As I waited for the bus to take me to Khudiram Metro Station at 7.30 this morning, I saw two men suddenly break out into a fight. A little later, I heard loud sounds of argument across the road, in front of one of the many shacks along the Bypass. I thought it was a domestic fight, I was a little concerned about the woman shouting; I wondered if her husband was abusing her. Little did I know it was to be a portend of what was to come later in the day.
We did the city walk. Met at Esplanade at 8.30. Saw Police trucks parked near Writers Building. Peeked into the open door at the back. I know now I could only do that because I know I will never be locked up in there. This confidence of my position in society colours every experience of mine. Throughout the walk, we saw working people innovating livelihoods and making the best of the space they have managed to gain from a reluctant state. People operating shops from underneath parked trucks. Crouching under stand-alone mini shops to carve out another space for earning a livelihood.
I come back to see reams on rubble on both sides of EM Bypass near Patuli. Rubble where stood, till today morning, rows and rows of shacks selling tea, nutritious wholesome meals at affordable prices. Shacks that earned livelihoods and let other people live on the livelihoods they earned. Reduced to dust. Two Police trucks, like the one I had peered into earlier, stood on the road where the bulldozer was busy razing yet another shack. Locked up inside were those shack owners who stood up to the demolition squad, victims of the double tragedy of being the marginal citizens of Kolkata, eking out a living on the geographical margins of what Kolkata considers to be Kolkata.
The Garia-Airport metro line has pushed them out. The West Bengal Government has pushed them out. The same government that proudly states “NO SPEEDBREAKERS FOR INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENTS”. We, the affluent, the middle-class of Kolkata have pushed them out.
The shack owners sat opposite the remains of their business, extremely quiet. Men and women, some with little children. One woman sat in the middle of the rubble which used to be her tea-shop till today morning.
I ask about the demolitions. The traffic cop, subdued, tells me they were given 9 days notice. They tell me they were verbally informed last evening; no court order, no legal paper. One of them tells me you must be very inconvenienced now, you won’t be able to eat here anymore. I flinch at the irony of being consoled for the lack of a convenience, because my life IS convenient. The woman sitting on the rubble is my inconvenience: what do I do with the memory of shattered livelihoods every time I am comfortable? It is inconvenient for me to remember that I always occupy space at the cost of those who sell kitchen scrubbers from underneath trucks.
Feeling impotent and fake, I do the only thing I can think of now. I call up journalists asking them if their newspaper/news channel is covering the possibly illegal demolitions. As for later, all I know is that I cannot let the inconvenience stop prickling my existence.
Last summer I visited Golibari, Santa Cruz where Medha Patkar was on hunger strike against the demolitions. I also visited Rafiqnagar in Mankhurd and met an old couple, a blind woman, a woman who had given birth a week ago and a young drunk husband, all still trying to come to terms with their homes being demolished just a few days ago. Making do with a few tarpaulin sheets held up by sticks, with the monsoons just a few days away.
ReplyDeleteThat weekend I went to visit my friend in Powai and he took me to Hiranandani Gardens for lunch. A mini-Europe with fountains and quaint lamp-posts, land bought at ridiculously cheap prices of 40 paise - one rupee per acre, allegedly to build low cost housing for those displaced by slum demolitions, now a paradise for NRIs.
Yup, India Shining alright.