On one of those tiring internship days in Delhi, I stumbled upon an interestingly titled book written by Ravish Kumar “Ishq Mein Shahar Hona” amongst the numerous books laden on one of the typical bicycle book vendors right opposite to Triveni Kala Sangam at Tansen Marg. Ishq Mein Shahar Hona is a compilation of micro-fiction stories, each story being only a few sentences long. A loose translation of Ishq Mein Shahar Hona is ‘a city in love’. This is obviously my own inference, but the point should nevertheless be made: The phrase conveys a message completely different from “Shahar mein ishq hona”, which would be ‘love in a city’. The book is not about how the experiences of love in rural setting are different from experiences of love in urban setting. Instead, it is about how one’s being in love can affect his urban experiences. The book is about the blending of experiences of love and experiences of becoming and being ‘urban’. While on one hand, it gives us a different picture of Delhi, on the other hand, it also creates its own niche in the ways we read and write about the themes of ‘love’ and ‘urban’.

The most enthusing part of the book is its introduction titled “shahar ka kitaab banna”, which can be vaguely translated to mean, ‘a city turning into a book’. The introduction narrates Ravish’s personal experiences of ‘becoming urban’, for one who migrates from a typical rural environment. Beautifully described by him, the journey of becoming ‘urban’ begins with a distinction between ‘temporary address’ and ‘permanent address’ which hovers over the newly urbanising people, constantly reminding them of the insecurity of still not having procured permanent address. He describes the process of transforming from a quintessential ‘rural’ to ‘becoming urban’ as one where clear lines between ‘permanent’ and ‘temporary’ first become fuzzy and subsequently, the feeling that the city after all is just a temporary address vanishes away. The process where city transforms from a ‘temporary’ address to a ‘permanent’ address is, according to him, what essentially characterises the process of becoming urban.

Delhi is read and written about from different lenses: political corridors, historical monuments, famous moments etc. While Delhi is burdened with the heavyweight of historicity and politics in our readings, in its daily existence, it also shares some light moments with lovers who are historically and politically irrelevant. Ishq mein shahar hona brings out this aspect of Delhi very beautifully, entombed in the shared experiences of the many individuals who constitute its public spaces.

The book covers multiplicity of urban experiences from the occasional middle class protests, the daily travel insecurities to religious and caste tensions. While in some stories, ‘urban’ is shown as anonymous, and thus facilitating closeness between two people, in other stories, ‘urban’ is shown as a constantly surveilling state force. In some stories, the lovers are compared to different parts of the city, while others showcase the lovers’ longing for lonely surroundings. The book brings out the dual forces of public anonymity, yet more intimate personal space that a city may breed between two people.

The narrative doesn’t separate the quintessential urban experiences from the experiences of love. Ishq mein shahar hona does not hide the necessary ingredients of Delhi like politics and history. The love stories are not apolitical or isolated in vacuum. In fact, at times, there are strong political commentaries through these stories. The idea that it is difficult to escape from ‘being political’ in Delhi is beautifully portrayed by Ravish. In one of the stories, where two lovers are participating in a political protest, one lover asks the other – “Are we in love or in politics?” To this, the other replies – “How does it matter, if we are in love or in politics? We are in Delhi.” In another story, where one lover mentions that he sees Anna and Gandhi in his dreams, the other replies – “tum bahut political ho gaye ho”(you have become very political).

Ravish also locates the daily urban problems in the context of experiences of love. In one story, the lovers lament that they meet less often now, due to rise in petrol prices. In another story, they are struggling with the status connotations that are attached with different areas of Delhi. Another very prominent theme is the urban obsession with English and its role in status connotations. In one story where a woman uses English to show off her status in a fish shop, Ravish has a very elegant way to express his concern with this obsession -“English is not supposed to be the weapon for every status battle.”

It shows us how even urban love is not really disconnected with what we may ordinarily understand to be stereotypically rural experiences. While urban may be representative of progressive society, the specter of caste and religious divides often haunt the urban experiences. However, the book showcases the sentiment that this doesn’t hold back the young urban from falling in love and imagining a future, which can chart the course that the Constitutional idea of India is supposed to provide for. While the social change that the Constitutional ideals may bring, these lovers place their trust in the Constitution for the limited purpose of struggling through the oppressive social customs for getting united. Portraying this very idea, I conclude this post with my favourite story from this book titled “Khaap kahin aaspaas” (Khaap is somewhere nearby): Two lovers are sitting with each other under the statue of Ambedkar. She asks him, “Why does this man in blue coat always stand there with a book (The Constitution of India)?” After thinking for a while about Ambedkar’s dream of casteless society and the Constitutional ideals, he replies, “I assure you, this book will one day unite us”.

]]> http://www.criticaltwenties.in/reflections-2/of-love-and-urban-experiences-ravish-kumars-ishq-mein-shahar-hona/feed 0 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/economicsocialpolicy/burgeoning-delhi-rapes-some-reflections http://www.criticaltwenties.in/economicsocialpolicy/burgeoning-delhi-rapes-some-reflections#comments Fri, 10 May 2013 07:08:45 +0000 Arghya http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=5397 [Guest Post by Latika Vashist and Amit Bindal]

 I.                

The reason for writing this piece is the feeling of utter failure to comprehend the cultures of rape that engulf us. Even as the horrors of December 2012 Delhi gang rape continue to haunt public consciousness, the incident of the brutal rape of a five year old child has put our sense and sensibilities to an extraordinary challenge. How to evoke sensibilities and make sense of the images, narratives and news of the horrific rapes hurled on to us by newspapers, visual media and other allied sources, including judicial discourses, political statements and state interventions? How do we diagnose the foundations of our society that becomes instrumental in the production of such depravity and inhumanity that even a child is not spared from the acts of such horrific atrocity? So much so that the sadistic infliction of inexorable pain, with candles and plastic bottles inserted into the private parts, can become a form of decadent human expression?

