately apparent in Mummy. Her brief and acute comments bear little resemblance to Saroj Mausi’s detailed drifts from corruption to Chaucer. Or to Guni Mausi’s enigmatic utterances, darting between gardening lore, unusual recipes, child-rearing, and much else. Mummy’s adamant adherence to a clockwork schedule, come rain or shine, is also rather different from the untrammeled space and time-cycles of her elder sisters.

It takes the privilege of proximity to realize that in Mummy, the Ghyldiyal connection manifests itself more in deed, rather than in word (though she has not entirely escaped the particular family feat of carrying on a conversation quite independent of the listener’s response). Having apparently inherited all her seven siblings’ share of my grandmother’s legendary order and neatness, as well as the clan’s ‘do-it-yourself’ motto, she is akin to an extraordinarily efficient whirlwind. You have only to say something. Like Maggi Noodles, Mummy has already done it in what seems like 2 minutes. You need not say it either - and she will still have done it.

“Chotti didi bahut jaldi karti hain”, Nani spluttered with laughter as she remembered the resigned comment of a harassed family servant in her father’s house years ago. My mother, all of perhaps nine years old, had passed through the room on her way out to play. With an already characteristic quickness of eye and hand, in the short interval that the servant returned with some matching thread, she had tidied away the special buttons lying around, destined for the coat of Pandit Haridutt Shastri. This was Nani’s father, the head of the household, the Rajguru of Tehri Garhwal, and from all accounts a stately and stern personage. Then with a useful ‘out of sight-out of mind’ philosophy, she forgot where she had put them, or even that she had put them away.

Mummy’s energetic efforts at ensuring neatness in her neighbourhood often leave me at a loss too. Within the space of the half-hour that it takes me to pick up my daughter from school, I return to a sparkling and unfamiliar kitchen bereft of its usual merry mix of organic dals, herbal teas, powdered orange-peels, and dried neem leaves. Mummy - instead of reading the many interesting books that I have pointed out for her edification and entertainment, or admiring the squirrels on my terrace – has been ‘clearing up’. The empty bottles and jars which jam my cupboards (owing to my reluctance to add them to the garbage heap, and my ambition of someday using them to make interesting ‘bottle-walls’) are now suitably stuffed with useful things – or packed outside to be thrown. The kitchen is wonderfully clean, but it takes me rather longer than usual to find what I need. And since our notions of necessities don’t really match, where and when I find them is often a surprise.

Such as the one I got on a damp morning several years ago. My brother and I were about to resume our progress on Delhi’s roads, after unsuccessfully sheltering under a bougainvilla bush during a brief burst of rain. It took me an instant to realize the identity of the blue bundle, with which Vivek was briskly mopping up the seat of his mud-spattered motor-cycle. By then, it was too late. Dust and grease stains had joined together to render my much cherished T-Shirt emblazoned with the memories of NASA – National Association of Students of Architecture - unfit for wear. Which, it always had been, according to my disdainful parent. I feebly drew attention to it, whereupon Vivek turned surprised. “Oh is it something you use? Mummy gave it to me to clean my bike.”

I therefore, like the rest of her family, regard my mother’s skills with admiration tinged with trepidation. One of her self-imposed tasks is to bring some order into her busy sisters’ houses whenever she is visiting Dehradun. The methods she uses to transform an untidy room into a marvel of neatness at lightning speed, are direct but effective. The results are a bit like a conjuring trick. She simply bundles unsightly things into bags, under beds, and inside cupboards. From where, as my cousin Manishi giggles, they roll out when least expected.

Naturally enough, it is in combination with her sisters that Mummy manages to make most of her memorable moves. As on a visit to DehraDun a summer ago. We were at Saroj Mausi’s digesting a lunch of delicious Garhwali dishes accompanied by her quintessential turns of speech. It was then that Guni Mausi called up in a state. She could not find her phone anywhere – either in her own house or in the one across the lichi trees where Nani stayed with my younger uncle’s family. Had any of us seen it? We diligently scoured Saroj Mausis’s overflowing house to no avail. Sometime later I heard a low buzzing in the background. Recollecting my frustration at getting through to Saroj Mausi on the phone, I firmly directed her attention to it. But, both hers and Onial Mausaji’s phones were lying decorously silent on the table.

“It is coming from Sarojdi’s bag,” observed Mummy. We fished out Mausi’s black capacious bag, which she contrives to fill, like Mary Poppins, with an array of surprising articles. After some delving, we discovered a phone, ringing insistently. A visibly astonished Saroj Mausi, expressing wonder at this Mystery of a Strange Phone, tentatively answered it. “Hallo? Who??”

