Nangla's Delhi

It was quite difficult to explain. No one used to go to this place that Manilal was talking about. Everyone used to pass by it along the Ring Road that lay in front of it. Then four to five families filled up some parts with sand and built their houses there. They covered as much area as they could manage. These were houses without walls, with a tarpaulin sheet as the roof. People who lived there would be out in the city all day, and return here in the evening. They felt lonely here. There would be darkness all around them in the evening. Lights twinkling inside the few houses in the expanse of the swamp would deepen the darkness. No one came near their houses at night while they slept. In the morning, everyone would wake up to the same four or five people around them.

Manilal was one of these people. He knew as much land as he could labour and fill would be his. He was quite clever. He made a lot of land his own by filling it. He had come to the city alone, but now he decided to call his family from the village. His brother-in-law was the first to arrive. They made some plans, filled up and acquired land according to their calculations, and built their house over it. Then both of them called their wives and children.

In this way, some more people came and settled there. Then an environment began to form – residents would go to work in the morning, return in the evening, buy household items from the neighbouring Maharani Bagh, Bhogal, Ashram, cook at home, chat with their children.

This is when Manilal decided to get his daughter Minu admitted in school. She got admission in the first standard. Now Manilal would drop her to school, and pick her up when school ended. When, on the way back from school, he would ask the bus conductor for a ticket to Nangla, the conductors would ask, “For where?” Then Manilal would tell them the same thing he had told the teacher. But slowly, the settlement grew and expanded, and with that, news about it percolated into the city.