:: Delhi Greens ::

The most empowering context that we as human beings have created for ourselves as a species is the possibility of language. Creation of words to fit the world that we live in gives us the power to control it and manipulate it. So, while language has a collective, a supra-organic existence, an existence outside of each one of us, it is only because we all continue to use it to describe our world, that it exists. For this is the only way we have created to understand the physical world around us.

Today I went out to the garden for a walk after a long time. The overcast sky made it easier. I was very present to the environment around me and what did I notice. There were a lot of mites, fruit flies, Lady bugs, dung beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, dragon flies, black bugs bees, wasps and blue bottles around. Then there were earthworms, slugs and snails crawling around. An amazing diversity and variety in the middle of a city existed that I was not even aware of.

I realized the impact of not noticing these bugs that exist all around me. I realized that they contribute immensely to our physical environment, by pollinating flowers, turning the soil, cleaning up the dung. I realized that I was not even aware that I am not aware of the contribution that these little living things make to my life.  I had not appreciated the little things in my environment all this while. I do not appreciate the little things in my environment. I will never appreciate the little things in my environment.

I justify not taking responsibility for the environment by creating a language that says this does not apply to urban metropolitan cities like Delhi.  I say environment and its impacts and climate change is for rural people and people living in vulnerable ecosystems. And not me and my community in cities. I justify not taking responsibility for environment by saying that it is not my job for our language tells us that nature doesn’t exist in the city.

I am caught up in a vicious cycle. I do not appreciate my bugs and the environment, so I cannot think of what to do what actions to take to preserve the environment. It reminded me of Calvin in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbs. Calvin is a little boy who has a stuffed tiger as a pet. Tiger is real for him. Hobbs asked Calvin ‘why do you have a bug collection?’ And Calvin answers ‘Because it is there.’

Recently I revisited Oscar Lewis’ thesis of “Culture of Poverty.” Simply stated it tells you that context determines every thing. If you wear rose coloured glasses, everything appears red and if you wear blue coloured glasses every thing appears blue. There has always been a struggle between those who came to a city and live in slums and those who live in flats. Alternate perception of the slums is a material deprivation. Economist define slums as places where the expense per capita is low.

Right now I am staying in a small room of an empty flat. It has nothing. No tables, no chairs, no cupboards, no shelves, no nothing. There is one folding bed to sleep on, one air conditioner to bear the heat. And few very functional electrical appliances like a fridge, washing machine, TV and a gas connection. If one were to buy all these second hand, it would together barely cost you more than a few thousand rupees. My daily expenses are never more than a hundred and fifty rupees. I am eating three meals. I watch television. All this compares well with a person living in a slum.

It allows me to be very functional and creative. I have covered a lot of ground academically by writing and socially by meeting up people I have been planning to since the last few years. I painted canvases and I embroidered. What a great holiday it is proving to be over the last two weeks.

If a slum is a place where there is material deprivation and I am living in a place that has material deprivation why is it that I cannot experience it as a slum? Why do I feel it is a holiday? Because for me the context is very different, for me I am here for two weeks and then I go back to my fully furnished apartment.

Thus, unless the person living in the housing areas sees it be areas that were once relatively affluent but which deteriorated as the original dwellers moved on to newer and better parts of the city, it is not a slum. Hence many shack dwellers vigorously oppose the description of their communities as ’slums’ arguing that this results in them being pathologised and then, often, subject to threats of evictions. Many academics have vigorously criticized UN-Habitat and the World Bank arguing that their ‘Cities Without Slums’ Campaign has led directly to a massive increase in forced evictions, like Yamuna Pushta.

Image courtesy Amirjina via Flickr

Every Monday the formal shops in our locality are closed in Delhi. I love to visit the markets on that day. The small informal traders put up stalls using bamboo sticks and iron bed and wooden platforms or just on a sack on the road and trade for about four to five hours usually in the evening. It is fun to see these stalls and the merchandise that they sell.

Everything is for sale from old and new clothes to furnishing to vessels and trinkets. There is even a dedicated lane for selling fruits and vegetables. I enjoy watching the stall owners and the consumers interacting with each other and among themselves.

That six feet by six feet of space on the road is of vital significance for those four hours to these people. The vendors have a system in place that caters to their needs. There is a water boy who sells water so the vendor (mostly a man, there are only a few Lamani’s- Gypsie women selling knives) does not have to leave his place. Then there is a boy who sells fried hard puris for snacks for the same reason.

