Musings of a Delhi Boy

Dilli- the ageless whore- is in the midst of a comprehensive makeover. The ancient city is immersed in a boisterous attempt to redefine itself (at least from the outside) and is mushrooming with glitzy malls, swanky flyovers, hi-tech metro, fashion and fame, power and pelf.

Paradoxically, on its wild and cruel roads, alongside these monuments of ostensible modernity, subsist thousands- if not lakhs- of those who are less, or shall we say much less privileged than most of us are. These children of a lesser God have been dealt an unfair deal by destiny , and are condemned to live a life of extreme deprivation , on the edge of destitution, right in the heart of our rich and golden civilization. The worst to suffer, as happens in most such cases, are children, condemned to a life of such heart wrenching misery and exploitation that it can move even the most thick skinned individual to ponder over what ails our decaying social order, even as we tom-tom from roof tops that our glorious country is just a step away from becoming a world super-power.

Thus, on any day, mostly during peak traffic , one will find Dilli streets teeming with beggars of all hues, although a few enterprising types try out a more decent way to make a living, by selling cheap merchandise in the midst of the fast moving chaotic traffic, risking their very life in the process. This trend of selling goods on the roads, though fairly old, has burgeoned over the last decade or so, with the advent of cheap Chinese products. While in the days of yore, wares for sale were limited to pencils/pens, vernacular newspapers, peanuts and whistles, this market has witnessed a revolution of sorts.

Now, the products on display range from rose buds packed neatly in thin cellophane paper to glitzy balloons to pirated English magazines/ books to illuminated yo-yos to cheap calculators/ torches and so on. Each day there is a new product in the market, the startling feature being the uniformity of goods on display – across markets- the phenomenon indicative of a common supply chain.

These forced entrepreneurs, mostly illiterate, are quite market savvy, and are able to sense the pulse of their customers -motorists on busy Dilli roads- with ease and acumen , and adapt accordingly, considering that the time they have on hand to crack a deal is limited to the length of the ‘red’ light at a traffic signal. Thus, if Independence and Republic day lead to a virtual blitzkrieg of the National Flag, then Raksha Bandhan has a plethora of Rakhis on display, New Year will see a proliferation of red balloons, and now, even hitherto unknown occasions like Valentine’s Day and Halloween see a flood of related paraphernalia.

In line with this trend, Christmas sees Santa caps and masks being sold from every intersection and nook and cranny of Dilli, by the old and the infirm, by the young and the diseased, by the disabled and the starving. Most of them wear a sample, for the benefit of their prospective customers, in the process creating an irony which is nothing short of tragic.

Not surprisingly, most ‘Children of a lesser God’ will not be aware of the significance of the Red caps they are out to sell to survive another day. Sadly, their ignorance is matched by that of Santa, who, in his reindeer driven sleigh, with a bag full of goodies slung over his broad shoulders, visits children of the world, dispensing gifts, while the tiny tots revel in their dreams, of fairies and godmothers, of toys and chocolates, ensconced in soft quilts, oblivious of those battered, broken souls, shivering in the bitter Dilli cold, in their tattered clothes, trying to catch a few winks empty stomach, without a roof over their head, who probably need His touch the most?

Santa, you owe these children of a God, no matter how ‘less’, an explanation.