[Reader-list] "Everything is under control"

[CM@Nangla]

March 30, Thursday
Nangla Maachi

A group of policemen is standing at the corner of the lane as soon as you
enter.They are chatting. One of them is holding a black walky-talky, shaped
like a potable radio. It suddenly came to life with a voice wafting through
it. The policeman holding it replied, "Sir, yes, work is progressing well.
Everything is under control. The houses which are supposed to be broken are
being broken. Everything is underc ontrol. Yes sir, our force is all over,
sir. We have spread ourselves all over the basti."
"What's the latest?"
"People whose houses have to be broken are removing their things quickly
and leaving, or sitting together somewhere. Sir, I will keep reporting to
you sir."
The disembodied voice sounds satisfied.

The policemen have pasted their backs to the walls of a house, so that
people walking down with their bed, bags and other things are not blocked,
don't stop.

An official in plain clothes and two policemen are walking around in a set.
The plain clothes man looks around. He is holding a bound sheaf of papers.
He looks around, then looks at his bound papers. Then he pointed - "one,
two, three". People who had come with him with hammers began to move
towards the first house he had pointed at.

People and families who know their houses are to be broken have been
emptying their houses. Their hands are not stopping in breaking apart their
decorations, what they have made, with their own hands. A man stops before
a family packing their things and says, "Bhai sahab, take the plastic and
metal things you can take, sell the rest to a scrap dealer."

There is a mela of scrap dealers in the lanes of Nangla today. They are
filing big plastic sacks with plastic and iron and weighing them. The
dealers in scrap have no rest today, no quiet moment. They have not only
come on cycles, but with push carts today. Among the scrap being sold today
are the foundations of peoples' houses.

A man walks in with his cycle and instruments, calling out, "Get your
stoves repaired, get your stoves repaired." Maybe he is also searching his
everyday in the lanes of Nangla. He keeps calling out, and then passes
through one lane, into another.

Love,
CM Lab, Nangla Maanchi

http://nangla.freeflux.net
http://nangla-maachi.freeflux.net

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It quenches the thirst of the thirsty, 
Such is Nangla,
It shelters those who come to the city of Delhi, 
Such is Nangla. 
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