Their merchandise is displayed in a very orderly manner and with beautiful patterns.The prices seem to be pre-determined. So no one goes below the minimum agreed upon. There seems to be an unwritten rule that whoever is about to finish his fresh fruit and vegetable stock will sell it first at a discount. He is allowed to advertise the price and actively solicits the consumers. Last but not least the cops too manage the discipline the market by ensuring they stay beyond an imaginary line along the roads so that the vehicular traffic is not completely stopped.

I walked into the Monday merrily observing the vegetable vendors and appreciating the freshness of the fruits and vegetables. I found ‘our’ formal fruit seller selling fruits too. We got into a conversation and I asked him ‘How come?’ to which he said ‘I have to have my feet in both the markets…’ Then he left me in mid conversation to join the crowd.

There was a big commotion. A crowd gathered, some one was being beaten up and his merchandise disrupted. I saw him joining in too. Then the cops came and the crowd quickly vanished. One vegetable vendor who looked visibly bruised went back to his stall or what was left of it. ‘Our man’ came back. No one said anything to the cop including the victim.

‘Our’ fruit seller shared ‘this new vendor was acting too smart and trying new tricks to take away customers from others. We were watching him all this time. But when he crossed the limit today, we had to teach him a lesson. I too ‘washed my hands’ on him. But I punched him lightly. Who knows tomorrow may be my turn’.

I asked what happens to the vendor who was beaten up. He explained, disrupted merchandise is punishment enough for him. He said if he is smart he will learn to conform quickly. If he is not he will not be able to survive here. He has a choice…don’t we all?

Image courtesy s_w_ellis via Flickr

It is my friend’s birthday today. I picked up the phone and wished him. While talking on the phone, we tried to relive our past of climbing trees and eating green mangoes. Staring out of the window, there it is, a bunch of green mangoes, between the delicate white flowers of Jamun tree, and the light yellow spotted flowers of the Tamarind tree on the compound wall of our society. I have looked at them almost every day since the past one month, but have no courage to do anything to get them. We, as kids, have often climbed these trees and thrown stones so as to drop some mangoes and almost always gotten scolded by adults. As an adult, I now continue this tradition of scolding the kids for doing so!

As I look out, there are a few kids from the block who have gathered around the tree with sticks and stones. It is a Sunday, a good day for them to get the mangoes down. Some have even climbed the tree. I walk down towards the tree, they all move respectfully to let me pass. I hesitate. These are the same kids to whom I had scolded telling them to leave the mangoes alone only a few days ago. I turn back to return upstairs. Then I look around my building to make sure no one is watching.

I muster courage to talk to these kids. I ask the taller one if I could join them. I suggest I could climb the tree and get some mangoes. He looks surprised. Then his gang goes into a huddle. Obviously my height advantage must have gone in my favour, so would my adult status and the possibility of a good laugh if I fall. They come back beaming.

I climb the tree. I am rather awkward, I get a few scratches, I slip, but I persist encouraged by the gang. This climb is after a gap of several decades. By now the word has spread. Every window and balcony is full of people discretely peeking out to see what I am up to and laughing. I manage to rest on a branch and lift the stick to hit the bunch and along with the mango, comes the shattered glass of my own window. Now every one laughs loud and the neighbours are out in the open.

Shall I tell you something, it did not bother me. I did not feel troubled, or insulted. In fact I laughed too. To slip or cut myself or to not get what I want is not new to me, at my age. Being able to give up my inhibition, my self declared greatness, my ego, and join the gang, be one of them, felt great not just by me but by them too. It was totally worth it. I grew a few decades younger and the trees grew more significant in my urbane life.

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An increasingly common sight in cities

Bulldozers are furiously scrapping earth from a garden adjoining an artificial lake in Vashi Sector 10 of New Bombay. Or so a recent news item in the Times of India dated 8th April, 2010 read. We immediately reacted by saying that so much for open spaces, for playgrounds, and for children in the neighborhood.

We tend to think of lakes, rivers, mountains, ridges passing through urban areas as a burden for our living environment in metropolitan cities.  The only way we want these natural environments to impact us is by providing clean river fronts with cool breeze, flowing clean waters, trees for shade and flowers and fruits, with lots of birds bees and bugs, so that our aesthetic sensibilities are satisfied. We look at nature in urban environment as a duality, environment versus cities. Nature in urban environments exists or should exist in order to make our life beautiful.

So the news about the judicial order to restore the lake is frowned upon by us. The Mumbai High Court supported a Public Interest Litigation and pulled up the commissioner for filling up the lake to create a garden. 1.1 ha. of land was dug up to create these lakes or holding ponds at a cost of 12 crores just 35 years ago to protect the (planned) urban development along the shore line and the estuary. City Industrial Development Corporation that was responsible for developing the city created these large ponds to hold the monsoon runoffs during high tide. These ponds also hold creek waters during high tides regularly.

