Some Sayings, Old and New, by Jaanu Nagar
What makes someone silent, and when? It's so hard to understand this. Sometimes people are fearful of teams of government officials, and at other times it is the officials who get frightened by the thought of what people might do. What makes government officials fearful?
A team of government officials toured Ghevra and conducted a survey, after which they told all those people who were in the colony at that time that they would come again the next day, and that everyone should have begun construction of their brick houses by then. They warned everyone that those who would not have begun construction by the next day would be evicted from their plots.
The people in Ghevra who had come from Nangla had already tasted the bitterness of a survey that had been conducted before the demolition of their settlement. They had seen their neighbours being duped out of a chance of resettlement in Ghevra because they were not at home at the time of the survey, because of which their houses were marked NDS (No Documents Shown) and LOCK (house found locked).
There is a saying that, once someone's mouth has been scalded by boiling milk, that person is cautious even when sipping buttermilk.
When people who had come to Ghevra from Nangla heard the government officials say that some of them could be evicted from their plots on the basis of the survey that had been conducted that day, they got together and refused to let the team of surveyors leave. They said, "Your work of surveying our homes is done in the day time. We also work, and our work makes us travel out of our settlements during the day. Had you let us know you were going to come today, everyone would have taken leave from work and been present in Ghevra for the survey." They made sure the team of government officials stayed on in Ghevra till the end of the day, till everyone returned home from work. That day, the team of government officials was left with no choice and the survey was conducted again, this time at night.
23 August 2007
The people in Ghevra who had come from Nangla had already tasted the bitterness of a survey that had been conducted before the demolition of their settlement. They had seen their neighbours being duped out of a chance of resettlement in Ghevra because they were not at home at the time of the survey, because of which their houses were marked NDS (No Documents Shown) and LOCK (house found locked).
There is a saying that, once someone's mouth has been scalded by boiling milk, that person is cautious even when sipping buttermilk.
When people who had come to Ghevra from Nangla heard the government officials say that some of them could be evicted from their plots on the basis of the survey that had been conducted that day, they got together and refused to let the team of surveyors leave. They said, "Your work of surveying our homes is done in the day time. We also work, and our work makes us travel out of our settlements during the day. Had you let us know you were going to come today, everyone would have taken leave from work and been present in Ghevra for the survey." They made sure the team of government officials stayed on in Ghevra till the end of the day, till everyone returned home from work. That day, the team of government officials was left with no choice and the survey was conducted again, this time at night.
23 August 2007
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