Another facet of the sense of failure is the question to our own self? Do we write this paper today with such unease because of the gruesomeness of the incident or because the news is taken seriously and appeared on the first page of leading daily newspapers? We ask this as the atrocious rape encounters are spilled, though in smaller fonts, all over in the print as well as visual media after December 2012. Why did we need yet another horrific story to evoke a similar sense of failure of contemplation or the urge to write? Is it the post traumatic incident of institutional insensitivity and indifference, as the police not just attempted to hush up the matter (by offering the parents Rs. 2000) but also violently attacked a woman protesting against the police callousness? It seems that the sense of failure to think about the problem of rape, and for us, as legal academics, from a limited canon of law, prompts us to ask the reverse question framed in Nietzschen terms: how not to think about rape and cultures of rape.

The one thing that we certainly do not want to do in this discussion is to make specific policy recommendations as to how to interpret or change the law relating to rape. Perhaps, a trap too easy and too tempting to fall into especially for those trained in the discipline of law. This consequentialist, policy-oriented turn of the present legal scholarship can at times hamper the proper structural issues of decoding the culture of rape. We are certainly not opposed to policy recommendations in principle. As teachers of law we have had occasions in classrooms as well as in doctrinal scholarship to take that route. However, we need to question the frantic activity of policy recommendations and churning out changes in laws that blinds us to the sensibility that must inform us in the very framing of issues relating to rape, which reduces humanity to mere objects of consumption to be used and then thrown away.

  II.              

 “Two sex maniacs libidinously ravaged a tiny female tot like wild beasts and finished her off. Police after investigation found that the two respondents herein are those two fiends.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 – State of NCT v. Sunil

“The remnants of extensive mangling of the tender body of the child would reflect the possibility of more than one rapist subjecting the child to such beastly ravishment.”

                                                                                                      State of NCT v. Sunil

 “Accused Saleem who offered custard apple to the little girl when they reached the graveyard suddenly turned himself into a demon and made a forcible attempt to ravish her.”

                                                                                                            State of A.P. v. Sheikh Mazhar

“It seems that Manoj Kumar’s father had an inkling of the demon in his son.”

HT, Rapist’s father had disowned him from his property (20th April, 2013)

The discourse of rape emanating from cultures of rape remains entrenched in the dehumanization of the rapist. The TV images show the accused handcuffed, surrounded by cops with cameras desperate to catch a glimpse of what lies beneath the face covered accused. These projections stimulate the imagery of devils/ beasts concealed behind the mask. When the mask comes off- as it did for Ajmal Kasab, another “demon”- the responses are of astonishment at the visible humanness of the demon. The same flesh, same skin and an innocent young human face! Clearly that is not what demons look like. This is not what such “demons” should look like.  And thus starts the project of dehumanization of these visible humans.

The rapist (as a terrorist) is described and projected as a “wild beast”, “a demon”, “a fiend”. Such a description puts the rapist in a class of heinous monsters, a class far removed from the ordinary human beings. This is one way of telling ourselves (the civilized and responsible moral agents) that the doers of such grotesque crimes are not in any manner like ourselves, they are too distant from us. The distancing (through which we constitute our own humanity) can only happen if the representations and descriptions of the rapist are directed to evoke the emotion of disgust in the viewers/ readers. Since, as encapsulated by Martha Nussbaum, “(o)ur disgust creates the boundary: it says, this contamination is and must remain far from our bodies. We might even say…that we call disgust to our aid: by allowing ourselves to see evil people as disgusting, we conveniently distance them from ourselves” (Susan A. Bandies (ed.), The Passions of Law at p. 51).

Evoking disgust for the rapist by dehumanizing him produces an alienation of our human selves from him. It creates a distance between our humanity and his fiendishness and thus prevents us from engaging in a self-scrutiny, of recognizing in ourselves the capacity to be evil. The distancing prevents us from confronting the fact that we are capable of turning into the diabolic evil that we abhor. And thus, induces a forgetfulness of the everyday atrocities that we may be committing (covertly) when we indulge (unconsciously) in our own perversions. Disgust induced distancing from the rapist obliterates all discussions around the normalization of everyday violence of everyday lives that goes unnoticed because we fail to look within as we situate ourselves within an imagined humanity which the rapist lacks. Otherwise, how do we begin to understand the normalization of the apparatuses and structures which legitimize violence against women in the society? When the sexist representations of women- when they are cast into strict gender roles defined by dominant heteronormative structures- go unquestioned by most of us even if such representations constitute the everyday violence (not necessarily physical) of work places, public transport, markets and even the safe bounds of our homes. What can be made of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013 that completely ignored the recommendation of the Verma Committee Report exhorting for criminalization of marital rape? Is it not true that law reforms have failed to question the asymmetrical character of marriage reinforcing an object-like treatment of women and thus continue to legitimize violent structures in the private lives of women? How far then can the attempts at reforms and amendments of laws be taken seriously?

The rape discourse as a discourse of dehumanization of the rapist deepens the cultures of rape that produce emotions that oscillate between un-mindful retributive cries of anger to sheer apathy and indifference. The responses to violence against women in these cultures also swing between rhetorical law reforms that institutionalize retributive anger through aggravated punishments and death penalties, and an attitude of forgetfulness as we change the channel from NDTV news to NDTV Good Times, or for that matter shift our glance from the news of rape at the front page top column to the advertisements that promise us dream lives that we can buy with nothing but money. This point needs further explanation.

 III.            

Slavoj Zizek argues that the imaginary virtual reality, floating around through images of print and visual media, constitutes the reality of the contemporary society. It works so strongly and incessantly that the meanings of virtual reality surface as the reality of the virtual. And if that is so, then how does the reality of the virtual propagate the cultures of rape that we encounter?

Consider some images from the front page of a leading newspaper which reported the rape of 5 year old “Masoom”:

The five year old lies covered in a sheet as she is taken to AIIMS from Swami Dayanand Hospital where she underwent life-saving surgery. Three dolls on the stretcher accompany her as some helpers clear way for the stretcher. A box below lists the brutal horrific injuries that were inflicted on her: bite marks on cheeks, lips and chest, cuts on neck probably from blade like object, 200ml cracked plastic bottle of hair oil and three candles that were taken out of her vagina.

