D for Delhi, D for Dependence

If there's anyone out there who can help please message. My 19 year old maid has expressed a serious commitment to get educated now. Thus far we've only managed to teach her how to count and the basic hindi alphabet. Even basic math. But I want her to learn and be independent (though like me she too has moved out of home to newer, foreign environment to support the family so she is pretty independent to begin with). The trouble is no one in family can be relied on to do this. We're all traveling even if we lie in Delhi and have unforgiving work hours. She too cannot give up work since she has a family to support. Any suggestions anyone? Know of any schools or organizations that could be of some help? I'd really appreciate it.

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Someone remarked that my nostalgia for the city was more becoming of someone who hadn't been home in 4 years as opposed to 9 months. Perhaps. I think my proximity to the city through the internet makes me miss it more. I can access all the news channels and magazines I read compulsively and stay in on all the socio-political debates of the day. On facebook I can keep track of my friends' lives and live vicariously through them but also be reminded thus of what I am missing out on. From here germinates this abiding nostalgia, replete with maudlin violin music and all. Nothing could butcher it more swiftly than actually visiting the city. Returning to Delhi always reinforces my decision to stay away from it. I am someone who enjoys and militantly seeks out 'her space'. I don't like the city of dependence. Dependant on a car or an auto for even the minutest rides since pedestrian pathways are a matter for policy papers, if at all, and not for the actual million milling pedestrians of the city. Dependant on men to protect oneself from other men, since this city is one that actively resents women. Men to ensure they're out driving with you late at night when you go to party (well that's the idea though I pretty much don't bother with such tripe) or men to just validate your presence in the public domain so that the other men around then don't treat you like open game. Though mostly this notion of men actually offering any safety from other men is a myth. Like using guns to protect oneself from guns.


On the bright side, my friends are still wonderful and it's great to be reunited with them. The Metro is a matter of pride and Old Delhi is accessible again and by extension so is cheap silver jewelry and paranthe-waali gully. But most of all my favourite part of the city is now my most favourite part of the world. CP with its newly constructed central park and the 'pedestrians-only' Inner Circle is setting the right teplate for other parts of the city to develop. In this weather I could spend my entire day just roaming there, exploring all the old quaint shops, spending hours at the ittar store on Janpath, spendinghours at Janpath and Palika actually. Blues. Qba. The good ole days. Tthen lie in the sun, smoke a joint or two, take in the city. Its new gleaming modern building with the old colonial and Mughal relics. CP is the part of the city that defines what the rest of the city should strive to look like (down with cemented Vasant Kunj!), Gurgaon is the nightmarish vision of it come true. I've even commenced yoga, two classes a day of, in two different schools of yoga, to get my figure and flexibility back. I am fatter than I have ever known me to be in life and hopefully my mother's healthy food and taxing my body to the point of delirious exhaustion should work some magic. All's good in the hood for the most part, I relish being here. My only beef with the city is its people and their feudal ethos but did I actually expect it to change in a year when we've been languishing in this cultural and ethical morass for centuries?


Inflation. This city was the city of inflated egos but now the prices of even the smallest most simple things can deflate the loftiest self-images. Rs. 75 for a glass of fresh lime soda (admittedly a drink that 'happens only in India') at Chona's. Not to forget the choochiya who audaciously demanded Rs. 120 for a ride from Green Park to Vasant Kunj. Bhai Saab ab toh main andar baith chukee hoon, aap gaadi chaliye. Mujhe Vasant Kunj jaana hai, Chaand nahin. Aur jaise apnay mann gadanth rakam maangi, main mann gadanth rakam doongi. Choochiya body count for yesterday: 2. Choochiya rides: 2. :D I love picking on choochiyas. Though it's awful that in Delhi the rates for autos are much lower than in Mumbai. The Government needs to sort this out for them. Just because CNG is cheap doesn't mean that autos should be charged at such an abysmally low rate (Rs. 3.50 per km) . It takes an average of Rs. 200-300 for them to take it on hire, add to it their own fuel costs and then the rising cost of living in the city. At least these guys are using a clean fuel, what about the millions of families in Delhi like mine that have a minimum of two gas guzzling cars? Hmmmm so many changes need to be introduced in to this city.

Pedestrian pathways are my campaign number one for selfish reasons. One the more people out on the streets the safer it will be for women as well. Secondly, many places within South Delhi are easily accessible on foot and thus with good public pathways we can reduce our dependence on fuel inefficient transportation and lose weight. Thirdly, it has the potential of being a beautiful city instead of the ugly cemented sprawl it's becoming and public pathways the encourage less traffic and open up more public spaces would the best thing that happened to this city after the Metro.


Money has seeped in to the city like a mossy veneer on the floor of swimming pool floor in ruin. Everyone's driving around in fancy cars, have fancy cell phones, fancy clothes, fancy new restaurants but the public infrastructure of this city continues to crumble. The greatest threat to Indian development now looms in the Rs. 1 Lakh car. In a country where people who can't drive cars have licences we're going to introduce vehicle that could be owned by anyone and everyone. Not only will this unleash a whole new flurry of reckless and ill-trained drivers on the road, it'll also unleash a flurry of more cars in streets that are already overflowing with them. Why oh why oh why is our country so inept at making the obvious investment? Dont' get me wrong, I applaud the spirit from where the idea of this Rs. 1Lakh car came. Families of four traveling on scooters scare me too, so do the cyclists struggling along the fast moving highway near Okhla industrial area but the city's development, the country's development needs to be more inclusive than this. The last achievement of Delhi was the complex of flyovers that eliminated pedestrian pathways altogether(like between AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital, Dilli Haat and INA all areas that attract light vehciles and pedestrian traffic. All areas within short walks of each other). This city isn't run just by the middle class, though all developments seem to cater only to their whims and fancies. Hmm.....

Am off to Old Delhi and yoga class numero duo. Happy times!