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Travelogues
Recognizing the
importance of this corridor, the 120 mile/250 kilometer route to
Delhi from Chandigarh is now almost a continuous urban ribbon
that conceals and complements the agricultural hinterland
within. Le Corbusier mooted the idea, in Les Trois
Etablissements Humains, of something that looks almost
similar – linear urban development leading to urban centers, and
farming lands within the interstitial spaces. There is growing
wealth here, and the juxtaposition of the very rich with the
very poor, a frisson of society rubbing against each
other, mixed with the heat of the plains and the green fertility
of the land, villages, luxury pleasure resorts and the
inevitable shrines where truckers and the affluent alike stop.
India as one gigantic city? – this is probably unlikely in the
near future, but there are times when the thought does not seem
impossible. There is energy mixed with vapidity in the air, a
miasma of the past mixed with hope and belief in the future that
rises like elusive mist from a hot road.
The bus is full today
with people short-tempered from the heat and the rattling buzz
from overhead speakers. The woman sitting next to me is thin;
tired-looking, with a determined face. We make no conversation
but share the newspaper; some time down she sleeps – the sun on
her face and her bag on her lap. Some people have the gift of
conversing with total strangers – to make a friend in minutes
and share their lives in the anonymity of a public space, in the
perfect knowledge that they will never see this person again.
The perfect conversation, the best opening line, usually comes
to me about one hour too late.
But there is little
time to think of this for too long. A short five hours later,
there is Delhi. It can be smelt and felt long before it is.
At the entrance to the city; a huge government land
reclamation/waste disposal project has been on for more than a
decade, creating mountains of filth that gives off toxic odors.
It is staggering in its sheer scale. We read of statistics
about human waste, but this is not a statistic, not a number, it
is reality in your face. The colossal mountain of human and
industrial waste adorns the entrance to Delhi, a monument to the
city and the amazing organizational powers that is a national
government. To be fair, this is temporary - another such
project along the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi has now been
converted into a public park. This too will end sometime, but
for the moment the stench is amazing, but it is also an
unforgettable memory of Delhi, mingling with everything else.
The rest, of course,
is hot, humid, and huge.
Where the lanes of
the old town intertwine impossibly into one another, the fort
and the huge mosque are the centers of activity; giving slowly
out to Lutyen’s plan, two cities separated by time and belief,
both testimonies to empires that have now gone. They are
replaced by a new empire in the making, one that may outlast the
ones before. The Delhi Metro is cutting huge ruthless scars
across the city, contemptuously stopping traffic and creating a
whole new hierarchy of spaces, making the city unrecognizable in
the short space of three years. Was this what Haussmann’s Paris
was like? The difference is that Haussmann is History and this
is here, right now; a community of millions whose sense
of social space will be changed drastically – is changing
drastically – for the foreseeable future. Urban History is
being created, and one can only pass through and carry a few
impressions that will linger.
Delhi Metro
The metro itself,
where it runs, is clean and fast. These are desirable qualities
in a city long accustomed to slow buses and overcharging taxis.
Multinational construction or not, Delhi Metro’s architectural
aesthetic is one that can best be described as ‘Indian Public
Transport Terminal chic’, a lasting quality that emerges in bus
terminals, airports, railway stations, and now the Delhi Metro.
Some of its characteristic features are grey stone finishes on
the walls and floor, creeping potted money plants serving as
corridor and public space punctuator, aluminum-framed window
and door openings, and the ubiquitous wooden security gate that
prefaces entrances. The fact that it is often unmanned does not
detract from its omnipresence. Having said all this, there is
something else, a quality that does not communicate well in
words, perhaps a way in which public buildings are built,
perhaps it is Delhi itself, that gives to even a new building a
sheen of age, like it has always been there, equally legitimate
in history right along the Red Fort and the Jumma
Mosque. The stones of Delhi breathe and give off their own
odor tainted by centuries, and at night the lanes in the
Jumma Masjid throb with activity, contemptuous scoffers at
the others, the Delhi of the hoi-polloi and art
festivals. Art and Culture are the bywords of those who can
afford to buy authenticity and make it into a spectacle.
Jumma Masjid,
Delhi But once again, lets keep the thread. For the moment, the staff at the Metro is friendly and efficient, the trains run fast and on time, and I emerge in Connaught Place, or as a (slightly hysterical) Union minister in the Indian government named it once – Rajiv Chowk. The allegory of a son resting eternally in his mother’s arms (the outer circle of Connaught Place was similarly named Indira Chowk) compares unfavorably and ridiculously to Michelangelo’s Pieta. For the moment, Connaught Place remains a familiar, comfortable name for most, and the white-plastered arcades with their Doric colonnades are still the hub and axis around which the two Delhis meet. Much has changed in the last decade, and much is still the same. There are still excellent bookshops, STC’s Bankura Restaurant, the Volga where the paparazzi hang out over a beer, the chicken and cheese sandwiches at Janpath, and still Orijit Sen’s alternative culture shop the People Tree.
Megha is to meet me
at Nizamuddin Station at 2 30 pm, our train to Kota is at 3.
There was no real need to stop by Connaught Place, except for
the almost inevitability of a visit when passing by Delhi, and
to try out the metro. CP is exhausting after a while, its lack
of true public spaces for leisure – and the heat – meaning that
one has to be on the move. What about a redevelopment plan for
CP that will connect the roof spaces of the arcades to each
other, a public garden that will overlook the Circle, be in it
and yet above, connect and still be aloof. This will provide
extra real estate that can pay for itself by selling concession
spaces, and create that much-needed public green. There are
precedents – examples that have worked well – the promenade
plantée at Paris for example – and created new and
innovative real estate solutions out of space that lay vacant
and unused.
Further away, there
is quiet. At Humayun’s tomb, there is no more power, not now,
though once long ago was a different story. The immensity of
this monument is a testament to the incredible power –
concentrated in one man – that the Mughals wielded at their
height. A World Heritage Site, Humayun’s Tomb is now accessible
for a fee – Rs. 10 for Indian citizens, Rs. 250 for aliens.
Inside, stonecutters work at restoring and repairing the tomb’s
pink sandstone facing, and the chowkidar offers to open
the stairway to the top – for a fee. I’m content to walk around
as it gets time to leave for Nizamuddin, not so far away. August 27, 2006
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The Week of August 27, 2006
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