A passport size image of ACP BS Ahlawat slapping Beenu Singh who was protesting against police apathy and laxity.

A half page advertisement of workwear showing a happy couple, dressed in western attire, walking along exuding confidence and in complete equality. Skyscrapers and the modern city life set the background for this joyous and equal public space when men and women are equally successful, rich and safe. Provided they “Go Trendy. Strike Deal. Refresh. Get New Yorked”.

A real estate advertisement of a five bedroom luxury villa. It says: Opulence, Rs. 10.03 Cr. Onwards.

There are some issues that need to be examined here. Whether there exists a relationship, worthy of exploration, between the cultures of rape that thrust upon us an unwanted reality and the cultures of consumerism that we want to be immersed into in order to live our dreams? If yes, then how can that relationship be conceived? What does it say of our vision of progress? When images of reality and images of unreality confront each other what impact does it have on real lives? What is the relationship between the dominant images/ narratives of rape/ rapist with the other virtual images that we confront every day in our lives? What happens, as John Berger puts it, when images of reality confront the images of unreality? How can words that express anguish and agony of the feeble cries of a 5 year old victim be understood when they are juxtaposed with words and images that promise us lives of happiness and equality as we progress, as we prosper?

Juxtaposition of publicity images of products of globalization and their consumers (take for example, the images of workwear wardrobe bringing in happiness and equality in sexes at the workplace; mobile phones and cheap call rates bringing radiance into relationships; clean RO water assuring security from all fatal disease and so on) with the images of horror and agony stimulates a similar distancing as mentioned above. What happens in the images of unreality- the happiness, the dreams, the pleasures- is something that we think would happen to us (provided we gather enough money to acquire these possessions); while what happens in the images of everyday reality- rape, harassment, state apathy, perversions- is something that is far from us and cannot happen to us. Just as the rape discourse distances us from our own perversions (by producing a false distance between our humanity and rapist’s monstrousness), the culture of consumerism distances us from the reality that demands serious deliberation and well thought out political and social action. The publicity images that astound us create for us alternate lives where living in dreams and for dreams becomes our only life.

All the images mentioned above look real (virtual imaginary reality reflected in images cannot be convincing if they do not look as real, if not more, than the real images). But there is clearly a disconnect and an incoherence between the rape/ molestation image and the image of equality in workplace/ public sphere which figures prominently on the same page of the newspaper. While reality decries the position of women in society- as means to an end, as tools that can be used for one’s own interests, as bodies that can be violated because they lack bodily integrity- the virtual images make the reality of the former unrecognizable. The urgency of deliberative action to correct the injustices that surround us (that is evoked by Masoom’s tiny body covered in a white sheet), is diluted as we see our dreams depicted in advertisements that exhort us to consume more if we are to become more equal and more happy. Images of dreams are the required distraction for the sustenance and flourishing of the culture of consumerism that reduces everything to an object of consumption. While on the one hand they yield an ineffective response to violence (Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013 has been nothing but a knee-jerk reaction, presented as a quick fix solution to rape which has failed to foreground the larger issue of the relationship between sexism that is a part of everyday lives and rape), on the other hand, they cement the attitudes that look at women as objects to be used and consumed like other objects on sale.

What is then required is an urgent emphasis on the cultural patterns of objectification of women especially the ‘culture industry’ which thrives to reduce everything into a consumable commodity. This includes women as well as men. In doing so we inadvertently create paradigms where women and men are not organic individuals who think, love, have dignity and suffer alike but as body-parts to be displayed for market campaigns. Such crass market logic reduces human bodies as the only attribute of being human and that attribute being best used as a consumable commodity. This by no means suggests that one should take a fascist turn against the market forces but certainly makes one re-think the way we are socialized into behaviors and patterns that reduce human beings into human bodies and human bodies into marketable and consumable commodities.

The relationship between cultures of consumption and cultures of rape (that thrive on objectification of women) is direct. The culture of consumption is founded on the ideas of use (of products) and domination (one who has money has the power gets to consume more). The attitude this breeds is that all things are meant for usage and they can be acquired and controlled with money. Then, is it appropriate to ask: Whether Delhi has become the rape capital because it is one of the global cities basking in the glory of consumerism, where status of a person is determined by his/her wealth and ability to acquire and consume? Is it the attitude of consumerism (which also trickles down to those who cannot consume right now because of lack of money, but nevertheless have the desire to consume because consumption defines happiness) that has conceptualized all our relationships and our entire world view? Have women become the targets of this attitude when they are looked at, gazed and used as nothing but interchangeable bodies or as means to an end, rather than ends in themselves? The objectification of women is then not about sexual perversion only; it is about a culture that values money as the only end and turns everything else into an object for consumption.

(The authors are Assistant Professors at Jindal Global Law School of O.P. Jindal Global University)

[The cover photograph is in the public domain and is sourced from the US National Archives and Records Administration]

Once, a bunch of young boys aged 5-7 were playing in their backyard when a young pup appeared. At first the boys were fascinated with it. They played with it, fed it and even cuddled it. Soon some older boys who the kids idolised came along and taunted the kids for being too soft and effeminate to be playing with a cute little pup. The boys with a confused and distorted view of fun and manliness began to treat the pup differently. They tied its hind legs together, through stones at it, dragged it behind their cycles and in the end sodomised it with a stick. When they got bored of it they dumped it on the streets for rats and vultures to feed on.

The boys turned older and became feral hyenas but the pup was replaced with a woman in a big white bus on Delhi’s glittering boulevards. What happened then was an atrocity that is a shameful indictment of your country, its culture and its times. That a country which has become numb to daily reports of gang rapes was forced to sit up, feel violated and outraged is testimony to how gruesome and brutal this particular incident was. The problem with our country is that either the young boys never grew up or continued to remain confused about their masculinity and how to express it.

