[Reader-list] Colonial Gatecrashing

[Kanti Kumar]

Dear Friends,

Some Gates open frontiers of worlds afar and relationships distant, and some
shut away the neighbours next door and relationships more real.
Even as we seem to believe the world is shrinking thanks to Internet and
email, Delhi citizens in recent years have suddenly developed such sense of
insecurity about humans next door that they prefer to limit themselves into
smaller worlds. One such middle+upper middle-class colony of South Delhi
where we lived five years ago had these iron gates erected at every entry
point to a street or lane. Interestingly, the gates were placed
strategically in such a way that the enclosed area conveniently excluded -
from late evening to morning - our poorer neighbours who lived in shanties
in the parks and open spaces just next to bungalows and kothis. Those who
lived in the kothis, however, used to depend on our poorer neighbours for
the daily household chores during the rest of the day!

One stormy evening those five years ago, my wife suddenly fell ill. She felt
excruciating pain in the legs and back. Our family physician's medicines
gave her relief, but only for a few hours. As the night progressed, the
intensity of her pain increased and around 3 in the morning it seemed she
would collapse due to the pain. It was then that I rushed, in desperation,
to the only nursing home in the colony which was barely 100 metres from our
house. But there stood between me and the nursing home a locked iron gate. I
went to all the sides of the locality, from one to the next, looking for a
gate that would be open to get an ambulance or doctor. But all the six entry
points to that locality - less than 1 sq km in area - had been locked and
there was no sight of any watchman or guard in that weather. I returned to
my ailing wife disgusted - and completely drenched in the pouring rain -
only to witness helplessly her suffering for another four hours before the
gates to some succour would open. It's another matter that the doctor who
examined my wife next morning gave her medicines for gastro-enteritis and
made her suffer for two more days while what actually caused the pain was an
ovarian cyst!

Today it's easier to connect to the farthest than to relate to the nearest!

Kanti Kumar


-----Original Message-----
From: reader-list-admin at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-admin at sarai.net]On
Behalf Of Sopan Joshi
Sent: 25 January 2002 17:02
To: reader-list at sarai.net
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Colonial Gatecrashing


This is in response to Joy's posting "Gates":

ours was the corner house. the good people of our
Delhi "colony" decided that security depended on a
tall, heavy iron gate. it came up just outside our
very own 'main gate' and was just the sort that Joy
mentions. one of the gentlemen residents of the colony
got the gate constructed. I’m not sure, but i think he
was in the construction business. the stalwart who
guarded this gate was over 50, had a wrinkled face,
and used to walk with a limp. he could barely carry
the weight of his lathi.

one day the gate came down upon the chowkidar and
smashed his head. he died. the gentleman who had got
the gate constructed handled the matter with the kind
of concern and dexterity that one associates with the
Delhi Police. he paid some compensation to the
chowkidar's wife (and blamed the man who had welded
the gate). some concerned people in the colony also
contributed.

a few days later, we shifted to another colony. this
house is on the main road. So we don’t have to
negotiate any gates. but the gate--bigger and heavier
than the one that crashed--is two houses away. and the
chowkidar here is a young man with the first
suggestions of facial hair.



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