Of promises, trysts and writer’s block, free fall and twenty eight worksheets!

...I had made a promise to myself...and a tryst with my destiny to never write ever again... and have been living up to it for quite a few months now! and now..when times have changed (and I am six months older -read wiser), I see that breaking trysts with destiny is sometimes more gratifying than living up to it because it made sense at that point in time....

Having decided to begin writing all over again, I am faced with a overpowering sense of a writer's block. I have been contemplating where I should begin- whether I should begin writing about life or about work or politics or about love or about the politics of life, love and work- I am quite confused and always almost end up staring at a blank document for about 56 seconds (that's the average free time per day my job as a teacher gives me!) before I either fall asleep or have to move on to correcting a bunch of papers.

As I was sleepily wading my way through a sea of worksheets, I realised it was December already and Christmas was around the corner- It lit up my face and reminded me of how I love playing Santa to myself every Christmas (an annual narcissistic act I allow myself!) and here goes my run up to my Christmas present- my promise to write... write for the love of writing... to hinge off from the writer’s block and do the “free-fall” act!

So here goes... “iamthefireiamthelight version 2.0 “ whilst I jump back to my sea of worksheets, corrections and my promise to write, you can pump in ideas to fight my writer’s block....to convert my verbal diahorrea into a blogger's diahorrea....

Expressways - quickest way to wiping out urban poor

How do you like the idea of zooming along a lovely, wide expressway with loud music in a SUV or a bike- sounds wonderful right? If that meant, having to give up your home and moving 20 km away from the city, would you still like those roads?

If you could reach desired destination in 8km, would you prefer travelling 19km to reach the same destination?

These are the two (among the several) problematic issues surrounding the celebrated elevated expressways, that are marketed as harbingers of urban development for Chennai. (“Celebrated” it is, as the Prime Minister felt it was important enough to fly to Chennai to lay the foundation stone himself on January 8, 2009. If only he had the time to travel another 20 km and see the resettlement colonies for the evicted poor….)

The two problems being-

1. The expressway projects are an euphemism for throwing out 30,000 families to Kannagi Nagar (Asia’s largest resettlement colony, an urban poor’s nightmare brought to life by Government)

2. The already existing Poonamallee high road connecting Chennai Port to Koyambedu extends for 8 km; whereas the proposed Expressway connecting Chennai port to Maduravoyil is 19 km long, questioning its need, when Poonamallee road can be expanded instead.

Slums along Coovum in Choolaimedu and Chetpet area face fresh threats of eviction due to the proposed Chennai Elevated Expressway connecting Chennai port to Maduravoyil. Earlier, in November 2009, children from the slums along Coovum sent a petition to the Chief Minister requesting not to evict them half way through their academic session, as their education will get hampered. Thus, slum evictions were temporarily stopped. Now, with the academic session ending in another month, fear of eviction haunts the slum dwellers.

The expressway is implemented under Phase-VII of the National Highways Development Project by National Highway Authority of India. However, the feasibility studies was done by a private consultancy firm, called the Wilbur Smith Associates. Right from its inception, the Expressway has been criticized for poor cost-benefit analysis and its need has been questioned. Moreover, the road which is constructed for heavy containers has 10 hairpin bends, which is dangerous. The Government proposes to resettle slum dwellers at resettlement colonies at Kannagi Nagar, which is a slum dweller’s nightmare. Both, the expressway itself and its consequences suffered by the poor pose problems.

Even as this project has just begun, it has evicted 1300 houses in Chetpet area. Anjalai, who lives in mortal fear of losing her home, says “We hear such horrible things about Kannagi Nagar., that it seems like a punishment for being poor in Chennai.” She wonders why the rich people never face eviction threats. One fails to understand why no commercial building along the expressway is being demolished. Most slum dwellers haven’t received proper notices, and this increases trauma of displacement. One wonders if a 1655 crore project had no funds to prepare notices and ensure it reaches the “victims” of the project.

The elevated expressway from Chennai port to Maduravoyil is only the tip of the iceberg causing slum evictions. There are at least 6 more expressways planned for Chennai city. Interestingly, all of these are along water bodies where there is a high concentration of slums.

“Urban development” and “expressways” seem to have become a euphemism for wiping poor out of urban space. An idea of inclusive growth seems to have come down to mean, inclusion by exclusion of the urban poor. This brings one to the question of urban space, its utility and citizenship. Urban poor are generally seen as “illegitimate” citizens of the city. The issue comes from lack of policy and legal regime to protect the urban poor, from displacements. If the civil society and we, the public continue to live in a comfort zone and allows its urban poor be thrown out like garbage, the eviction devil may feed on us soon.