It is tempting to blame the police and the establishment for what happened. But we would be barking up the wrong tree. Rape is not merely a function  of number of cops on the ground and number of rapists out there. Unfortunately, rape is not a bivariable equation capable of being regressed statistically to determine the number of cops you need to prevent rape. It is a multi-variable problem with indeterminate variables incapable of an overnight solution.

The problem our society faces is how to bring up our sons and mould their perception of themselves and women. We truly live in turbulent times. Old barriers of class and caste are being chipped away. Mass migration is happening from poorer parts of the country to the metros. The joint family with its traditional mores and notions of security (and oppression) is breaking down. Economic liberalization has causes mobility along caste, class and gender matrices. But the most important change I believe has been improvement in economic condition of women. Sure, women are still massively marginalized in the work place – both in the organized and unorganized sector. But never before in the short history of India have so many young women entered the urban work force as in the past 2 decades. With economic power comes liberty and the power to lead their lives with independence and dignity and their own terms. They work in BPOs, shopping malls, housekeeping, hotels and restaurants, in the government, banks and law firms. Essentially everywhere. There are more ‘visible’ now.

This visibility confuses the indian male. I can speak for the bad lands of the Delhi, Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad and Gurgaon – also called the NCR. Migrants from the hinterland are used to women not playing an important part in the house let alone in public spaces. As they work as bus conductors, taxi drivers and in other blue collar jobs they see themselves servicing young independent women whereas back in the outback they have never seen their mothers and sisters go out alone or talk to strangers. Suddenly they are not getting the respect they got merely for being men. They are professionals at an arms length relationship with  men and women who owe them nothing except for the bus fare. Back home, women were to be protected and shielded from outsiders, where in the big city women can go wherever they want whenever they want with just a cell phone and possibly a pepper spray at their bodyguards. It is unacceptable. How dare she ! Isnt she supposed to be at home and cook for the kids ? and she is out after dark watching movies, drinking and going to night clubs ! She should be taught a lesson ! And there you go…

But to blame migrants for rape is falling prey to xenophobic Thackerayism, especially in a place like Delhi where practically everyone is a migrant. Reports claim that majority of rapes happen within the home by people who are known to the victim. Games of power and subjugation begin at home and mostly go unreported. Marital rape is not even considered rape. Victims from all classes of society keep mum about incidents of sexual exploitation at home fearing loss of family honour. Even with a libertarian constitution which grants primacy to individual rights, the individual is subservient to the clan.

It is no different for white collar sexual offenders. The sanitised corporate office till now the monopoly of men has been ambushed by successful and motivated women. The engineering schools, B-schools, design schools and law schools have produced thousands of women staking a claim in the top echelons of the new economy. Sexual harassment at work place and sexism in more subtle ways are rampant.

The sad conclusion is that men from villages and big cities, poor and rich all have a reason to rape. Rape is a panacea to deep rooted insecurity. It reasserts power and authority. What they have lost in the market economy, what they have lost by displacement, what they have lost in opportunity and self worth can be reclaimed in the most primitive and visceral way. Hold her down, hit her, violate her and then throw her on the street for rats and vultures to feed on. It is a disgusting and contemptible mentality unbecoming of any civilization.

That the police should be more vigilant and increase patrolling and other measures goes without saying. If by these steps we can prevent even  one woman from being violated it is a victory. Because unlike other crimes, rape is more than a statistic. It is a trauma and personal grief that can only be imagined by us. I strongly advocate death punishment for rapists. Even more vital is the post trauma legal treatment. Police and court sensitisation towards the victims state of mind and her privacy are urgently needed. But unfortunately there is only so much the law can do. It’s up to us, how we bring up our sons and what values we instil in them. But till then don’t lock up your daughters because there are rapists out there. Teach them how to shoot the hyenas.

The Prime Minister, with whom my patience is running thin, carried on his near-perfect mime act on issues of any significance to the country and has directed the Home Minister to ensure that such issues do not recur. But is this the time for maintaining jurisdictional sanctity? Can the Prime Minister not for once be the leader that he is meant to be and say that he himself will not sign any files till he sees a concrete, multi-pronged, multi-ministerial action plan placed in front of him? Why can he not take a dramatic, leader-like action that will indicate how serious he actually is about crimes against women? Instead of expressing meaningless platitudes like “It is a heinous crime. It is very upsetting” he can actually do something about it. He is after all not a third-grade poet who is meant to ponder prosaically when an incident such as this happens. He is the Prime Minister of India for God’s sake.

And what about Sonia Gandhi, President of the Congress Party, arguably the most powerful person in the country. From all accounts, she has merely written to the Delhi Chief Minister and the Union Home Minister asking for immediate corrective and remedial action. And I am certain she will be using all her authority to ensure that these happen. But why not make all her actions public? Why not make a statement in Parliament inviting suggestions from all parties on concrete steps to be taken to prevent such recurrence? Why not stand up like a true leader and make this a cause that is worth fighting for? If not moral conscience, smart politics would demand this, and that’s an area in which she has certainly not been found lacking till date.

And what about the Home Minister? Like a true former policeman which he is proud of being, he suggested that not having tinted glasses in buses, along with a few other equally naive, myopic, short-run ideas was the grand solution. Now I don’t mean to sound impolite, but as my English teacher in school used to say, “We know you’re stupid. Don’t advertise.” Instead of taking silly knee-jerk measures, why does he not convene several public meetings where he can discern views from the people, from the women who have to use public transport in Delhi and women in other cities, towns and villages as to the problems they face and what solutions they think would work? And then why does he not sit with his ministerial colleagues from Law, HRD, Women and Child Development, Transport and come up with a basket of measures, short and long run, which will actually be the product of intensive and collective thinking rather than the output of a pea-sized brain of some ministerial official, or worse still, his own?

And what about us citizens? Gender sensitisation begins at home. We can ensure that the people around us respect women as equal citizens of the country, and by that I mean both men and women. Strive for more equal relationships within our families. Educate the girl child and make that our personal priorities. And educate the male child about the importance of women and the equal respect that they deserve. And as men, to not lech, stare, touch or molest as if it’s just okay. Pick up any one issue that concerns women and make it our own. And realise that this is not a women’s issue. It’s an issue that is at the heart of what India as a nation stands for. Because a country which cannot make its women and children feel safe is no country at all. It’s a hell-hole.

