Nangla's Delhi

The State was issuing receipts for land in exchange for the life in Nangla. Today's date will jar in the timeline of the school, which became a site for this historical moment. Hands clutched the gates of the only school in the locality. People stood in lines with their ration cards, tokens of identity they have received from the state. Identities they have been frozen in, identities which they don't desire, identities which they fight, tussle with, and struggle for. Identities that everyone carried today, pressed against their bodies. For those who witnessed this scene, familiar frames of looking will pinch in their inadequacy. Men and women sat, heads covered for protection from the sun, eyes shifting with restlessness, faces contorting with a non-extinguishable hunger. Shadows flickered in the intense heat that surrounded them. Voices, sounds ricocheted; they had no destination. After living in their past for so many days, a route out had opened itself for hundreds in Nangla. Getting a house. Getting an opportunity to be able to build again a neighbourhood, a web of social relations to reside in. Wasn't it to reach this destination that so much had been put on stake these last few days?