The impoverishing Common "wealth" Games2010

The country’s capital is getting cleaner, greener and all set to show off its beauty and splendor at the Commonwealth Games 2010. Bigger roads and better roads, greener parks, better metros and what not! The Commonwealth Games scheduled to begin on October 3, 2010 is seen as a promise to leverage India's stock in the world. It is viewed as an opportunity to showcase the “shining” India, and establish the country as one that can host an event of “global standards.”

This cleaner and greener is happening at the cost of Delhi’s urban poor, who are evicted to make space for the Commonwealth Games infrastructure. Very shortly, let me outline the reasons for evictions. First, the construction of the games village on the banks of River Yamuna requires slum clusters residing in that space to be evicted. Secondly, Delhi feels it is important to show the world a clean, systematic and beautiful city. This calls for beautification projects and development of infrastructure like metro, buses and roads. Thus, the helpless urban poor of Delhi are swept away and hidden, to save the city the embarrassment of displaying its poverty. Who would want to see the hungry and homeless? Don’t people like that stop existing in a country that can spend close to 2000 crores on a 12-day event?

In November 2009, (while the “aam aadhmi” were struggling with a 14% inflation of food prices), the Indian Government doubled budget of the 2010 New Delhi Commonwealth Games from Rs. 767 crore ($163 million) to Rs. 1,620 crore ($344 million). Several reasons were pointed out, justifying the need for a bigger budget. Despite doubling of budget, not a single rupee was allocated towards rehabilitation and resettlement of the evicted poor of Delhi. It seems like everybody is pretending like the evictions and demolitions aren’t happening.

The 12-day event that is changing the landscape of Delhi is doing it, at the cost of several lives, literally and figuratively. Late last month, Municipal Corporation of Delhi demolished a temporary night shelter at Pusa Road, leaving 250 people out in the cold, which allegedly resulted in two deaths. The Delhi High Court on January 7 requested the immediate restoration of the shelter and the protection of the uprooted families has fallen in deaf ears. In reality, the number of shelters for urban poor have reduced from 46 to 24 at Delhi. The Common Wealth Games is allegedly a reason for several shelters being closed down. The whimpish United Nations has made (muffled) noises about how the preparations for the Commonwealth Games should not be the reason to force the poor to live under the open sky. All of this does little to the great conviction displayed by the State to do full justice to this opportunity to conduct this world class event.

While such atrocities are orchestrated against the poor, what we see in the media is the honorable president assuring us that ‘every effort will be made to ensure a befitting and successful conduct of the Games’ or a worried Sheila Dikshit, afraid of failing to conjure a magic “world class city” for the Commonwealth Games. The concern centers on the “prestigious” game, and not about the shameful acts of violence the city is inflicted upon its poor.

The “cleaning and beautifying” of the city, is an euphemism for demolitions and destruction of the “filthy” aspects of the city. It is a case of developing a world-class city, angering its own citizens. It is not that displacements don’t happen otherwise—India today houses maximum number of internally displaced people than ever before. But when so many lives are sacrificed for a 12-day event, it is more problematic. It is not that the displaced people are provided resettlement. A very small population is resettled and the resettlement quarters are so poor, that it brings with it tons of other problems.

Cities tend to present a hierarchy of legitimate citizenship and the poor are treated as illegitimate occupants of urban space. The policy and legal regime doesn’t stand by the urban poor, nor are their services given due recognition. The bourgeoning middle class is only too comfortable to believe that the urban poor are illegal occupants of the urban space, and remain apathetic to displacements. This makes it easy for the poor to be evicted (and if they are lucky enough, be resettled) according to the whims and fancies of the State. If at all evictions must happen, there is still a possibility to carry it out in a more reasonable and humanitarian fashion.

It is hard to believe that resettlement will happen- for there people who were evicted to make space for the Asian games in 1982 at Delhi, still waiting to be resettled. Come this October, international dollars will pour into India, celebrities will add glitz to newspapers and magazines and the media will celebrate and congratulate this Great Indian “success”.

All of this, reminds me of lines from good old AbbA…

“Winner takes it all…

The loser standing small…...”

It is immaterial who the winners are, at the Commonwealth Games 2010, for we already know who the losers are- the hundreds of the homeless, deprived and displaced whose lives are changed forever....

The India I love...that inspires...

In my head, I could hear voices of the Indian pledge or the slogans we shouted in school for several independence days, of the songs we sang in praise of the great India…. “India is my country… All Indians are my brothers and sisters…”… and some more….. in lines of how proud I am about my India- But, I am not able to see what is the India we are talking about? I wonder why was I made to speak those words, without telling me what it is that I am proud of ? What is it that I must love? What is the reality that I am proud of?