One final thought. Tomorrow the results of the Gujarat elections come out. If the media is really serious about the issue of rape and women’s security as they have claimed to be in the last 24 hours, I hope that at least one, or some of them give equal time to the woman, her struggle for her life, and how we as a nation can make India safe for our women, as they give to Narendra Modi and the self-anointed panel of psephologists analysing how the state of Gujarat is voting. Because the ascent of a new political leader or the continuance of an old one in one of 28 states in the country cannot be as important as the lives of our women. Because instead of trying to analyse hidden trends and discover complex patterns, they could do much better by grasping and responding to a simple realisation that’s staring them in the face: That crimes agains women can no longer be tolerated. The Munirka bus rape is the straw that has broken the camel’s back.

Knowing India, I doubt this or any of this will happen. We will forget. Because forgetting and moving on is what we’re best at doing.

]]> http://www.criticaltwenties.in/economicsocialpolicy/the-delhi-rape-some-thoughts/feed 2 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/mediapopularculture/reminiscing-in-the-delhi-winters http://www.criticaltwenties.in/mediapopularculture/reminiscing-in-the-delhi-winters#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:25:27 +0000 Mukul http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=4174

It’s been close to two years since I have shifted to Delhi and once again it’s winter time. With every passing day, it seems to be getting a couple of degrees colder and the late nights and early mornings, a shade foggier. Bombay now, feels a thing of the past and Bangalore is all but memories of an old dream. If I have to choose one reason why I prefer living in Delhi over Bombay, I would say it’s because of the Delhi winters. The other day, while re-reading Orhan Pamuk’s Snow, I could clearly recall when I read it for the first time in the heat of June 2007 in Delhi. That time the description of snow covered roads of Kars and Ka bracing against the merciless winter provided a very comforting diversion from the thrashing rendered by the sun during the day. Reading it now at the peak of Delhi winters, I could feel the chill in the bones that Ka must have felt when he walked on the deserted streets at night.

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Living in Delhi for a year is like living in two if not three different cities. The huge trees at Humayun’s tomb and Lodhi Gardens which provided much needed cover from the summer sun like an eager host welcoming one with his arms wide spread, now seem to be wrapping around themselves to survive the cold; seeking to be left in their solitude like an old man shunning one and all. A pleasant evening ride in an auto through the wide green roads of Lutyens Delhi becomes a difficult ask. Enjoyable still; but only with adequate precautions of covering one’s neck and ears. In Bombay, it was difficult to tell April from November and the only indicator of the seasons was whether the rains had just passed or were just around the corner. For some, this steady weather of Bombay provides a comfort, for me it was like being stuck in the same place for eternity. With no apparent change in surroundings, there was no way of telling the passage of time and every month felt exactly like the one before it. Not so in Delhi. It’s easy to remember what you were doing last winter and then in the subsequent summer. The oscillation between the harsh extremes of weather makes it easier to chart out the mundane occurrences of everyday life. Rum and coke get replaced with rum and warm water; blowers replace air conditioners and the hyperactivity of summers is replaced by the lethargy of winters. The last week of December with Christmas and New Year’s acquires a significance which one completely misses out on in Bombay. The plastic Christmas trees and cotton snow flakes seem quite real, so do the festivities even if they are as artificial as the pyramids in Vegas. Well, that’s the point I guess. Your imagination is the only thing holding you back. It’s a delight to duck into a quilt and enjoy Home Alone, Eternal Sunshine… and Love Actually and remembering the slight hint of winters that was felt in Bangalore when one watched these movies for the first time.

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Sunday afternoons, which at the peak of summers, were times spent hiding in one place or the other are now reclaimed with a vengeance. The festivities of Connaught Place or Lajpat Nagar market on a Sunday afternoon replace the killing of time in the air conditioned environs of the Saket malls. But if the Sunday afternoons are reclaimed, the late nights in Khan Market and Hauz Khas are sacrificed. Their narrow lanes wear a deserted look much earlier than you would expect and even the people you see are cocooned in multiple layers of clothing. Sparingly however, you would spot the adventurous and the newly young in clothes that seem to be daring the weather gods. Walking on such foggy and chilly nights does have a charm of its own and even though you long for warmer nights, you are thankful for the shimmering sensation on your face and neck which keeps you buoyant and optimistic about the rest of the evening. The first signs of winters make one take out the woolens, jackets and blazers in Delhi, all of which either do not exist in a Bombay wardrobe or even if one had acquired them in the past, are consigned to a fate of rotting away in the bottom shelves. The ‘soon to be horizontally challenged’, get a couple of months to blame the tell tale signs on the clothes rather than the consumption of copious amounts of not so healthy stuff. For those earning a living at corporate offices, the onset of winter in Delhi is a welcome change. It becomes acceptable to come in a little later than usual; after all everyone can identify with the difficulty of waking up early in the morning. With the sun setting down at six, no one can raise eyebrows if you are leaving at seven. It is pitch dark and everyone wants to get back home as soon a possible before the dense fog settles in.

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The fog itself is a big menace for those who have to drive long stretches or have the misfortune of taking flights. But if you do not fall in one of those categories, it’s not hard to appreciate the mystical beauty that comes with a setting of dense fog. The roads become surreal like the sets in one of the film studios of Bombay. Memories of all the old Sherlock Holmes stories and thrillers set in London come rushing at once to your mind. Every nook and corner becomes interesting and every stranger walking out of the fog can be a character out of some mystery story. You acquire a better taste for horror movies in winters and also for those quintessential Indian momos and tomato soup. Breakfasts extend into lunches, lunches into dinners and it’s never too early in the day to order a drink. I love the Delhi winters.

The buzz in my ears has only just about stopped. My temples no longer throb and my eyes don’t water from the heat, the stress and the exhaustion. The muscles around my neck and shoulders still feel taut and tense and they could perhaps do with a massage. The buzz has died down but the mind still races, forgetting that the finishing line has been crossed and it’s time to slow down. It is only now about a week into my summer vacation.

