The Rich Princes of Poor Ghettos

 

The laundry man, the fruit seller, the shoe mender, the juice maker, a pan and cigarette stall, a subzi puri booth, a chhole kulche cart, the roadside barber, the coconut seller, the key maker, a sugarcane juice crusher, queues of autos, more juice makers, rickshaw pullers, tea stalls, tiny carts laden with mouth-watering spicy samosas and the changing faces of the people as they pass through this dense urban spot.

The list of its constituents is almost endless and makes it an intense spot of struggle and survival. Life here is static as well as in a flux: static in terms of the very same old struggle, weariness and challenges to make the ends meet by these little protagonists of this tiny stage; in a flux also as the squeezing urban behemoth continuously pushes in and pushes out scores of people through this small spot. Life is slow as well as fast simultaneously. And so are the undercurrents of pleasure and pain. There is a smoky tension in the air. Everyone is on taut nerves. A massive heaving of effort is going on to somehow survive in the urban jungle.

It’s a journey where hundreds of steps count to just one of those in the bigger world. You huff and puff for miles after miles, while in reality you are still at the same spot of your misery. Happiness, the dream puller, is forever cajoling millions after millions. It’s very easy to get seduced by the thoughts and notions of happiness. Sadly, we usually ditch whatever little we possess in the present to avail happiness in future.

These institutions are built upon the pavement with gunny sacks, wooden planks, plywood, plastic and iron sheets. The rickshaws, carts and bicycles constitute the battle gear of this fighting band. They have their own poorly contrived, self-made signboards. Tired labourers, who are the small soldiers of a big battle, sit on rickety stools, chairs and benches and eat the cheap servings to continue fighting for another day.

Two pensioners talking about pension hike. Targets and goals rarely meet an end. It’s always about more money. Your own journey may be ending, but it crosses over to the next generation. You have to grab more of this world to hand over the baton to your progeny. Even though you come across hundred reasons when the ones for whom you are holding out the battle front, even in the old age, make you feel redundant and obsolete. You have but already ceded your life to them. ‘You’ means ‘they’. They may not understand it. However it doesn’t matter. You simply cannot hate them enough to stop worrying about them. Just like they cannot love you enough to help you take less painful steps on your rickety joints.

A rickshaw puller comes, mops his face with the corner of his head-cloth and gets busy in finishing his cheap lunch. He eats heartily. Hunger drives you like the best teacher. It guides you and misguides you at the same time. Poverty makes you devour your frugal pieces with a peculiar nonchalance. You chew more of your worries, hardly giving attention to what exactly you have on your plate.

The spring sun is getting scorching with each passing day. Its swiftly lays its hot fingers to absorb the leftover coolness the air still has. It devours it hungrily. Of course you wish less of the sun now at the beginning of summers, like you pray for more of it during winters.

The bigger world is just at an arms’ length but it’s miles long in distance if you measure the gap between the best dream of the people of this little stage and the normal day realities of anyone in the bigger world. There is impressive Wave City Centre Metro station, part of the world class metro rail system. Then you have an elegantly imposing tower, an ultra-modern shopping mall. Then you have a noteworthy underpass nearby. There are more impressive cars on the clogged road than any other vehicle.

Irrespective of what time of the day it is, you have a heavy throng of people. Young, middle aged, old, students, beggars, rich, poor, fat, thin, crippled, semi-crippled—a tightly squeezed bale of humanity. Their individual identities seem to be melting into a faceless commonness. The crowd colours everything with a swiping monotony. Poverty cuts your life’s meaning to keep it centred around a few bucks earned at whatever cost it requires. When you are pinned against the wall and just fight for a day, you automatically sharpen those instincts to prey upon any possibility or opportunity. The codes, principles and values constituting the great edifice of goodness get clobbered down, lose their value and go down the huge sewage drain whose foul odour fills the lungs with a marvellous continuity. After some time one finds it normal to inhale the obnoxious cocktail of motor exhaust, dust and sewage smell topped by the terribly sweating, smelly human bodies.

You have Audis and BMWs zooming past. On a garbage dump, almost in the middle of the stage, the cows and pigs that usually forage snout-to-muzzle and muzzle-to-snout are suddenly pushed out. There are intruders. A big herd of sheep, jutted against each other to make it one hungry jelly monster, is devouring the shitty leftovers. This is ultra-modern junk—cups, disposable plates, glasses, stale food, fruit peelings, plastic, plastic and more plastic. The Rajasthani sheep herder, roaming around hundreds of miles for the last blades of rapidly vanishing grass, stands pensively with his chin supported on the herding stick. He has his signature tight-fitting kurti, languorous dhoti and a huge shiny red headgear. He stands with the typical nomadic elegance from his part of India. He can have an eye feast. At a short distance, impressive towers having luxurious apartments shine under the bright sun. Many more are in the making. He is lost in their heights with a misty look in his eyes.

Inside the swanky super-mall, a stone’s throw away, it’s a completely different world. It’s not defined by hunger. It’s a replica of the dream after which the poor mass thronging the gates outside is running after. It smells of super elegance and style statement. You inhale a very condensed cocktail of luxury, perfume, spicy food, fine-soled footsteps, clothing, cosmetics, grocery and even Crossword bookstore. It has a heady aroma. A feeling of super-luxury seeps into your nerves. Utter want and hunger is just yards away outside. Many people feel hugely helped by just being a part of this luxurious dream for some time.

Grass is always greener on the other side. Thousands throng the muck to pick out morsels of survival. It’s a fight for more and more in the littlest of space. People leave the open countryside, getting bored with the smallness and feeling lost in the easy spaciousness, and run to get squeezed in the cage to feel a part of a bigger world.