Mayapuri presents a picture far from what its mythological name connotes. Mayapuri is another name for Haridwar-- “ gateway to the gods.” But this Mayapuri is the gateway to a reality different from that of Lutyens' Delhi. Incidentally Mayapuri, in West Delhi constituency, is from where the richest candidate of Delhi contested the 2009 Lok Shaba election.
As I walked on the Naraina- Mayapuri flyover, I could see the gambrel-roofed FCI warehouses below arranged in rows. Next to it is a bus depot where the monsters basked in the hot sun with their front grills raised, like alligators. Railway tracks separated FCI warehouse and the effluent treatment plant. I held my breath as walked past an open drain running into the effluent plant below.
Next to it is a water-body, which is so nondescript that most residents of the area are not aware of its existence. (I had a harrowing time asking direction to reach it.) I lurched down a pile of glass shreds and concrete rubbles to reach the banks of what is now left of the Mayapuri Lake.
Death of Bhoomian and the loss of innocence.
I felt I had come to keep rose on the tomb of a close friend. A few gulls that flew over it suggested that there were at least a few fishes in the lake. Plastic bottles and human wastes lay on its sides. The bright green grass on one side eating into the lake was in stark contrast to the lack of vegetation where I was standing. I stood there for sometime and I walked along its banks and out through a gate to the main road.
Many years back people in the area used to believe that a powerful spirit called Bhoomian, who lived deep inside the lake, frolicked on its waters. The spirit was believed to have saved many people from drowning. Kids passionately believed in him and elders loved to tell stories about him.
But today, he is definitely not there. He was not just banished but was gradually poisoned to death. The myth now exists only with a few older residents and conservation agencies. Many consider the lake a mere depression “which fills up with water during monsoon.”
Mayapuri Lake, which has a 16.52 acres rich aquifer, first figured in the 1936 Survey of India. And it was there in all the subsequent surveys conducted till 1996—after which no survey was conducted. It is one of the 629 lakes identified to be revived for 2010 Common Wealth Games that is to happen in Delhi.
The lake was a more than five hectares. Now little more than three hectares remain, after DSIDC (Delhi State Industrial Development Authority) built its CETP (Common Effluent Treatment Plant). DISC had initially disagreed that the lake was a water body. But after being proved that it is a lake, the DSIDC compensated by giving an equal amount of land in the nearby Bawana for developing a water body. But the damage was done.
Last year the PWD declared the lake “non-existent” in an RTI reply. In response to this Vinod Jain of the NGO Tapas filed a PIL in the High Court. The petition claims that the lake was under PWD’s jurisdiction till 2003.
The issue was first brought up in 1998 by the NGO, INTACH. Conserving water bodies in Delhi is one of their major activities. Manu Bhattnagar of INTACH says bureaucratic apathy and public detachment, makes conserving natural resources tough.
“They deliberately choose not to know about it.”
“Unless it affects them directly they don’t care,” he adds.
From near the lake I got into another bus that would take me to Mayapuri. After fifteen minutes of ride, the bus-stop names told what the place is about. I passed the bus-stops by the names of “Metal Forging”, “Bobby Soaps”, “Gulab House” (which is an offset printing press) and then “Junk Market” I got down there realizing that Mayapuri was half a kilometer behind.
All the King’s men
I felt a hot whiff of automobile-oil and dust. On one side of the road was a line of tow-trucks, and on the other side were tents made of used vinyl banners and tarpaulins. Hammers, pick-axes, trowels, shovels, frying pans, spades and other odd assortments of iron utensils, were kept outside the tents for sale. They also sold it at the weekly markets. A frying pan is sold for as less as forty rupees and a spade for eighty rupees. There can only be rough estimates how many of them were in this pavement. Police constantly chase them away. The cycle of chasing and returning goes forever. But there could anywhere between 25 to 40 of them in these pavement tents, at a time. Most of them are immigrants from Rajasthan.
Fifty something Vijay Kumar sat in his tent hammering hinges for metal suitcases. Vijay had been foot-loose all his life and had been in the pavements of Delhi for 30 years.
“We are the decedents of King Maharana Pratap Singh (of Rajasthan). My ancestors were nomads since the King went to exile” he claims.
He is a proud grandfather also. His son who is just twenty-two is married and has a kid who is one and a half year old.
He says “I sent my boy to school till seventh grade. But after that the school cancelled his admission because I don’t have an address.”
“What is meaning of education when I don’t have a fixed place to stay?” he asks.
The summer sun was at its peak and I took a autorikshaw back to to “Gulab House.” I got down at the main road I took a turn and headed to a scrap metal factory. Machinery parts lay on the roadside. There also were some makeshift teashops . A dog, curled up under a shop’s vinyl sheets to escape the heat. The roads wore a dusty haze and looked deserted, except for a few vehicles that brought scrap metal into these factories.
