[Reader-list] after yesterday in Delhi

Priya Sen senpriya at gmail.com
Sun Sep 14 15:18:22 IST 2008


Dear All,

India Gate, September 13th, 6:20 or so in the evening. I had decided to walk
from Triveni Academy towards Khan Market, determined to buy a bicycle and
thinking, it's getting dark and maybe I should wait until Monday and I
shouldn't tell my mother about my biking plans and even though I plan to
ride early mornings I need to ride it back home now and so on and so forth.
India Gate was as India Gate is on a weekend evening. Walking through it
made me think of other times I had been there, a few specific memories and a
general sense of being in Delhi - of familiarity and ease from having been
here for as long as I have, and of curiousity, the kind that comes from
knowing that places are never the same - making mental notes for no one
really about the Kwality Walls ice cream cart that had a board saying 'Old
Vendor, India Gate since 1956', and the astrologer who sits in the same
place always, and people with video cameras filming the gate who always make
me wonder at what they think  when they play it back later. It took 15
minutes to cross over to Shah Jahan Road. Me, a couple of young men, and a
papad seller who the policeman who was also waiting for the lights to
change, generally swore at, and I laughed at how swearing is so integral to
ones day in Delhi.


Later I heard there were a couple of bombs that were defused, one at Regal
Cinema and one at India Gate. I realized how many stories there are now. Of
yesterday. Of where we were when.. . Of places we know so well. Of our lives
up until the moment life changed for so many people in our city. Of the
things that make our days what they are and will continue to. Everyone will
have a story because everyone needs to claim something from moments like
these. And everyone (in this city) must because this moment was about Delhi.
It's happened before. Here, in other places, it will happen again and again
and these will be 'the times according to people who live in these times'.
And all we can really do is to embrace our lives a little harder.


The last time I mourned for this city, a little like this, is when I watched
Nanglamachi being demolished and people gathering their lives into bundles
and tempos and going wherever. The ruthlessness was overwhelming. Not to
make analogies here. Although nothing wrong with analogies and other things
that make us feel what we feel. No rules for that! Think, feel whatever -
it's all part of the way we make sense of things on day 2. It was like
watching the news right after the blasts happened, when the reporters were
as bewildered as everyone else. Somehow in their floundering the news
channels were credible for a moment. Before the information started coming
in and before they started interpreting it, that is. We know what they do
and do well. Nothing is surprising, just a bit defeating and then you think
why. Maybe we're defeated by the way we think, are told to think, don't
think. Maybe sometimes it has nothing to do with how we live.


Delhi feels quiet today, but that's also from where I am. Also it's Sunday.
It will probably not seem very different when I go out later in the
afternoon. But my sister called me this morning and was in tears and saying
she couldn't sleep because of all this and is feeling restless because lakhs
of people are going to be out on the streets today for Ganapati visarjan in
Bombay. For her it's about Bombay as well, the place where she has her life.
When public places become vulnerable it means having to make decisions about
things one doesn't necessarily think about. It's about everything outside of
us that is essential to how we construct our lives. It's about everyday
decisions, small things, immediate concerns. About being able to imagine,
and dream and lose ourselves in places. For a few days we will be
excruciatingly aware of how we move around the city. There will be remorse
and anxiety and conversation. We will share a common grief, in degrees, and
it will bring us together more intensely. We will count and blame and
speculate. And then we will thankfully, move on.


Right now though, I would rather not. Not for today. I just want to be with
what this city means to me. Aside from its symbols, its creation of itself,
its skewed power dynamics and unbearable inequalities. A friend and I are
convinced that "Delhi steps in when we really need something to.". Like the
wisdom of places. Not to get melodramatic! I'm glad I was here when this
happened and not somewhere else.


Regards,


Priya

-- 
Priya Sen
Sarai-CSDS
29, Rajpur Road, Civil Lines
Delhi - 110054
priya at sarai.net


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