Delhi, shining and more

 

Artwork: Venantius J Pinto

Does a city have a soul? If so, does it have one or several? Is there some supra-Delhi spirit floating just visible over the skyline of Connaught Place, its wispy tendrils embracing the plate-glass skyscrapers of Gurgaon and the squat rooftops of Lado Sarai? Because, for a city to possess just one soul it would have to be demographically inclusive: there can be no exceptions, no reservation allowed here. 'The city', in history, literature, on television, is an anthropomorphic entity: it has a centre of gravity that apparently radiates solace, inspiration and meaning. In a word, it has a philosophy that comforts its inhabitants in times of need, inspires them when their hopes run low –"Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London" was definitely the soul of London, calling on the discouraged 14th-century mayor when he decided, fed up and sick at heart, to call it a day and go back to whatever rustic darkness it was from which he had escaped. Because ultimately – and this is the essence of the city's philosophy, the siren call, the uber-urban message – it is all about opportunity and endurance.

But how is that soul manifested? How does it, historically, 'speak'? Judging by literature and popular culture, the city is heard through stories, through soap operas, through songs and sayings that its dwellers compose about their lives. It is through such devices that we can excavate how the people living within a city's boundaries see their surroundings, and check out whether these are considered largely beneficial or malign; finally we can leach out from such narratives the idea of the city that has the most widespread currency, the one that has the most resonance. There are, theoretically, as many voices and ideas as there are city dwellers, and it is hard to know exactly how and when the main narrative emerges. But once it does it generally seems to be a hopeful one, one that sees 'the city' as a place where dreams are realised, a location that has a generally benign, facilitating presence. Of course, there is the other side of the city narrative as well, the one that looks at the lurking dangers, the alienation and the loss of a gentle, supportive pastoral connection.

Most often, however, well-established city narratives tend to celebrate opportunity, variety and, most of all, modernity. Nearly 4800 years ago, the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is usually read as a king's reflections on his mortality, brought the city of Uruk to life. It described the wonders of its brick walls, its cedar trees, the beauties of its temple prostitutes and the fealty of its shepherds. Here was a whole teeming urban world, where people grappled with the fundamental issues of survival, power and love, just as they do today. The somewhat more contemporary Alexandria Quartet, written during the 1950s by the Irish novelist Laurence Durrell, is a four-volume deliberation on the human drama in which the Egyptian city Alexandria plays a definitional role. The city, seen through Durrell's eyes, is venal, corrupt and amoral, but is also depicted as the repository of all wisdom and experience.

All city dwellers come up with their own set of stories about the city. These view the city as an autonomous 'being', one with a personality that is mostly compassionate but with some elements of malevolence. And while these narratives usually perceive the city as a place of infinite possibilities for advancement and success, structured into them is also the fact that cities can be uncaring, that they can often have a brutal lack of regard for the vulnerable individual.

If, in this perception of a city – call it Western, call it Judeo-Christian, call it post-industrial – the urban dream is mediated by a sharp opposition between rural stagnation and metropolitan progress, the contemporary Southasian city has its own set of parameters. These also speak of the loss of a native place, of dislocation and a reluctant, enforced reinvention. Yeh hai bombay meri jaan, for instance, encapsulates a quasi-warning – Zara hatke, zara bachke – which expresses that the city, while glamorous and exciting, has its own set of unfamiliar but unforgiving codes. Inherent in this is the idea that newcomers need to conform to these, or be crushed. What these expectations are obviously differs according to various groups. Nonetheless, they do exist, unwritten but universally understood. Each city, each region of the world, qualifies this basic story. Ultimately, in Southasia we have multiple city narratives, not always conflicting as much as co-existing guardedly with the odd, occasional flashpoint when competing aspirations clash head-on.

Promise of flyovers
It could be said that the contemporary Southasian urban area itself is still – rather like the Southasian city – under construction, being honed and whittled in a thousand locations from slums to malls, from parks to railway platforms. Which is not to say that some Southasian cities do not override others: some are the expressions of well-integrated, influential groups; others are simply well established, their longevity itself a reason for their continued existence. In Delhi, for instance, the current overriding story is of 'Delhi Shining', the 21st-century-city-beautiful. The sentiment here is all about the city's re-invention as Singapore-on-the-Jamuna, headquartered in highly qualified professional middle-class enclaves such as Gurgaon, which view the current chaos of unfinished rapid-bus corridors, metro excavations and all the flyovers-in-the-making as milestones to this end.

The result is a kind of emotional secession from what is seen as a Third World mess of open sewers, cows and, above all, the sight of poor people and their shantytowns – images that an entire generation of condominium-dwellers feels they have transcended. The 2010 Commonwealth Games is seen by this school of thought as a useful vehicle by which to achieve such aspirations. In this scenario, the new flyovers will carry the SUVs of city-beautiful-desiring information-technology professionals from the golf course to the air-conditioned, interior-designed, open-plan office. After work, the progeny can be deposited at the multiplex, while the couple attends a well-appointed gym, to engage in the workout that the city's as-yet underdeveloped parks (full of unbeautiful people, dogs, etc) do not allow for.

