Is Delhi Shrinking? by Azra
“Yes. But how did you get to know?”
The man touched and re-fixed the cloth wrapped around his head, smiled and said, “I have a dream that I will go to Delhi one day.”
Sumi realised she had encountered her city afresh, and with an intimacy. She asked, “Where are you from?”
Pushing the swing, his lungs strained from the effort, he said, “I too am from Delhi.”
“Then why don't you come to Delhi?” Sumi said, looking at her child, who was holding the swing in fear of falling off.
“Mumbai is not like Delhi,” he said. “Mumbai calls you, but doesn't let you leave. I had come here to work. I had thought it's a city of films, money will shower everywhere. But that's not how it is. A world is as difficult to live in as it looks beautiful from far. I married here. I have a wife, kids. Now it is difficult to leave. But only one who has a lot of money can leave Mumbai. Delhi is a city of people with hearts. Anyone can come to Delhi, and dream dreams of a home, a place of ones own...”
These lines appeared and reappeared in Sumi's mind. She thought, “When those spaces which invite and give place to people from outside won't remain in Delhi, then how will Delhi be called a city of people with hearts?”
Sandhya bhabhi's sister-in-law Shobha lived in Nangla Maanchi, near Pragati Maidan. But now she had come here with her family, to LNJP, with to live with Sandhya bhabhi. Shobha had been married into Nangla. Her daughter was now fifteen years old. When Shobha sat sobbing, remembering the days she had spent at Nangla, Sandhya bhabhi had consoled her, “Don't be anxious, Shobha. You have all the documents for the house in Nangla. The government will give you a place to live. You will be able to remake your universe.”
Shobha's voice was heavy as she said, “No bhabhi, documents are of no use any more. They won't do anything. I have documents and receipts of every single thing – big and small – that I have bought in that house. I had kept them carefully, knowing I would need them one day. But they are all useless now.”
Sandhya bhabhi had come to Sumi's house and was recounting this conversation. Sumi was finding it difficult to believe this. She removed her child from her breast, and fixing her clothes, opened the cupboard in which she stores food. She pulled out a packet with old and new documents and started showing them to Sandhya bhabhi. “Look, I have a passbook from 1981. I used to deposit one rupee every month on my son's name. A man used to come here every month and take the money. I had done this only five to six months when he disappeared. I didn't get any money, but didn't mind that – after all, I have a proof I was here at that time. And look at this aluminum token...” She drew out such things one after the other and showed them, like she was sharing the fragrance of an old rose that she had dried and saved, with Sandhya bhabhi.
Sandhya bhabhi said, “I too have all this. But they are no good any more. They are useless.”
“No bhabhi! How can that be? What will we do?”
“That is something I don't know. I can't understand. This place will also go sometime or the other. What will happen to those who have nothing except a hope that lingers on these documents? But everyone is forgetting that it doesn't take long for a space to get made with a new name, wherever people go.”
Sandhya bhabhi joined Sumi with her, with this description of how things will be, and left. But Sumi was left alone, and thought to herself, “When this place was not for humans, why did they give us rations, oil, sugar, rice? If we are not inhabitants of this city, why do they take votes on our names? Why did they allow us time to make relationships? Salma baji was not here when the settlement was starting, but came later. Where will she go? Have I lived this long in my own house like a guest?” Then she spoke out loud, “We had bought this place”. She picked up each document as if it were a fragile flower, and like a human is wrapped in his burial shroud, she wrapped them in a cloth, and replaced them in the cupboard, carefully, as if they didn't belong to her but she was only their custodian.
In her heart, she kept thinking, “Is Delhi shrinking, instead of being constructed?”