[Reader-list] Re: [Commons-Law] Re: Nangla/SC Proceedings/Notes/9th May 2006

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Thank you, Lawrence,

for bringing us back into the desert of the real.
driving down the ring road yesterday, just before you hit what used to 
be Nangla Machi on the left, I saw, arrayed on the railway bridge, and 
the under construction Metro Rail line, two hoardings, illuminated in 
neon backlit glory.

One, advertised DLF, and the other Ansals (the very same who once 
brought you a raging inferno in technicolour, co-produced with the Delhi 
Vidyut Board, in a cinema, appropriately titled Uphaar, during the 
matinee show of a film appropriately titled 'Border). DLF and Ansals are 
both real estate, property and construction behemoths in Delhi and the 
National Caputal Region. (I love the term National Capital, because it 
so neatly dovetails 'National' with 'Capital', as it should). The signs 
  leading up tp Nangla Machi, true signs of our times, promise more 
malls, luxury condominiums, hotels and other construction endeavours, 
promising, by implication, yet more of the grand re-fashioning of the 
National Capital that is underway today.

There will in fact be no housing shortage, the signs seemed to suggest, 
provided you are the kind of person, the honourable Supreme Court has 
decreed as being fit to live in this city of inclement weather.

I love those signs, just as much as I am awestruck in admiration of the 
Honourable Justices Pal and Katju, and the Supreme Court in general.

Even before the dust (and fly ash) from the demolitions has settled, and 
there is another round to happen in 3 weeks time, the space of what once 
was the 'unauthorized, informal city' has been symbolically sealed and 
cordoned, re-claimed, if you like (in a different sense from the way in 
which the inhabitants of Nangla Machi 'reclaimed' a living neighbourhood 
out of a heap of fly ash)  by these signs, courtesy, DLF and Ansals. I 
like the way the sings stake their claim, in a manner not unlike the way 
in which urban canines mark territory on lamp posts and car tyres. It is 
so befittingly urbane.

And, speaking of contempt, I would plead that I have no contempt, only 
admiration for the institution of our judiciary, and this honorable 
bench in particular. Their wisdome strikes awe into our hearts, as it 
should.

They have demonstrated, that just as the Indian Railways have many 
classes of coaches, first AC, first, second AC, three tier Second AC, 
'ordinary' three tier, and general, or Janta class, so too, the engine 
of justice in our hallowed republic, pulls different kinds of coaches, 
first ac, second ac, all the way to Janta class.

It is in the Janta class, in the unreserved category, that what Shahid 
Amin would call the city-jan (not to be confused with Citizen - see my 
last posting on 1857 on the Reader List) rides, in fits and starts. 
'adjusting' (as one does in trains) to the time table, to the driver, to 
other passengers, to the ticket checker's contempt, to everyone, 
patiently, with stoic good humour, hoping for the occasional spell of 
pleasant weather in an otherwise unforgivingly hot and cold and dry and 
rainy country.

best

Shuddha