This is the profile that Delhi advertisements ceaselessly refine and promote. The industry realises full well that only if this segment grows – and only if more people wish to emulate them – will the vacuum cleaners and expensive anti-wrinkle creams they are hocking be able to sell. Indeed, in places where Delhi is a middle-class enclave, where the city's electricity and water is available in uninterrupted supply (the Citywalk mall in Saket, the Malibu Towers in Gurgaon), not all of these new adherents are from the metropolitan middle class. The acceptability of the Delhi Shining idea stems from its vocabulary of modernity, of progress, of a certain undefined but strongly believed internationality. The architecture of malls and seven-star hotels, all connected by multi-lane highways, speaks of the enormous power of globalisation and its influence on the definition of modernity. This vision of a modern, 21st-century Delhi has become so loud and all-pervasive that even outsiders implicitly believe it.

While the hold of this vision is enormously strong, there are others as well, even if they are played in minor keys. Another strong Delhi story springs from a class that has seen dents in its power base in recent years. But while theirs' is not a counter vision – it has few issues with the 21st-century city, per se – it does highlight a significantly different city. The old Nehruvian elite, the class that took on positions of power after 1947, still has a defiant preference for the sedate suburban capital, with its certainties of influence and status, hierarchically expressed in brick and mortar. For them, the wide, tree-lined avenues, the houses calibrated according to rank in a space they reverentially refer to as 'Lutyens's Delhi', still exercise a definite fascination. This is the distinction between the language of power and that of modernity, and it seems to indicate that there is some element of prioritisation being made simultaneously in the 'government Delhi' and in the affluent, confident colonies of south Delhi, in terms of defining what exactly a city should be.

Those who adhere to this view are not opposed to the Shining Delhi vision; some may even admire it. But all the while they have a nagging suspicion that the consolidation of this city chips away at their own importance. These are the civil servants, the lawmakers, the people who live in the now-crumbling government colonies, with their seen-better-days look. Yet their residents evince a defiant, anxious pride in their central location in the heart of New Delhi, the manifestation of one of the few remaining signifiers of their influence. Many have also bought into the vision of the 21st-century city – often literally, owning a flat in one of the multiplicity of cooperative housing societies in the skyscrapers of Gurgaon and Noida. But they also understand that they would not be counted among the power elite in new metropolises, which is why they hold on tenaciously to their imperial suburb and all that it means.

Redefining city-wallah
The swan song for 'government Delhi' is not the only nostalgic vision gently floating round the city. The 'lost Delhi' narrative is even more tenacious, having lasted for a considerably longer time. This idea celebrates a past that is always present and, indeed, rather pleasantly regretted. Championing this is a sign of grace, erudition and intelligence. Delhi's past is very visible, with monuments in varying states of preservation still everywhere. Medieval tombs and crumbling walls, forts and pavilions all still stand on main roads, within colonies, inside golf courses. The remnants of successive empires, including the British, are constant reminders of Delhi's many past regimes, its ability to serve all masters and switch allegiance as required.

Artwork: Karen Haydock

It would have been unsurprising if this had taken the form of a moral tale – the impermanence of kings, the faithlessness of the ruled, etc. But 'lost Delhi' is largely a self-congratulatory lament for past glories, mourning the last stand of the Mughal King Bahadur Shah Zafar, and the brutal repression of the 1857 uprising by the British. Equally sincerely, it also celebrates the 1911 Royal Durbar and the baroque splendours of Lutyens's and Baker's Raisina Hill complex. Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohandas K Gandhi and the national movement also find place in this glorious past pantheon. This 'Delhi that was' narrative is magnificently undiscriminating, and is often invoked when the messiness of the present becomes too evident.

This 'messiness' often connotes the huge numbers of migrants that Delhi has always managed to accommodate. After 1947, with the exodus of Hindus from West Punjab, Delhi acquired a pronounced Punjabi identity. This continues, but other waves of migrants have added their own regional flavours – from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal, Orissa, Haryana, Rajasthan – thus making for a much more pan-Indian mix. While some of the migrants are professionals lured by the expanding service sector, migrant workers from the poorer districts of the country come to Delhi out of sheer necessity, and provide essential services as wage labourers or as domestic servants in private homes. Their numbers have made them potential vote banks and, according to some estimates, they have the capacity to influence the outcome in around 20 of Delhi's assembly constituencies, a situation that mainstream political parties cannot afford to ignore. Migrants settle in existing shantytowns or set up new ones, actions that irk affluent Delhiites who, while happy to utilise their services, find that the migrants and their settlements do not fit the vision of a 21st-century city of towered downtown and manicured suburb.

