‘Delhi is obsessed
with money, it is the only language it understands, and to buy myself out of
its vulgarity and its money-mindedness, I need lots of money’- Anurag, ex-businessman
Frankly, I was somehow too intimidated to pick up any work
of fiction (Solo and Tokyo Cancelled)
by Rana Dasgupta inspite of all the praise and awards. But since I have developed
a penchant for non-fiction and books related to my favorite city -Delhi, I promptly went for to hear him soon after
the formal launch of his first non-fiction work-Capital (published by Fourth Estate, 2014) at one of the leading literary
festival being held in the capital regularly over the last few years. As I was
approaching the auditorium I saw a respected senior journalist working with the
sponsor of the festival coming out of the auditorium and when I told him that I
was going to listen to Rana Dasgupta he sarcastically remarked that –‘woh dilli ki history kya likhengay? Unko to
abhi 10 saal bhi nahin huay dilli mein aaye huay’ (How can he write a
history of Delhi when he has not been here for even 10 years). I just smiled
and when he was out of sight, quickly bought my copy and entered the
auditorium. The panelists were excellent but unfortunately they never come
about to discuss the book. The author himself seemed a bit out of sorts but I
somehow managed to get my copy signed. As I started reading the book, the
senior journalist’s words kept coming back to me. How much time do you need to
spend in a city to grasp its culture, its essence? Can it be quantified? Surely
it will vary from person to person depending upon his experiences and
sensitivity to the surroundings. Fortunately the book in not a history of
Delhi. As it says on the cover that it is ‘A portrait of Twenty-first century
Delhi’. Giving a brief background, it brings us face to face with the current
reality of the capital with all its anxieties and warts. However the first
thing which strikes you about the book is the gorgeous cover (by Aditya Pande).
Surely one of the best I have seen in the last one year. Through a series of
meetings with a variety of people –Businessmen , IT professionals, entrepreneurs,
fashion designers, divorcees, NGO workers, slum dwellers, bureaucrats, drug peddlers
and even a godman, Dasgupta tries to make sense of modern day Delhi and what
drives it? What is the reason behind the hustle and the tendency for
manipulation of rules which have come to define Delhi? The picture which
emerges of the city is not pretty. The worst off are obviously those at the
bottom of the Pyramid –the slum dwellers, most of whom moved to the city
looking for greener pastures and now find themselves stuck between the false promises of
resettlement by successive governments and a past they can’t go back to, having
sold their property in the villages. In Bhalswa colony, a slum which is located
close to the garbage collection pit in the north of the city there is no water
to drink. ’The water in the reservoir is salty. And the groundwater here tastes
of acid because of the chemicals from the trash pile seep deep into the ground.
It is so toxic that even mosquitoes can’t survive in it. It’s pure acid, and it
burns. The kids all have rashes from bathing in it, and the women have terrible
inflammations.’
At the other end of the spectrum are the business men who
have made most of the opening of the Indian economy in 1991 and now reside in
what is popularly called as a ‘farmhouse.’ Nothing is farmed here, of course. They
have come to epitomize the lives of the city’s rich and well-connected, whose
astonishing parties, car collections, sculpture gardens and loping Australian
wildlife would be inconceivable except in the context of such fantastic
estates’. However, as any Dilliwala would know the author soon realizes that it
takes the right connection and networking (‘At times one can feel, it is true, that
this city’s motto is: I network, therefore I am’) to break into the world of
these elites. But once he is in, then everything is open. Soon we realize that
inspite of all the material comforts they have to face their own anxieties
caught as they are between fierce ambitions (Mickey, a businessman, wants to
ship farmers from Punjab to work on African plantations he is planning to buy)
and failing marriages. In between we meet bureaucrats (‘Delhi is being taken
over by contractors who know how to manipulate these systems and bureaucrats
are willing to sell themselves because they come from deprived backgrounds’),
drug dealers ( ‘Nothing works without drugs in Delhi, so so without me there
was no party’),a godman (‘Go away and lead your life. Stop making fun of me’) and
victims of negligence of private hospitals (‘They are money machines. They are
about revenue maximization, pure and simple’).
Even though the author takes a one-dimensional view at times
,having spent a considerable amount of my life in Delhi I can easily say that most
of these things are true and the city keeps you at edge most of the time . However,
my love for the city does not diminish. I guess it has something to do with the
history of Delhi which has left us with beautiful architecture and so many
heritage sites and there is always something new to explore and some dedicated groups (like INTACH ,AKT) have
ensured that at least a majority of these landmark sites are decently
maintained.
Also I recommend that with all the talk regarding cleaning
of Yamunna, whoever is involved in the project should read the last chapter of
the book where the author travels along the bank of the river with Anupam, a
seventy years old resident of Delhi, and they trace the history of the river
from the Mughal times to its present status. It is a tragic tale of how the
city has turned its back on the river ever since the British came and it has
been a downhill journey for the river ever since. It is in our favor that we
restore the river to its lost glory on priority and add to the beauty of the capital.