Six weeks off (more or less). No worrying about briefs, no miscellaneous days, filing, papers, affidavits, dates, adjournments, pass-overs, nothing. In fact no worrying at all. No deadlines, no causelists, no written submissions, no notes, no lists of dates and events. Nothing on my mind.

Popular culture limits lawyers’ work to their vocal chords and occasionally, their brains (and in really dramatic times, their hands). The lawyer is an actor on an elaborate stage; an actor in a play where the lines are generally ad libbed; an actor who waves papers for dramatic effect, and everything is a grand and significant event.

The truth is much more prosaic.

The average day is either one with a lot of scurrying, hurrying and worrying, or one of mostly preparing, waiting, and hoping. Of course this is all done in a Court. One scurries and hurries from court to court, worrying whether one will arrive in appropriate court before the matter is called. One prepares for a matter listed before court, waits in court for the matter to reach, and hopes that if it is taken up, it will be heard and disposed, thereby leaving one with one less burdens on one’s shoulders.

All the effort would entirely be worth it if one felt a sense of accomplishment, of goals reached or objects attained.

Alas if it were so.

Futility is the lot of the appellate lawyer, to say nothing of the litigant. Dates are fixed, matters are called out, only to stand adjourned. Fixed for another day, when the said day finally turns up, and the matter is called out… and again it stands adjourned.

It’s a strange Moebius Ring in time-space, this appellate court work.

When one is prepared for a case; briefs marked up, plastic stickies fluttering from the edges, written submissions fine-tuned, case laws picked up, marked out, and seven-copies-made, inevitably, almost unfailingly, the matter stands adjourned to a later date on a triviality. The opposing counsel isn’t prepared, it is too late in the day, a key pleading hasn’t been filed yet, a judge recuses himself, etc etc. You’ve seen it all, heard it all. After a point you start wondering if you somehow missed the point of learning the law; that you spent five years (or less) futilely understanding the scope and interpretation of sections, the width and breadth of legal concepts and the tools of analysis, and maybe, just maybe, should have really learnt how and when to take adjournments, ask for pass-overs, and come up with elaborate excuses to get a case “pushed off”.

And yet, and yet, just when you grow complacent in certainty, confident that a hearing is the last thing that’ll happen to the case, the Court’s ready to hear it, the opposing counsel come prepared, it is early in the day, and you have to be all set to argue. Or at least, assist your senior as he does. Panic, fumble, run around, bluster, blubber, plead, scatter yourself across the bar in a mad dash, and try not to appear the unprepared fool. And pray.

It’s a Moebius ring in space-time. On the days you are prepared for a case, it is never taken up. On the days you aren’t, it will be taken up. Causality going around in a continuum with no end, making you wish you were Schrodinger’s Cat and that you’d rather be dead than deal with this uncertainty.

Your time, is really not your time. Your schedule is determined by the Court. Your daily rhythms dictated by judicial diktat so to speak.

Months of this and your nerves are shredded. Your intensity flags, your mind either dulls down or turns on itself bringing forth neuroses and anxieties aplenty. You need a break, a time to repair, rest, and relax. A time when it is your time, and when you choose what to do with your time.

A vacation.

Then, there’s Delhi. Like the rest of north India in summer, it’s a furnace where the heat’s a living thing, clutching at your throat, smothering you in its blast of hot air, and choking you in its dust and pollution. Somewhere between the moisture vaporizing heat of the deserts, and the sticky messiness of the coasts, Delhi offers you the worst of both worlds; face-melting blasts of hot air coupled with sweat pouring cascades down your spine. If you’re lucky, you bear it only in those few moments when you walk from cool air conditioned indoors to a cool air conditioned car. If you aren’t, you’re stuck in a basement office where the air conditioner’s broken down with the stress, and you can never find autos to take you home after work and trudge the distance back. Your small comfort is living in a locality with mercifully short load shedding hours so that a decent sleep is guaranteed at night. And yet, there are those days when powers beyond your control (i.e., BSES REPL) conspire to rob you of your small comforts and you spend an uncomfortable night wishing you’d never been born.

Our ancestors had the right idea, work and party at nights and at dawn, sleep through the day in cool interiors,and create and preserve a deeply iniquitous system where others labour through the day to keep said interiors cool. Some vague and dismal ideal of work ethic compels us to fix our work timings to co-incide with the hottest parts of the day, subjecting ourselves the hammering heat pounding down upon our skulls.

The Brits had the good sense to pack up and head off to the hills when the summer set in. Call it the vestige of a colonial past, or the early dawn of rationality, but the Supreme Court (like other High Courts of North India) decided that a month away from the heat and dust was necessary for a thinking man or woman. Save for matters of utmost importance and urgency, the Court closes its doors to litigants all and sundry, and willy nilly, lawyers as well. It is necessary.

Perhaps I sound ungrateful about my line of work. I’m not. I still love my job. I chose it for myself after all. I just don’t want to fall out of love with it.

Just… don’t grudge me my love; don’t grudge me my vacations.

I’ve been thinking about what would be the one thing that’s Delhi food. Something quintessentially Delhi. Like the politicians, Fab India, crime, rape, summer, journalists, barsatis, new expensive malls, winter sunshine, Delhi University.

A cursory glance at the five years I’ve spent here, I realized my understanding of ‘Dilli food’ has changed drastically depending on the state of my finances, my friend’s finances, the three people in my then immediate surroundings and my geography. The only other cities I’ve lived in are London and Calcutta. But everybody knows there’s Calcutta food. There’s our institutionalized chelo kebab and steaks, puckhas andbiryanis, chinese and radhaballabi. London is a hard nut to crack; currently it charms the pants off any food lover, touted as one of the grandest food cities of the world. It’s the stuff of dreams, to be explored in detail in another post. When in doubt, and in London, say ‘fish n chips’ (or doner kebab).