Audibly excited tones carried to us. “Your phone?”, said Saroj Mausi. “But how did it come inside my bag?”

Almost immediately, an indignant Guni Mausi arrived in person down the two short lanes and little length of road that separated her house and Saroj Mausi’s. “Everyone knows how absent-minded you are - but to put my phone in your bag and to not remember it even when I ask whether you’ve seen it, is really the limit”!

They were still trying to reach a satisfactory explanation, when Mummy who had been exclaiming with us over the discovery, was struck by a possibility.

“Sarojdi, I put a phone inside your bag in Guni’s house. I spotted it on the divan when I was tidying up at the time that the maid was sweeping the floor.” she explained.

“Since you say it isn’t yours,” she added wisely, “then it must have been Guni’s.”

“Though really, I did not expect Guni to be as careless as you.” By the time her sisters could collect their answers and their bags, Mummy was on her way out of the room, pausing to point out thoughtfully in passing - “Just as well that I kept it away safely. What if the poor maid had been tempted to take it?”

Images © Anisha Shekhar Mukherji; Text © Anisha Shekhar Mukherji

Holding Fast with Anna Hazare

A volunteer meeting was organized by ‘India Against Corruption’ on the 27^th of March 2010.

We’d come to know about this campaign spearheaded by Anna Hazare, through SMSes forwarded to us - which we were asked to send on to others if we supported the causes espoused in the campaign.

As we arrived for the meeting, slightly apprehensive about being half an hour late and not knowing what to expect, the sight of four college students walking up to the gate, and of two ladies who alighted from an auto-rickshaw looking for the same address, reassured us.

We walked into the premises, our architectural training as usual manifesting itself in a quick appraisal of the building. Clad in buff and red sandstone, its proportions were pleasant; the entrance doorway to the building was clearly marked out without being intimidating; the windows in reflective glass, past the side entrance that we were directed to, were neat and rhythmic. The fact that the meeting was being held here and not in the supercilious glass-boxes that pass for so much of contemporary architecture, seemed to us appropriate.

Our pace unconsciously quickened, as walking past the building and up the stairs, we heard the sound of someone speaking forcefully. Kiran Bedi? On the first floor, in a packed conference hall, we saw it was a young girl, head covered in a green chunni, kurta and jean-clad. We stood at the back, wondering how much of the discussion we’d already missed, indescribably glad that there were so many people there that we had to stand.

The energy and enthusiasm in the room was something we have never experienced. It became evident that we had come at the end of the first part of the meeting in which people had been talking about what they had personally gone through, the menace of corruption, the absolute necessity of doing something – letting off steam and gathering momentum as it were. Now it was time for ideas about how to do that something.

“Idealogy ki bahut baat ho gayee, ab ideas ki baat karein”, as the girl – who one of the older gentlemen present called ‘a Lakshmibai of today’ – said.

And ideas poured in– both for and against jamming the roads of Delhi and the NCR akin to the Jat Campaigners, to forming human chains, doing street-plays, fasting at homes, at Jantar Mantar, distributing pamphlets, speaking to people in buses, metros, local trains, resident associations, sending chain-emails, door-to-door campaigns. From an autorickshaw driver, from retired army officers and ex-servicemen groups, from a librarian, from college students, union leaders, Art of Living practitioners, teachers, even serving government officials - not just from Delhi and around but from Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra. And it seemed to us, that this was truly another Freedom Struggle. The will of the people there; the complete commitment and confidence with which the young leaders channelized the concentrated and sometimes divergent outburst of feelings; the fact that so many people of such diverse backgrounds had gathered there as Indians who cared enough about what was happening to their country, is something that will always remain with us.

We fasted on the 5^th of April. And again on the 7^th. It was not easy, and we can better appreciate what it must be for Anna Hazare to go on a continuous fast while being in the public eye. We feel blessed that we have at least one person like him who can give direction and inspiration to us when so many of our so-called leaders and public figures do nothing but shame us and the idea of our nation. We hope to be able to go to the Jantar Mantar Road to express our solidarity with Anna Hazare and with the extraordinary courage and unity of so many Indians there and elsewhere in the country, who give us reason to be proud and hopeful for today and tomorrow.

