The Garbage Plateau and the Corridors of Boom

 December 18, 2007

By the side of Karnal Bypass, the black-bluish plateau of garbage vents out its displeasing fury quite effusively in all directions. It is breathing, as though visible in the form of bluish-black smog hovering around.

How can Delhi escape the tentacled dregs of this massive pile of garbage—a kind of garbage-child clinging to Mother Delhi to suckle the airy breasts of the capital in this mystifying zone of pollution?

Vehicles ply in four directions, the stench giving them a nice cuddly slap on the back a good hundred yards away, down or up the road.

Along the footwalks, supported by cemented side rails, dirt-cheap, earth-level business thrives in the form of chaatwala, chholewala, fruit seller, puncturewala and many others struggling and striving to carve out a foothold on the slippery path of economic survival, their feet staring down the precipitous slope yearningly. And there, in the filthy nullah of starvation, humiliation and death, beggars crawl like hand-and-feetless subhuman creatures.

In blind contrast to this gutter-level misery, there is the emotional, economic and cultural heart of Delhi—Connaught Place.

Those massive, wide rows of colonnades harbour the corridors of luxury, business and enterprise. Cultured, educated, modern Indians and some cocktaily interjection of fair- and black-skinned foreigners tap the cemented floors, the conveyor belts of business and boom.

Many an Indian now rides the belt of boom.

Offices are plush here, with calm, tranquil air, which takes you, at least for some time, away from the cluttering miseries eating into the limbs and organs of Delhi.

Here, fragrance is good.

The light shining from the glossed and glassed eyes of high economics makes everything refulgent with hopes, removes the underside darkish odor. The blinds on the windows don't allow the sun of realities to have a sneak peek at this marvellous sun of human desires and strivings.

Parking lots are crammed with all varieties of cars. Here you are charged hourly, and it takes a marvellous effort of ingenuity by the staff boys to get your car out on the road from among the packed chessboard.

Connaught Place avenues are almost always, save some couple of hours late in the night, full to the gills with cars and autos.

Beneath the colonnades, the luxurious shopfronts show you the resurgent face of India. Even a paanwala with his tiny table appears a man of consequence. Even a chhole-bhaturewala makes bucks reaching to a thousand during the day.

In the tiny glassed cubicles, the money exchanger greets the foreigners, now not with a cringing smile, rather with the pride of equality.

Perhaps the days of colonial hangover are gone. Perhaps we no longer feel inferior at the mere sight of a white-skinned foreigner.

Here, ticket-booking offices have endless streams of gentlemen and ladies to keep the smiles on the dummies and staff ready forever.