But the truth is that the lakes are part of a more extensive ecosystem which our essential for the survival of cities which are usually found near water whether river fronts or sea coasts. Almost all cities are build near some water front. In Mumbai, when they were looking for solutions for the monsoon flooding twenty years ago, it was suggested to use the Mahalakshmi Race course as a holding pond. Hyderabad has a series of ponds which are used for irrigation purpose. Delhi has a very wide river basin that is allowed to flood during rains. In a river front city usually cities develop on only one side of the river so that the flooding does not affect the urban settlements. Sea fronts have wave breakers or holding ponds.

In the solutions of today are problems of tomorrow. Take for example the environmental problems of today, before the mid 70’s no one really talked about them. Industrialization and mass production of goods and services was not seen as a problem but a solution to ‘human wants’, a desirable outcome. It was the seminal article of Rachel Carson that the environmental issues of industrial pollution began to be seen as an ‘problem’.

But wait a minute. It is not that simplistic. We do go closer to restoring the natural cycle we have disrupted by our intervention over time as we realize it. As, after the problems came clean technology, reduce, reuse, recycle, and more and more efficient production of goods.

In the 80’s, there were talks of deforestation and fast growing Eucalyptus trees were promoted along with Australian Acasia and Subabul as an intermediate step so that local indigenous trees like Peepal, Banyan and Neem etc.–that live longer but are slow growing–can replace them in the end.

In 2000, there were talks of bio diesel and now in 2010, every one is talking of bio diesel and Jatropha as a wonder shrub that grows in semi-arid areas and produces oil while USA is talking of using its surplus corn to produce green diesel. Yes this could be the first cut the fast growing easy to access less resource consuming seed for bio diesel. But then there are slow growing indigenous trees that would be long lasting for producing the same bio diesel.

I am not a natural scientist but just common sense understanding tells me this is possible. How about exploring indigenous sees like castor oil plants or Pongum or Glumohur or Laburnum or Flame of the Forest. They have large pods, they have seeds and I know for sure Pongum seed oil is used for lighting in tribal homes. The others may need better technology to extract oil.

But if you can extract edible oil out of rice husk, surely we can do it out of seeds of all these trees and the collection would provide employment and there would be vested interest in protecting these trees as they give money once a year. Does anyone know about these kind of initiatives? I would appreciate if you could share it.

Image by Gilderic courtesy Flickr Via Creative Commons

Trees, pavements, markets, people…everything has been ‘uprooted’ or ‘transplanted’ for the CWG 2010

I am in this Monday market in my East Delhi neighbourhood buying vegetables and suddenly all the trader shopkeepers of informal stalls start wrapping up their goods and merchandise on display. I heard a few complains about ‘they’ could have told us earlier before we set it up today. These traders are packing up and there are a few policemen around, a Hawaldar and an Inspector with them.

While walking on, I overheard a conversation, a cop apologizing to a middleman cum negotiator, “your think there is any benefit for us in having to shut down this market?’ That was the first time I came face to face with the connectedness of the cops to the local traders and how much they were equally helpless due to the orders coming from the ‘top’.

I like to think that the state is a monolith and every one who is on the other side–the judiciary, the executive and the police are on one side and the common man on the other which also includes these small traders.

The rest of us are mere victims of this and we all experience it in our every day lives. One trader winding up the stall explained to me that it is because the Games are coming to the city. Did I ever anticipate the impact of the Commonwealth Games on the weekly markets spread throughout Delhi starting from now till September? No.

These markets are the heart of the city affecting the livelihood of the small informal traders in the city. Will the income lost be more than compensated for by the new job opportunities that would be available in the city then?  I don’t know. Is this a one time thing like a rehearsal or will it continue every week till the Games? I don’t know. After sealing the border and keeping a watch for terrorist will it be enough to keep the violence at bay? I don’t know.

The only thing I know, is being connected and in communication with people who live in our neighbourhood, makes us feel good, feel that we belong to the city and do not feel alienated by it. We trust each other. We experience power and freedom in our own city. The actions that follow are then to keep a watch for what is suspicious in our neighborhood. We wish or nod to each other and form a community to which we all agree we we belong. The need to get violent and to support violence disappears.

Flying past, rolling on the roads, flying above them on major roads in Delhi are parachute shaped tiny seeds of “Saptaparni” going the way the wind will take them. The flowers of this tree are not so prominent. Then there are small round seeds coated in soft cotton balls seeds of the Silk Cotton tree of the “Panchparni.” These have, almost a month ago, displayed their splendour of bright large red to orange coloured flowers. These are especially noticeable as there are no leaves on these trees. Both blossomed six weeks ago.