Much Ado about an Anniversary - A Hundred Years of New Delhi

I have been thinking about this widespread interest in the 100th anniversary of the establishment of New Delhi.
And I have been wondering why this occasion should generate such an interest. After all Delhi itself has a much older urban built tradition. Even if we disregard the archaeological fragments which point to a built history of more than a 1000 years, there are substantial remains of historic cities in this region, including Shah Jahan’s 17th century city of Shahjahanabad—the ‘new’ Delhi at the turn of the 20th century. Why are we then getting so excited about a mere 100 years? What does New Delhi mean to us that we celebrate the 100 years since a British monarch and his Queen laid down a foundation stone in what is now the North Campus of the Delhi University area, with such concentrated attention in our newspapers, our magazines and our media?
One reason perhaps for such an interest maybe the fact that the establishment of a capital at New Delhi, in purely political terms meant that active political power was ‘returning’ to Delhi after being centred in Calcutta after 1857 and its aftermath. So, Delhi, which had shrunk in political terms to a provincial city, was again after a gap of half a century regaining its historical status of a capital city once again. So, perhaps the celebration is not just the 100th anniversary of New Delhi, but a celebration of the reinstatement of Delhi’s political status.
The second reason may be the fact, that at the level of city-planning, New Delhi looms large on our physical and mental consciousness. New Delhi has had a huge impact on the growth and ‘development’ of towns and cities throughout the country. Again, perhaps one reason for this is the political baggage that it carries. And I find this a bit of a paradox. That a city which quite frankly turns its back on indigenous principles of urban planning and architecture and takes western models as its inspiration, should have been accepted so whole-heartedly by the political leaders of a newly independent India. And the fact that the image and form of such a city continues to be promoted by most of us today—administrators and professionals alike. I do not remember the 350th anniversary of the establishment of Shahjahanabad being commemorated on the same scale. And even though its urban form is actually climatically, culturally and socially better adapted to the Delhi region and its recorded crime rate is lower than that in the newer planned parts of the city, Shahjahanabad is not the inspiration for newer cities. Maybe there is an associational value of Shahjahanabad with the last Mughals as a spent force; by the same argument, however, New Delhi should have an unpleasant associational value with the British as the seat of our erstwhile colonial masters.
There is no doubt, of course, that at many levels, New Delhi is very pleasant. I have stayed in many parts of it, including the large bungalow allotted to my father when he was the Vice Chief of the Indian Army Staff. To live in the midst of trees, with the luxury of large gardens and verandahs, is no doubt very attractive. But there are two issues here. The pleasance of New Delhi comes at a huge cost. It is the rest of the city which pays the price so that New Delhi can afford to be green and luxurious. Historically, cities have always been dense. Of course, they have had public parks and limited private gardens—as was the case even in Shahjahanabad, the ‘new Delhi’ that preceded the British Imperial capital. The British and Modern New Delhi, on the other hand, is actually the reverse of a city. It is sub-urban—the garden-city idea of Ebenezer Howard imposed many thousands of miles away.
It aims to combine the advantages of country-life (trees, fresh air, houses far way and virtually invisible from each other) with that of city-life (opportunities for intense interaction, mingling of minds, concentrated and varied activity). Evidently, reconciling both is not easy—and is generally unsuccessful. So, New Delhi in physical terms is unsustainable. The sort of densities here are one dwelling unit per acre as compared to 35 dwelling units per acre in DDA flats or over 60 dwelling units per acre in ‘unauthorised colonies’ and developer flats.
So, what it means is that to keep New Delhi looking spacious and green and uncrowded, the rest of the city is squeezed and crowded in; and they have to forego the amenities of both city and country. A plan such as New Delhi’s is also unsustainable because if you push dwelling units so far apart and if you isolate residential and commercial activities, you are immediately dependant on vehicular transport of some kind to negotiate distances. So, you cannot really do without cars within New Delhi. And since the centre of the capital city of India is so spread out and is retained as a low-density area, it is the periphery of the city which is made to accommodate the increasing numbers of people who come to live and seek work here. Travelling from the periphery to the centre of the city – where administrative and many business interests are centred – means that you are again dependant on either the inadequate and crowded public transport, or if you can afford it, in private vehicular transport. And so, like the circular layout of New Delhi, life within it too becomes a vicious circle.
Safety—personal and community—also comes a cropper in a layout like New Delhi’s. Since the dwelling units are bungalows pushed back from the street, screened by trees, bereft of landmarks apart from the tombs, temples and structures of older historic Delhis (which are also being razed down or taken over)—it is easy to get lost, waylaid, mugged or murdered in Delhi. Other parts of Delhi cannot afford to replicate the planned form of New Delhi with ‘bungalows in gardens’, but they follow it in different ways. Plotted houses setback from the road and screened by high walls in colonies; housing societies and developer flats with their version of ‘vertical bungalows’ behind boundary walls. In that sense, New Delhi and the development that it has spawned is very much a colonial city—distanced, isolated, aloof, heavily dependent on natural or native resources.