Nonetheless, even if the migrant aspect of the city continues to go largely unrecorded, they have brought changes to the city. The Bihari festival of Chhath is celebrated now with much gusto, while the Bengali Durga Puja has become a multi-crore event; momos have begun to rival chaat as popular street food, and Bengali cuisine is becoming increasingly mainstream in middle class homes, as domestic helpers introduce their employers to the discreet charms of chochori. Migrant stories lack the audiovisual noise of the shiny, 'modernity now' idea, for migrants are less privileged and generally surface in the middle-class consciousness in terms of crime or overcrowding.

This is especially true of migrants from other countries in Southasia – and to this discourse is now added illegal migration and terrorism. Thus, though there is a visible, well-established presence of communities from Bangladesh, Nepal, Tibet and, latterly, Burma – and though many are now old communities, with their own support systems, rituals, spaces and their own versions of the urban dream – their appearance in the city's 'mainstream' is at best sporadic. That mainstream tends to take notice of these other communities only when urban insecurities are being expressed – for instance, during a recent controversy over identity cards, or whenever the question arises of 'unauthorised' settlements being regularised.

This is also, in a sense, a discussion about the definitions of a city, and therefore of who constitutes a city-wallah. One consequence of such exchanges is that many migrant settlers are viewed as a series of stereotypes that are often as offensive as they are inaccurate. For instance, the ideas that Tibetans sell momos and participate in anti-China demonstrations; or that Bangladeshis are mostly illegals and harbour dangerous terrorist links; or that Nepali domestic helps are inclined to loot and murder. Burmese refugees, who have fled from the excesses of the Rangoon junta, often complain they are sent away by potential employers because they do not 'look Indian'. In the city mainstream, migrants are still regarded as potentially criminal, unhygienic and, evidently, un-aesthetic.

Meanwhile, what is elided in such reactions is the fact that a diversity of competing voices, cultures and worldviews are essential prerequisites for a city to be a true metropolis. In Delhi, diversity has been historic. Arab ki Sarai, on the outskirts of Delhi's Nizamuddin area, is more than 500 years old, and speaks of the multi-ethnic composition of the city at that time. Persians, Abyssinians, Afghans and more all lived comfortably among the city's other communities, and their contributions all enriched the city, in terms of architecture, culture, food. Syncretism has a long pedigree in Delhi.

One way or another, the embrace of the unfamiliar – and globalisation is by definition the acceptance of other cultures – has to become part of the predominant discourse. Delhi, fortunately, is still far from Bombay's mainstreaming of the anti-outsider worldview. A city needs diversity to be a true city, and Delhi cannot decide that only certain elements of the global package are to be included in its version of the modern, shining city it wishes to be, while ignoring or quashing others from its own neighbourhood, both national and Subcontinental. 'Modernity' cannot solely be a function of architecture and civic amenities; the visions of all those who live in the city have to be accommodated. It is not enough to have a dramatic skyline – the cosmopolitan mindset has to follow.

'Timeless' fallacy
Delhi probably does have a soul. But it is found in different locations, and it is read differently by different segments of the population. The city has given rise to multiple stories – sometimes jostling for top billing, but still, in the main, coexisting. Ultimately, what has given Delhi its resilience is the space it has allowed for different visions of itself. Perhaps this can be put down to its long history of decline and rise, or perhaps because it is the national capital and has to accommodate the idea of diversity as a political expedient. Then again, perhaps this is because, in a sense, Delhi is still being invented. The colossal changes of six decades of independence have made it difficult to draw a line, to say, 'Well, this is it'.

In the two other Southasian capital cities in which I have lived – Islamabad and Thimphu – these types of narratives appear, to an outsider at least, to be more settled. But then again, this is probably deceptive. Thimphu, for instance, has an air of changeless calm. It is beautiful, with pretty wooden houses climbing gently up the walls of the valley, and lovely wooden bridges that span the rushing waters of the river that flows through the capital. The maroon-and-white dzongs look exquisite set against the dark of the pine woods, with prayer flags fluttering from the tops of the hills; in the spring, the entire valley brims with blossoming fruit trees. Of course, these are all images that invariably evoke such adjectives as 'timeless', 'other-worldly' and 'unchanging'. In the midst of all this, it may be difficult to discern any description other than that of the unspoilt Shangri-la. But there are others there, too, as evidenced by the growing number of cars and new houses, as well as the now-pervasive presence of television.

Even in Thimphu, the inexorable push of globalisation makes itself felt. Here, too, the 21st-century city vision is creeping forward, even if its Bhutanese version may not be of chrome-and-glass skyscrapers or concrete bungalows with pillared frontages. In the end, however powerful and seductive the idea of the 21st-century city is, it cannot be judged simply on the strength of its articulated aspirations, its rows of malls and skyscrapers, its appearance of modernity. The New York-based journalist Anita Jain once wrote, "I moved to Delhi hoping the rapid modernization sweeping through the city … might lead me to a thoroughly 21st-century man." Perhaps unsurprisingly, she did not find one.

~ Ranjana Sengupta writes on popular and political culture, and is the author of Delhi Metropolitan: The making of an unlikley city (Penguin 2008).

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