But what about Delhi? As a wide eyed fresher walking down the hallowed corridors of a certain red brick institution north of the city, you would already know it would be blasphemous to walk into the college cafe and order anything but mince-chutney. It was the done thing, no questions asked. The next three years that followed were mostly about being perpetually broke and perpetually eating out. We were on a constant lookout for the cheapest new food to grace North Campus. It was a life dominated by momos, chicken mc.grill burgers, mince-maggi, eggs, double fried pork, nimbu pani, occasional Tibetan food and cigarettes. And then there were two dream-come-trues: Big Chill (Khan Market) and Karims (Old Delhi). That was my Delhi then.

Flash forward: May 2009: A job in hand, a little more money in the wallet, some health consciousness in the head. Location: South Delhi, Green Park. I tried to eat at home, Suman didi would charge in hectically in the mornings and by 7 am, my pressure cooker would merrily whistle away, perfectly in cue, falling in line with all its counterparts on the street, like some Green Park pressure cooker grand orchestra. Rajma, Chana, Chola, Kali dal, Kadi- Suman Didi’s seasoned hands dished out staple and solid ghar ka khana, albeit my visions of ghar ka khana were more on the delicate lines of rice, fish and vegetables only seen in C.R park. Still, I battled on. I no longer held Big Chill sacred (a short stint in Italy the previous year had changed my life beyond compare). Eating out with friends now became distinctively divided into beginnings and ends of the month. Sometimes the end-of-the-month state arrived by the 15th. Beginnings were spent relishing tenderloin burgers in Amici, dim sum brunches at the Yum Yum Tree. Ends, we were found eating burgers at Kents, rolls at Salims or wai wai at home. Over the last two years, I’ve discovered several new restaurants, in and around South Delhi. They cater to different states of finance, health, wealth and happiness. They cover a vast array of national and international cuisine. Some are brilliant and some could retire as soon as possible.

Still it remained unanswered: Dilli wala khana? The chola-kulcha man, next to my office comes close to the idea. But I would pick Karims. I don’t manage to go to Jama Masjid all that often and I entirely avoid it through summer. But if I came back to Delhi, after several years, and picked one place to eat out in, it would be Karims. It defines Delhi in so many ways, it is history, and the owners claim to be direct descendants of Bahadur Shah Zafar. Nestled still in the bygone lanes of Old Delhi, charming, beautiful, decaying and dangerous- Karim’s is Delhi. Some of its food is legendary, the Mutton Barrah, the Jahangiri Raan, Badam Pasanda and Sheermal. And it’s famous, very famous, and it reminds you of Delhi. Maybe not the swanky Smoke House Grill swinging Delhi, but the dusty summers, an ancient Mughal capital, heartfelt food kind of Delhi.

I don’t consider myself clairvoyant, but even I predicted this headline and this news story about a week before they happened. Income Tax Department Raids Reddy Brothers; Finds nothing. In fact, most people in Bengaluru and Bellary would have been surprised if anything at all would have been found. It is a freely discussed and fairly open “secret” that State and Central Government officials have long been in the pocket of iron ore barons (not just the Reddy brothers [Janardhana Reddy, Karunakara Reddy and their trusted lieutenant, B Sriramulu], in case you think I am being partisan against the poor dears). The sudden profusion of luxury cars, luxury apartments and luxury pretty much everything else sort of surprised us initially but it wasn’t long before we knew what was going, and as with everything else, we shrugged and continued to move along (except for one who refused to shrug and move along).

Not that the iron ore barons (almost evenly distributed among the political spectrum in Karnataka) were out of the Income Tax Department’s sights. We would hear of or read about the odd raid here and there in Bengaluru and elsewhere on the premises of one of the barons and predictably, empty cupboards would greet our ever diligent Revenue officers. An acquaintance once told me how the wife of one of the mining barons distributed her jewellery across the city, in the safe custody of her friends, days before the IT Department raided her house. This is obviously hearsay, but it is not impossible to believe that “advance notice” of the raid had been received by all concerned.

The modus operandi of the Reddy brothers, on the other hand, is less subtle and more obvious. Upon gaining political office, they ensured that every one of the officials posted to Bellary district (their almost unquestioned fiefdom) were totally and entirely under their thumb and any officer with a backbone was transferred straight out of the district. No messy business of having to sanitize the premises or hide one’s assets when the Government and all its machinery is at your beck and call.

The raids of 25th October were therefore only a mild nuisance for the likes of the Reddy Brothers.

On the subject of raids, I am also reminded of a conversation I had with a couple of officials from the Revenue Department when they were briefing us about a case concerning large scale Excise Duty evasion. While discussing the facts of the case, it was mentioned that the information, which later formed the subject matter of the show cause notice and eventual prosecution and hefty duty demand, was all obtained after a series of raids carried out on multiple premises of the duty evaders. I naturally asked them how the raid came about. [Obviously this is not a full transcript and obviously I have changed some details here and there]

“Well, actually, we formed several teams and…”

“No, no, I meant how did you find out that these guys should be raided and what to look for.”

“Ah that”, they looked at each other and smiled.

“Well, in all such large scale duty evasion, it is never the handiwork of one or two people.”

“There are always many number of people working over a long period of time, who enjoy the trust and confidence of the core group.” Piped in the other officer.

“Even though all of them are not always in the know about everything that’s going on, most of them know vaguely what’s going on and sort of guess the rest.” Now they had tag-teamed because the story was just too good to be told by one person ala Thomson and Thompson.

“For instance, the manufacturers are in cahoots with the raw material producers and the end users to undervalue and disclose wrong figures about the goods.”

“…and some trusted employees will actually fill in the forms and the fake invoices to make sure goods escape duty…”

“…and also, the drivers of the vehicles know they are carrying far more than the goods indicated on all the permits and invoices with them.”

“It works because they all get a cut and they all enjoy the confidence and trust of the members of the key planners of the scam.”

“But of course, some time, some where, someone slips up.”

“You mean they don’t do what they are told?”

“No, no, they do exactly as they are told, but sometimes their employers get angry over something, cut their pay, shout at them or publicly humiliate them or provoke their employees and workers over something.”