There can’t be two realities…

But, today we are being shown two realities—One reality is the “Shining super power (read nuclear power) India”… one where political entrepreneurship has expanded into making education, real estate and shopping malls its successful ventures… The India that can afford to spend Rs.120 for a movie at Inox without having to think twice……we are talking about an India where everybody has cellphones and two wheelers… we talk about BPO’s and job creation.. of tall offices and taller arrogance of money and power….and of hurriedly climbing ladders to be world’s “best”…world’s “first”...world’s “largest”…

Then there is this India, the “Dying super poor India”… where farmers produce to export, and stay hungry as they can’t consume what is being imported to eat… where 78,000 mothers die every year without seeing the face of the child she just delivered…and there are 2.1 MILLION mothers who live to see their child die, of hunger and starvation within 5 years… this moment as you read this..as I write this.. there are millions of children who are hungry and malnourished (I can safely say that, for India is the third largest malnourished country!) ..this is real.. it’s more real than Shahrukh Khan’s movie release facing obstacles; its definitely more real than the IPL cricket matches…

I find it hard to join the jingoism about shining India or the “aam admi ki jai” kind of India…! This India is about numbers… Of course !Only about those numbers(like 8% economic growth) that are glamorous and orgasmic… and NOT about numbers that scream that 46% of children suffer from malnutrition or about the 8% SC/ST population that is being vulnerable targets for internal displacements…. I find it hard to digest these numbers and find the energy to love…

When I ask myself, then what is it about this country that I love….

… I love this country ... for all those people, who fight eviction and sit in their homes, fighting for their rights….

For all the parents who send their children to government schools with little or no infrastructure, and hope to see their sons and daughters as doctors and IAS officers…

I love the wilderness that still lives in the country…

I love the expression of anger of an entire village boycotting elections, in a forgotten democracy…

I love the anarchic spirit of the struggles in the country this very moment-- that successive governments have been able to do little about…

I love the voices of dissent that may lose their battles, but remind the State that they have to fight them before executing their acts of injustice…

I am in awe of the spirit of farmers, who still continue to produce; unaware that the commodities and futures market decides whether they perish or survive…

It is this I love about my country… This gives me space to hope that the dissent coming from injustice, engineered by the “democratically” elected state can’t be silenced… or commoditized and outsourced… It is this space that I love about this country…that I wish will grow in strength… this space that I wish more people would belong to…

It is this India that touches me..that inspires me...

(P.s: Thanks Divya! It is the conversation with you… that got me thinking… and popped into the blog as a post… I dedicate this post to you:)!)

This is what happens when there is work to do... and there’s truth to say...

“There’s no love on earth; there is no happiness on earth.. there is only the mind and its evil ways of working...there’s no love; there’s no happiness” .. I am chanting this to myself as I pull out two slices of bread to toast .... I am hungry.. for food.. for love.. for answers... for poetry.. for a good book.. for the right music.. for time.. But the hunger for food was easiest to satisfy... and I was pulling out bread to toast..chanting to myself...” there’s no love; there is no happiness...”

By global standards, I fall into category of those” loved and adored “ ones...I have photos that look like they would burst with laughter...I have held hands and whispered faith and made smiles...I have messages in my phone that talk of love of all kinds....I have smiles to smile into when I walk down corridors...I have bunches of phones numbers to call if I need to be rushed to a hospital... I can count at least ten people who would remember my birthday even if facebook and orkut died suddenly...I live in a campus that a hundred other young hearts would kill to live in...I can find five missed calls in my phone if I am not back at home by eleven at night...I have a fair share of envy..and broken a few hearts through all of this..I have been spoken to, about loves and lives together..and here I am sitting between an apple and sandwich telling myself “there is no love; there is no happiness... there’s only the mind..and its evil ways of working”...

Strange it may seem..But most truthful things are strange.. it is the strangeness that makes one sit up and recognise truth from the untruth... truth has come to be out of ordinary.. and strange...

Strange or not... “there is no love; there is no happiness... there’s only the mind..and its evil ways of working”... I kept chanting as I munched the bread.. and worked my way through the apple.. The evil apple that fell off the tree on Newton’s head, helping him give gravity its name and make comical formulae out of it( I still don’t know how I ever learnt them or passed those exams)... before I could remember anything about those exams, I finished the apple- eating in the memory of the falling apple...complicated newton..and those draining hours of physics classes...and of love and happiness...

Love is memories that are breathed to life by pain... and pain breathed to life by memories...and then there is this idea of happiness, which is the marketing strategy for us to buy love... Happiness!!!!- I laughed...Happiness is the most marketed commodity on earth... overpriced...over rated.. and yet..most easily bought..and even more easily lost.. only to buy it all over again...

Well...

Here’s to more love...and happiness... and more thoughts over breads and apples...