This is what Alice said about Delhi and somehow I think it captures the city very accurately and is beautifully written so with their kind permission I am reproducing it here together with a picture of them I took when we visited Hauz Khas.
"On reflection, Delhi is a city of the most incredible contrasts testing your ability to respond and adapt with every street crossed and every encounter made. Amazing walled wealth sits up against primitive poverty. The quiet calm of Delhi’s elegant green parks and majestic history are encroached by the desperate need of its current citizens for shelter and space. Mogul monuments and modern motorway bridges are inhabitated by those with no where else to go and no option of safety or permanence. Traffic lights provide opportunity for opposing worlds to collide through air conditioned glass as tattered five year olds plead for money and sweets before the traffic surges on and they scurry back to the kerb to review their successes. The most beautiful dressed women of our journey in peacock coloured saris, immaculate in the dust, carry huge dirty bundles on their heads whilst men look on chewing and spitting. There is a kaleidoscope of stimulation wherever you turn; sizzling pooris are swept from deep pans of oil, delicate fingers construct flowing fireworks of marigolds and roses, dogs run in eager tail-wagging packs between hills of seemingly abandoned bricks and the air is never still from piercing accent of horns. For me Delhi is not a place to love unconditionally but to think about intensively. This is a place that thrives on inequality, with some gulfs widening as ever separate cities and separate lives are built behind guarded boundaries. Alice"
Does their description of the city from a temporary visit resonate with you ? It certainly did for me.
As someone who lived in and loved Delhi throughout her college years, and as someone who now lives far away, a lot of this description resonates. Delhi does make you think intensively about inequality, as does India in general. And this is because wealth and poverty are not segregated there. They live side by side.
ReplyDeleteIs this a good thing or a bad thing? Not easy to answer. It's easy to forget poverty living in the suburbs of America. The Bronx and Harlem are less than fifty miles from where I live and yet my little suburb would have no idea of the lives people lead there. The idea of someone poor daring to enter a suburb would be unthinkable. And no visibly rich person would dare drive his or her Mercedes into parts of Harlem or the Bronx. The last time a poor guy drove around my neighborhood trying to sell frozen fish out of the back of his truck (the equivalent to a foodcart man in India), the neighbors called the cops on him. So, I guess you have to choose - a comfortable life in a pristine suburb with the poor pushed far away, or a messy life in a megapolis where you have to accept everything that you see outside your window. No easy choices for the thinking kind.
Sharmishtha
Whoa Marina ... that ... in a succinct and well written package describes it all PERFECTLY!!!
ReplyDeleteYes, Yes, Yes and more yeses ... lots of resonation here! Am sharing that with my facebook friends ...