Then the Gulmohars and the Laburnums and the Pongams are in full bloom because of the heat and the sun. These are trees planted way back in DDA colonies, school compounds and open spaces. While the Neem, Peepal, and the Banayan trees compete with these and grow any way. Today, they are delicate green with new leaves in the heat, slowly turning dark green. It is like cookies being baked in this heat.

These are sights we notice in spite of our busy schedules in our every day lives. It would be a good idea to be aware of these sights and the impact it has on our lives. The good impact of large trees with green foliage is in providing shade when it rains in Delhi or when the sun is too strong, and to visit the shikanjvi stall set up under them. The bad I can think of is being uprooted in storm. The use these trees have in our lives is the first step towards taking action.

Living in cities we are alienated from nature and environment. Most of us wake up in the morning by the Metro train or the buses honking in the streets. We get ready to eat bread for breakfast. We use natural gas in cylinders or pipes to cook. We rarely walk to our place of work. We may knit but almost never weave our clothes. With the malls and all the year round shopping festivals and eco-villages , we have begun to depend more and more on our own vehicles to visit these places. Hence I truly appreciate the efforts of Delhi Greens in supporting the organizing of, and making people aware of, over half a dozen environment friendly events on Earth Day happening in the city this week!

Some of us do this routinely. I board the Metro at Connaught Place (CP) to go to NOIDA at 6 pm. The platforms at CP are very crowded. A train comes and leaves the platform. A few people from the crowded platform manage to board the already crowded Metro, more arrive. A constant flow of crowd is maintained on the platforms.

It reminds me of the floods in Yamuna after a point when the basin fills up, a constant flow of water continues to keep the river full and in motion. The four rakes of the Metro and the platforms are crowded.

What are the faces in this crowd? They are exactly like the draining of the Yamuna basin after the floods. Like the plants planted before the floods are completely wiped out, the basin is flattened and washed out. There is no freshness, no brightness, the faces all look drained out. These faces, after a hard days work, have no energy and enthusiasm. Some faces are staring in the blank and others talking on the cell phones, uninterrupted, almost afraid to stop and face the silence.

The trains are coming, the announcements are continuing, the crowds are swaying. While all this is in full swing and I have managed to be pushed into the Metro, suddenly, I don’t know how, a tiny moth with a brightly coloured blue circles on its wings flew into the compartment. It flew around for some time and then settled on the tube-light and the blue circles sparkled.  After taking the rest, it swayed up and down in the crowd. At every station, it would disappear and then reappear as the crowd ebbed and flowed.

Then suddenly as it had managed to come in the rake, it managed to flow out on the platform, when the doors opened and perched itself on the brightly lit sign and the train pulled out.  I am amused. I wonder how many from the crowd noticed this fun and are cheered  by that tiny bit of nature?

Also Read:

• Nature – The Greatest Magician!

No doubt there are environmental costs to the rolling out of the physical infrastructure like water supply pipes or roads or electric city production and distribution and even telecom development. We are all concerned of the cost to the environment. The public policies like Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) gets a flack from us development professionals for similar reasons. But have we seriously considered what life is like without any of these infrastructure roll outs?

I clearly remember that October night, the night before Bhaiya Duj in Diwali. I was standing in my neighbours house some twenty five years ago using their large black telephone instrument. It was almost past 10.30 pm. I had already made one wrong number, one engaged call and another got disconnected. Now the telephone was ringing at the other end. My neighbours were my very good friend’s parents, but their patience was now wearing out.

Before this, I had been trying this call from 6 pm onwards using public telephones and had already spent Rs. 5 over a call that costs fifty paisa. The last call attempt was one from the corner grocery store. This telephone had a queue of users. When my number to dial the call came, and I had barely managed to get the neighbours of my aunt to get her on their telephone, the shop keeper disconnected saying it is past three minutes and he would not make any exceptions.

My aunt lived at quite a distance from where we stayed in the city. Next day we had plans to visit her with my father who was traveling. He had earlier in the day called my mother on her office telephone to say that he will not reach early morning as planned but will reach by noon so we need to make our annual visit to my aunt a dinner instead of lunch. When my mom reached home from office I was assigned to convey this message to her. Now, at 10.30 pm, once again I had managed to get through to her neighbour and they left the telephone on hold to call her at this late hour…and then the telephone, after 5 minutes of being on hold, got disconnected.

Image courtesy: Pankhuri Singh