Hefty Deity

Shri Hanuman, who should have been riding the airway from the Himalaya to the Sri Lankan coast on a search and rescue mission, today stands perplexed at a busy north-Delhi intersection. Sita's distress is forgotten as the 175 foot brick-and-cement figure straddles the Pusa Road roundabout next to Karol Bagh, unused even after all these years to the traffic.

It is actually a statue, this humongous figure, a gigantic equivalent to the 'monkey god' images that sprouted all over north India along with the rising tide of political Hindutva in the early 1990s. Work began on the Karol Bagh Hanuman in 1991, but immediately the structure was encased in bamboo scaffolding as a design flaw was discovered which could have sent him crashing to the ground in undeserved ignominy.