Jantar Mantar, Delhi

JANTAR MANTAR

Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh's Observatory in Delhi

by Anisha Shekhar Mukherji

Price: Rs. 680, First Edition: 2010

ISBN 81- 903591- 1- 8

Published by Ambi Knowledge Resources Pvt Ltd

Address: Lower Ground Floor, C4/5 SDA ND 16

Telephone:011-49562700 email ambi.knowledge@gmail.com

Jantar Mantar: Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh's Observatory In Delhi

is available from:

21 B Pocket C

Siddharth Extension

New Delhi 110014

Ph: 01126341039

It can also be bought directly from the publisher. See http://ambiknowledgeresources.wordpress.com/

Anisha Shekhar Mukherji's new book, an informative history and field guide, explains the enigma that is the Delhi Jantar Mantar. Based on over a decade of extensive research, it uses archival images, photographs, drawings and sketches, to unravel how the 300 year old Jantar Mantar Observatory looked and worked in the past. Carry this book to the Jantar Mantar and walk around the instruments with it. Or read it before and after your visit to understand one of the world’s most unusual and intriguing works of architecture.

Each instrument of the Jantar Mantar is explained separately as a guided ‘walk’. The book includes information on traditional Indian astronomy, and on the political and cultural background of this ‘royal observatory’ established by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II. It not only traces its transformation into ‘an archaeological monument’, but also charts the way ahead by which the Delhi Jantar Mantar’s historical function may be revived and conserved for future generations.

For Reviews see http://swblogs.blogspot.com/2011/02/astronomical-architecture.html

http://www.stagebuzz.info/PAGES/Books/Book_Mark8.htm

For online purchases, see http://swb.co.in/store/book/jantar-mantar
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Happy Diwali - The Commitee Reappears

Today is Dhanteras.

There is nothing urgent that I need in my kitchen. I wonder how necessary it is to follow this ritual as I contemplate what new utensil to buy, when my maid tells me in between mopping the floor, that she is shifting home. She is moving to a new room close to her old one, where she says she will get plentiful water. She can go back home and wash her children’s clothes in the afternoon without worrying about queuing up in line outside in the lane. It is ironic to me that what she deems is a luxury, is actually a chore. But the fact, that her chore will not be compounded by another chore, is in itself something for her to be treasured and celebrated.

I ask her if she needs time off to shift tomorrow. She tells me that she has already started doing so, a bit every day. She has to plan this, since her husband cannot help. He has injured his hand. When I ask how, she says he hurt himself running away from the Committee Wallahs. They came day before yesterday. “Diwali is coming”, she says sagely and resignedly.

Yes, it is festival time. And while most of us plan how to light up our homes and what to eat, for hawkers selling on the streets like my maid’s husband, it is not simply a time to decide how many new clothes and candles to buy. Certainly not a time to let their defences down, but to be more watchful and guarded. And to spend the money they set aside for the festival, on buying new thelas, new buckets, new wares to sell – many of which have been compounded, confiscated or broken by the Committee in its pre-festival swoop.

I tell her that the newspapers have reported that the Courts have said that it is the right of a citizen to sell his wares on the street. This is not something that she knows. Neither it appears does the Committee.

The Hindu edition of October 20, 2010 carried a Report on its front page which stated that ‘Hawkers have a fundamental Right to trade’. Justice A.K. Ganguly and Justice G.S. Singhvi have asked the Delhi Government to enact a law to regulate the hawkers’ trade keeping in mind also the right of commuters to move freely, and have noted that ‘the fundamental right of the hawkers, just because they are poor and unorganized cannot be left in a state of limbo’…and that ‘when citizens by gathering meager resources try to employ themselves as hawkers and street-traders they cannot be subjected to a deprivation on the pretext that they have no right.’

Some of us plan to write to the local Noida officials asking them how they propose to follow this judgment. We hope to have your support in the form of endorsing this letter by adding your signatures to it.

In the meantime, we would like you to think about creating more space in your kitchens and your homes, by ritually gifting away utensils, clothes, books, lights - or indeed anything that you deem appropriate to anyone less fortunate then you.

Have a peaceful and joyous Diwali. And wish the same for everyone.