[Reader-list] Shani Bazaar - mapping invisibilities

[aasim khan]

Shani Bazaar is the weekly market at Shahpur Jat
village and in the current phase of our research on it
we are looking at two significant themes. We are
simultaneously interrogating the emergence of the
bazaar in the economically thriving South Delhi and
also its internal psycho-geography.  This posting
links up these two broad themes as we interview one of
the customers of the market. 

Aasim Khan and Shweta Pandit 

The Invisible Market:

The road to Shahpur Jat is divided. On the left is
Asian Games Village and on the other is the historic
Jat village. At this diversion stands the most hideous
of all buildings in Delhi. The Asiad Tower. This
scabby structure of concrete is the worst nightmare of
any admirer of the mughal architecture of Delhi;
imagine a tomb placed over a minaret
 It reminds you
one of those alien warships in B grade science fiction
films with its tiny claustrophobic windows. Towering
over Asian Games Village, it exemplified the
aspirations of Delhi to join the league of Metro
cities in Asia. Today this modern relic signifies the
death of that grand socialist dream.

After the games ended, apartments built to house the
athletes were auctioned by the government and the
sporting facilities were constituted as a sports club.
Senior bureaucrats, renowned artists, top politicians
were allotted residences by their departments or
councils (ICCR, GAIL, IGNOU, DRDO, ONGC et al) which
probably bought the bulk of flats at subsidised rates.
The rest were bought by rich businessmen or industrial
groups like Reliance, IRCON, TCIL. Soon the properties
here were declared POSH in the South Delhi real estate
jargon. After all  Jatin Das, Leela Sampson, the then
DRDO chief, President Kalam, you name it, they were
all here. The club too went EXCLUSIVE. The golf arena
and the squash courts hummed the same tune as the one
in the corridors North Block or the Parliament.


But there was a problem. These houses were not planned
for permanent settlement and unlike the Lutyen’s
Delhi, there were no servant quarters.  After all, the
housemaids, the drivers, the maalis, they had to live
in close vicinity to their masters. Some settled in
the car/scooter garages or the storerooms within the
village while others found refuge in the adjacent
Shahpur Jat. If the women worked as housemaids washing
clothes, mopping floors and babysitting the baba log,
the men either worked as errand boys or found work
outside as skilled labour. These were the
invisible/unintended families of Asiad village and for
them emerged an invisible/unplanned market - the Shani
Bazaar 1987. Today such families from Asiad Village
and neighbouring rich localities constitute a major
segment of the customers at this weekly market. 



The invisible customer:

Zeenat lives with her husband and their six daughters
in a car garage in Asiad Village Complex. Although her
husband is a skilled tailor, our focus is on Zeenat
who as her husband puts it - “ ek dum expert hai
samaan wagerah laney mein”[is an expert in getting
things from the Shani Bazaar]. She makes an earning by
working in one or two households as a cook, house
cleaner and washerwoman. Their family belongs to
Bhagalpur in Bihar. They first migrated to Bombay and
then to Delhi in search of ‘better opportunities’ or
to be more precise – a sustainable living. In her
words she can now save a little and also spend at her
own disposition, something that would be impossible
back home.

Zeenat’s monthly income is around Rs. 1500-2000. Her
second daughter Saira is thirteen and used to work
full time in a household and used to get Rs. 700 per
month. Zeenat has a bank account in the State Bank at
Shahpur Jat and she is saving money for her daughter’s
marriages. Their monthly family expenditure is around
Rs. 6000. Her husband’s income was not revealed to us
and we didn’t pursue the matter forward.

It is interesting to note that while children of the
elite travel to distant areas in Delhi to attend
proper schools, the children of these invisible
families are restricted to local poorly maintained
government schools in the near vicinity. But on the
flip side they enjoy strolling to their schools with a
fruit tucked in their cloth bags unlike the rich kids
who wait endlessly in their AC buses looking haplessly
at the mad traffic jams outside. Zeenat tells us that
this is a critical year for them as the two eldest
daughters enter class IX and X respectively. They
study at Shahpur Jat Vidya Mandirs which charges a
modest sum of Rs.60 per month as fees, though she
complains that the expenditure in buying the books
would bring the cost of her daughters education above
Rs.5000 this year.

Shahpur Jat emerges as the locus of daily activities
in several ways for Zeenat. Her husband has a
tailoring shop .Her children attend school and she
maintains a bank account and offcourse shops at the
weekly market held there. Imagine if Shahpur Jat was
to become a POSH locality with one of those
‘international’ schools, with an elite community
centre and a shopping mall????
 
Zeenat is a financially independent woman and this is
evident in her visit to the Shani Bazaar every
Saturday. Zeenat cherishes the Shani Bazaar. She and
her third daughter who is seven years old have it on
their weekend itinerary. The elder ones aren’t allowed
to go there on grounds of ‘safety’ by their father.
Zeenat is fully conscious that these bazaars are meant
for “them” and not for the rich. Vegetables are much
cheaper there, claims. The girls get their frilly
frocks and shiny red boots from this tinsel town that
animates itself every week. 

Zeenat is just one of the hundreds of customers of the
Bazaar. Her subjectivity may not be common to all
others who come there but the trajectory of her daily
life is a telling comment on the nature of the bazaar.










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