[Reader-list] X-1 days to disappearance / Nangla

[Shveta]

Dear All,

NM (Nangla) was lively today (Tuesday, 28th March). There were two new 
faces - Riyaaz and Omveer. Mukesh (who I sometimes run into in Bhogal, 
near where I live) had also come. Akhilesh and Dilip had come. Of 
course, Jaanu was there. "NM is not breaking this week, so you are 
seeing so many faces." Ankur's family is packing the last few remains in 
their house. We had heard yesterday that his family had decided to shift 
on Sunday.

As I entered Nangla, there was a tempo with an entire house packed in, 
ready to move. Akhilesh said, "Wadhwa
Tempo." I met him at the entrance. "It's not an NM tempo. They have got 
someone from outside to move their things".

There was a huge rally yesterday at Jantar Mantar. Rajdar Babbar, VP 
Singh... all political leaders were present. Anwari Aapa, who everyone 
knows but whose name it takes everyone time to remember, had walked 
around NM yesterday with a big stick, catching young men by their collar 
and telling them, "Go to the rally". She has lived in NM forever. A 
young man walked around saying, "This is where I grew up, this is where 
my grandmother died. What should I leave behind here, what should I take 
with me?"

Many went to the rally. It was a huge rally. Women went in big numbers. 
They lost their slippers in the rush of the rally. And also because they 
took them off and beat police. And there was police. Tear Gas. Firing. 
Water hose pipes.

"Mistryji" is just one who has come back with a hole in his arm with a 
bullet hit. "We beat them with all our might. We had worn old slippers 
and gone so we would not regret losing them, or their breaking." They 
all went with belans and sticks too, and used them.

But faces are smiling today. They have been told the demolitions will be 
postponed by three months. What the truth value of this is, I guess will 
be known once some of our comrades go to the nearby police station to 
ask them on which date they have been asked to be present to oversee and 
control the "crowd" during demolitions.

Jaanu had gone to the police station yesterday, with Avantika and 
Shabana (Ankur). The head constable looked at them, then through his 
papers, then around the room, then at them. "Oh break it will. See I 
don't want to break it. But break it will. If not today, then tomorrow. 
But sooner than later. Our force will be present. It has to be. 
Otherwise how will it happen. See, demolitions will happen over four 
days. First two days of peacefully trying to evict, and the last two 
days to make it happen one way or the other. First the most illegal 
ones, and last the pre-98 ones." So now we all have a clearer image, and 
can rehearse it in our minds before it happens.

The landlord of the house in which the lab is, and who lives above the 
lab, has emptied the house. "If it is postponed by three months, maybe I 
can let it out to someone else. I have packed up. When it has to break, 
then why wait?" She had gone to some meeting today morning, and was not 
there when the lab had to be opened, and Jaanu just undid the screws of 
the bolt and opened the lab. She had come in, her child to her breast, 
laughing and saying, "I will have you reported for house break!" She 
spent the entire morning washing the house and the corridor, cleaning 
everything.

There is no electricity in Nangla, since yesterday morning. "It's 
probably a local cut." Jaanu said. "Maybe they cut it or people would 
not have gone to the rally. I am sure they are replacing cables right 
now. I am sure it will be back by evening." Everyone agrees.

"You should have seen this place yesterday." Jaanu again. "I walked 
around after people had left for the rally and put stickers [It quenches 
the thirst of the thirsty...] on everyone's thresholds. I almost got 
beat up. But everyone is hapy with them today. Make sure we have more 
tomorrow to stick, ok? We've finished the ones we had here."

It was as if the entire locality had gone fluid today... so many people 
just came into the lab. Just dropping in, chit chatting, and going away. 
Old men, drunk men, young men, all men. "What are you people doing?" 
Just general chit chat.

Jaanu has decided not to remove the photographs he has stuck on the 
walls. "When the basti breaks, and this room is broken, they will fly 
around and people who pass through will pick them up as puzzles without 
a location."

We made plans today, for a broadsheet, for texts, for photographs of 
decorated (saji huwi) Nangla, for mails to be written on the CM list, 
for companion conversations in the other labs, about the speed of time 
in thinking about the making of NM and the speed of time as we wait for 
it to be broken, about how to write about people who just dropped in for 
a while today, about the texts everyone had written, about Jaanu's plans 
to play his recording of the "Loudspeaker" text maybe from a deck or 
from the microphone of the masjid, about making the lab a convivial 
space for the coming little time, about mails sent out on various lists 
and about how many stories will now slowly link in, about people 
shifting, about cricket, about things in general.

Now I am waiting to see what tomorrow morning will bring.

shveta

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