The scrap metal capital
Here, the work time is about 8 hours; but most of the workers do an overtime of four hours a day. They pedal to and fro from where they stay --in the nearby slums or in the nearby places like Vikas Nagar and Hari Nagar, or Prem Nagar
“There is fixed salary for eight hours of work. But for over time the payment is arbitary.” says Sreedhar Singh; forget double pay for over time.
In effect these people work for twelve hours a day, for a monthly pay of around 4000 rupees.
Sreedhar told me that he sends all his children to school, and that his eldest one is in ninth grade. So, I was compelled to ask how many kids he has.
“Five” he told, trying to conceal his embarrassment.
His family of seven are squeezed into a 8 X 10 square feet of room in Hari Nagar for which pays 1200 rupees as rent per month He says when he came here 17 years ago from Bihar, he was staying in a “jugghi”(slum) and that now his conditions are better.
Textile and scrap metal industries are the major life-sustainers of this area, though the latter is more. They work on contract of four or five years in a company. After that they will have to shift to another company. There are people who lived like this for more than 20 years.
On the 20th of December 2007, there was a huge strike that completely numbed the area
“That day the traffic from Mayapuri to Dhaula Kuan was clogged,” says one worker
The protest march was the high point of a dharana that lasted for two months. An issue of transferring 500 textile workers to another unit in Manerswar in Gurgaon, had flared up. The protest spread to workers from other industries and they say around 25,000 people took part in it.
But they say it was not just the company’s idea of transferring the workers that led to the protests; the issue had been simmering for quite sometime --the companies had backslid on their promise of payment of yearly bonus of 20 per cent. The company, after many deliberations, has agreed to provide bus-service to its 120 of its workers who will be transferred.. But the future of the remaining 300 odd workers hangs uncertainly. Hearings are still going on in the court. Around seven textile units were closed down since then.
After her six-year contract ended, Seema Gupta joined another textile unit. She had been working there for barely six months, when a fire broke out.
Burned in hell—the case of Seema
“I had hair till my back. Look at it now,” she says tilting her head to one side and holding her short hair in her hand.
A month ago a fire had broken out in the room where she was “cutting threads.” A short circuit had caused around 50 liters of industrial solvent stored in the room to catch fire, with four of them trapped inside.
As she ran out through the flames, her burnt skin dropped on the floor. And her charred clothes stuck onto her skin. The company took her to a private hospital, where they promised to pay for her treatment. She was admitted there only to be discharged in four days.
“ I just came out of the hospital and sat on the road side. I was too weak even to stand.”
The company paid for her medicine for four days and a compensation of 1500 rupees, of which 1000 rupees was deducted from her salary.
“I had to make at least 500 rupees of phone calls to the company to get the compensation,” she says.
“At least my face was not burned” she sighs. Her co-worker Rajeev was not so lucky.
The sun eased its stare, but the land refused. The baked land continued to radiate heat. From where I met the scrap metal workers in the afternoon, I walked straight through the side of a puddle of sewer water to reach a slum.
Ache Lal and his friend
“Mayapuri Jugghi, Rawandi Line, Phase 2” Rajaram told vivaciously when I asked him what this slum is called.
Most people here do not have a permanent job. They do whatever job comes along. They work as masons, loaders of scrap metal, rickshaw pullers—whatever their health lets them to
Ache Lal sits outside his house pedaling a sewing machine with his feet bent inwards by polio paralysis. He introduced me to his friend Ambika Prasad, who is a rickshaw puller.
Ambika is known in the slum as “Naata”(which means the short one). His tan skin was tanned even darker by being out in the sun constantly. His tooth was stained red and he smelt of cheap liquor. He was very animated and invited me to his house. I wound my way through a maze of single roomed houses. All the houses had two floors. I climbed a worn out metal ladder of a bus to reach his room. The floor was made with plywood laid over iron pipes and was covered with used vinyl banners—a common building material in Mayapuri. He and his family of four stay here for a monthly rent of 500 rupees.
The plywood creaked as I stepped on it. Ambika sent his eleven-yearold daughter to buy me “cool drinks.”
Ambika is as philosophical as any other Indian.
“All the fingers in the hand are not equal. But each has its purpose. People are not equal. But each one has to do his work.”
What is most striking in this slum is its complacency. People here don’t complain much.
“I get money to buy food and I’m happy with that” says Ambika.
Rajaram’s only worry that he has not received his electricity bill for two months..
“How will I pay if I get an accumulated bill of six months?” he asks.
I boarded the bus to back home. As the bus sped over the fly-over near the lake I could see the gulls and egrets returning to their nests. The factory workers too pedaled back to their home—some enthusiastic some down cast.
