[Reader-list] Child friendly environment: an observational study of children’s lives in Nizamuddin basti

[Sudeshna Chatterjee]

The full text didn't make it the last time. Trying to send it from another id.
Thanks,
Sudeshna

Child friendly environment: an observational study of children's lives
in Nizamuddin basti

The fieldwork in Nizamuddin basti has finally started off. Though the
first half of February went by in getting the final permission for
interviewing children from the school, things happened at a breakneck
speed after that.

I told the school to draw up a roster of all the children aged between
11 and 12 years. I was given 44 names, 33 girls and 11 boys. I have
randomly selected 21 girls and retained all 11 boys. Of these girls,
about 9 go to neighboring government schools while the rest are all
non-formal education students at the school. Two of the boys are
apprentices in their father's trades—whitewasher and tailor
respectively, while four are non-formal students. Rest of the boys
goes to nearby government schools. The school had originally started
as a non-formal girls school which explains why there are more girls
studying here than boys. The government school kids come here for
educational support in the afternoon. All these children live, learn
and play in Nizamuddin basti. For the purpose of my research this is
quite an ideal situation, I get a diverse range of childhoods in one
place and a community that is by and large homogeneous in terms of
culture and religion.

I had called the parents of all these kids one afternoon and in the
presence of the teacher and the school social worker assisting me in
the project, explained in great detail what was going to happen in the
next six months. Only the mothers had come with sons and daughters.
This did not surprise me, as during one of my many informal chats with
the principal, I was explained the issue of gendered interaction of
the school and the children's families. I was told that due to the
intense gender segregation within the community, the school's
interaction was restricted to mothers. Fathers were not part of the
school-child-parent dialogue. The principal had narrated an episode
about the time  one father had turned up for the weekly community
meeting. He looked into the room and found he was the only man. The
teachers tried to make him feel at ease and made him sit at the back
of the room so that all the womenfolk had their backs toward him.
After some time he got up and said,  " Mein ja rahan hun, aurate hai
yahan to (I am leaving, there are only women here)." So I sent out the
consent forms with children to get parental consent for their
participation in the project. The school social worker also talked to
parents about the project.

Before the interviews started, I walked around the basti at different
times for several days observing daily life as it unfolded around me.
I also spent a couple of days in the school, sitting behind classrooms
of my chosen sample to absorb the language of the children I was going
to interview. I also looked around the city for maps, aerial
photographs, and other information about the physical environment of
the basti. I found a faded 1962 aerial photograph (unfortunately only
a photocopy) of the area inside the draft master plan of Delhi at
SARAI, and found out that Nizamuddin falls under subzone D of urban
Delhi.

I followed up another lead, that of an architect who worked on a book
on the different heritage walks of Delhi (in press). She had
delineated a walk through Nizamuddin basti with plenty of practical
advice for prospective walkers. Lucy Peck had lived in Niamuddin for
the last seven years and had mapped the area. Since her focus is
architectural heritage and a walking tour, her map has an accurate
representation of the monument locations and a detailed area map of
the dargah area. However the commoners homes and local spots are all
part of an amorphous orange built fabric blob.

I had the good fortune of being accompanied by Lucy in one of my
walks. I was explained in detail the history of the place and
explained the intricate street network within the fabric of the
settlement. Sympathetic to my interest in people's systems and
children's outdoor activities, Lucy took me to her maid's house in
Nizam Nagar Basti. I am really grateful to her for revealing this
amazing living environment to me. Nizam Nagar has developed in the
last twenty years as a squatter camp for migrant families coming from
Bengal, Bihar and Bangladesh. The squatters are squatting on top of
the dead, the land being a graveyard.

I had to hold my breath as we snaked through the stinking magical
spaces within Nizam Nagar, the mysterious semi-darkness of these
spaces lit up here and there with shafts of light. We saw a tiny
courtyard that barely managed to hold a grave and its tombstone. This
court was littered badly with all kinds of refuse. We past many
courtyards. All of them had one to many graves in them. We saw
children playing among the dead, clotheslines gently swaying over
tombstones, and normal everyday activities of the household unfolding
around them. A family had just sat down at their threshold near a
grave for their mid-day meal. They beckoned us to come and join them
in their frugal lunch. We thanked them and moved on.

What to make of this complex settlement? There is acute poverty, but
great music, poetry, culture, beautiful monuments, active and alive
open spaces, good-hearted people wanting to share their lives and
their stories with me. The teachers in the school also come up to me
with stories and their experiences in the community as do children. I
have become the keeper of many secrets—the reward and burden of the
ethnographer. When I asked them whether Nizamuddin was a safe place to
live, I was told that one of the reasons the migrants come and settle
in Nizamuddin is because of the perceived safety. But one cannot
ignore the drug menace looming over the community. I was told by some
of the teachers that certain areas are unsafe because of massive drug
use and alcoholism. They even told me how they have heard that
children, sometimes as young as five year olds are used as couriers of
drugs. I have myself seen children playing with fire, playing on the
edge of unprotected barren roofs, playing barefoot on garbage heaps
outside their homes. One day as I was leaving Nizamuddin after an
interview session, I saw a group of kids playing on top of a sand
pile. This pile was mixed with a darker wet substance which I failed
to figure out. One boy appeared to be slightly older, maybe eight
years or so. All the others were smaller in size. The older boy had a
broken glass which he was using as a scoop to dig and distribute among
the smaller boys who held out small white plastic bags, like the ones
used to pour chutney in a chat shop. I asked the driver what the kids
were doing. He said, " arre madam, yeh to khad dal rahe hai, bech ne
ke liye. Yeh khad mehengi cheez hoti hai, bazaar mein nabbai rupaiye
kilo bikti hai, hain (madam, they are digging manure for selling. Its
pretty expensive stuff, sells for Rs. 90/kg)." I had thought the boys
were playing, but found out that many acts of play were economic
activities as well.

I will save the interviews for my next post. I have already completed
ten in-depth semi-structured interviews with nine girls and one boy.
At this point, I would just like to comment that I am finding a
difference in the narratives, both in terms of telling and contents,
of children who had been born in the community and children who are
recent migrants to Nizamuddin. Children's affection for places seemed
to be mediated by how well they know the place, and their general
feeling of being at home in a familiar community peopled with large
social networks. I want to probe more to find out how the same place
which appears friendly to one child (a long-term resident), and
appears unfriendly to another (a recent migrant).

I would value all your thoughts and inputs to this work in progress. I
am also looking for help with transcriptions and translations. If
anyone knows of someone in Delhi who might be able to work with me,
please let me know.


Sudeshna