“…and to get back at their employers, the employees come straight to us and spill the beans.”

“Naturally, we turn a blind eye to their role and go after the principal plotters and their accomplices and that is where the scam is unravelled.”

“This fellow [referring to the case at hand] probably did some such thing to our informant, and lived to regret it. See, he’s learnt his lesson, that is why he has already paid the penalty on behalf of his employees and is challenging only the main duty demand.” He pointed out in the paper book.

“Ah, so the start of every raid is an aggreived employee.” I thought out loud.

“Yes, yes…” they both nodded, grinning.

“But tell me something, on so many occasions the raids turn up absolutely nothing. What goes wrong in such cases?” I asked, thinking of the earlier story of the wife of the mining baron and her jewellery.

“Well…” they looked at each other sheepishly.

“… the Department also has its share of aggrieved employees.”

No sooner than the spotlight fades on the closing ceremony, will the curtain go down on the saga that the Commonwealth Games has been. Heroic athletes have taken off having conquered the Delhi-belly, the Commission set up to investigate charges of corruption is slipping into oblivion, Delhizens will nurse their favourite story of CWG inconvenience for generations to come, and Indian national pride will contentedly belch, trying to digest its inflated ego. The scores of migrant workers (Indian and Bangladeshi) who either fled the city before the Games for fear of being rounded up, or were evicted by the police for the lack of documents will, undoubtedly, start crawling back into their precarious existences along the edges of high-rises and residential neighbourhoods. Delhi, nodded in as the newest global city by the international community through the strange initiation rite that the Games appear to have been, will continue afresh, as before.

It is hard to make any remark about the Games that has not been said before in the gamut of commentary that it has evoked in the past few months, and more intermittently over the past few years. I choose to reflect on the question of national pride and entitlement that, for me, this Games has manifested so disturbingly. How large-scale sporting events become the marker of national achievement and pride – and whether the price paid for them can be justified – is a question that though endemic to this Indian case is much larger in scope and I will set it aside here.

For hundreds of underpaid and overworked Indian sportspersons, this event must have been the culmination of years of relentless effort and expectations for future careers. Hosting such an event may arguably contribute to a nation’s sporting culture, although I suspect a more holistic upheaval of the systems in which we regard and play a multitude of sports would be necessary for any substantial and lasting change. Predictably the ‘common man’ is resurrected as the purported beneficiary of the Games. No matter that common men and women have been evicted from their already precarious lives in shanties, common men, women and children labouring at various games constructions sites have not been looked after or paid their dues, and the common folk of Delhi have been left fuming over endless disruptions in everyday life as the city spluttered under the weight of the Games. The Geneva Centre for Forced Evictions and Housing Rights believe sports to be the one of the biggest displacers of humanity, second to war and conflict. Recently a study by the Housing and Land Rights Network in India, focussing on forced evictions, has found that at least 2, 50,000 people in the city were made homeless as a direct result of the Games since 2004. However we may want to balance our gains and losses as a nation, how can this possibly amount to a matter of pride?

Some comparisons with the Beijing Olympics are inevitable. In 2008 critical international media claimed that the most expensive chapter in Olympic history could have been staged only in such an undemocratic country where the state could move people and resources at will and afford such seemingly unjustifiable expenditures. China’s human rights record did not go unremarked and calls for boycott were made on the grounds of the human rights abuses (forced internal migrations, exploitative labour conditions, censorship of press etc.) that preparations for and conduct of the event entailed. Playing its part, Indian media and public opinion too had reared its democratic head to report and reiterate such objections. However with the CWG, there were hardly any disapproving sounds from the international media for blatant rights abuses. The common line taken was criticism of poor governance of the project and reiteration of Indian corruption, which in turn sent mainstream Indian media into a tizzy of shame, wanting not to be judged for the corruption of some power-hungry individuals but for its tradition of hospitality that it would dress the windows with.

From the coverage of the Games-related problems within India one can gauge an acute sense of who’s considered entitled to the city and its facilities, and consequently whose cause was championed for sympathy. Why is it that the plight of those who built the Games, living in appalling conditions, working with scanty safety measures, often earning less than the daily minimum wage, went largely unreported? Exceptions were instances like the death of a migrant worker which incited his co-workers into violent protest, and the sustained critique of the Games by alternative fora like Kafila. There were reports of angry Delhizens inconvenienced and harassed in changing ways and locked out of public spaces for months on end. Yet, no laments for the loss of face were heard until it was revealed that the ‘village’ being built was not of the class that could be lived in by those gracing the event and deeming Delhi to be a global city. As international media drummed up the pitch about the corruption and poor infrastructure in the developing state, local media turned hysterical, mourning the shame that came from not having better organised the spending of the mammoth budget of $6.8 (depending on who calculates). Recently, NYU building a campus in Saudi Arabia took cognizance of the country’s notorious labour regime for migrant workers and declared that it would directly oversee the regulation and protection of all workers. This clearly demonstrates that international stakeholders can take an ethical position and make a positive difference. Could the international community involved not have taken a more proactive interest when the objectionable conditions under which preparations were undertaken had been apparent for several years?

In this fickle game between shame, pride and apathy, I see yet another manifestation of the widening gulf between the urban and the rural worlds. Migrant labourers from rural parts automatically become urban poor; in neither capacity – as rural workers or as urban poor – do they elicit the sympathetic attention of the state, national media or their urban compatriots. Their role in constructing the urbanising landscape of modern India is as easily accepted as their absence in that vision. According to the estimates of the ballooning budget, the amount spent in the end was almost triple the Melbourne Games in 2006 and is more than the budget for this government’s landmark MGNREGS. What may this suggest about the priorities of the state? To do justice to its position in an international community, India has to do much more than demonstrate that it can afford expensive events. Least of all it must include its own citizens, rural and urban, in its vision of being a global player. The smog of the Delhi winter will soon be setting in; when we see homeless people huddling around inadequate fires we may want to remember the latest addition to the reasons why they are there.