After the storm

As we step into October, the aftershock of the explosions that shook Delhi on the evening of September 13, 2008 lingers. The blasts continue to echo in the hearts of those who lost family members or friends that fateful day. Survivors and eyewitnesses continue to struggle with their memories of the horror as they carry on with the business of everyday life. Investigative agencies grapple with lists of suspects. The media goes into overdrive with the blame game, laying all responsibility at the home minister’s door. Television shows ring out with the dire voices of experts who pontificate about Intelligence failure that weakens our war against terror. They repeat the same pronouncements they had issued in October 2005 after the deadly blasts at south Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar Market. Anchors whose penchant for melodrama soared in the wake of the 2005 blasts hit the same feverish pitch. There was no escape from the sickening wave of déjà vu that sweeps you away as you watched their onscreen antics.
These were the avoidable repeats. But there were repetitions of the welcome kind too.
Life affirming acts that helped the city get back to its feet. A display of steely grit and determination to carry on in spite of the clouds of fear that mushroomed overhead. A spirit of survival that burnt bright, refusing to be snuffed out by the darkness of that night. Delhi is branded callous and brash, a city that runs on the wheels of the maxim of might is right. Yes, citizens of the capital are capable of monumental insensitivity. We pollute the Yamuna at every step of its journey through Delhi. We hack away carelessly at the Ridge which purifies the lethal smog that we inhale. On the streets, we speed past accident victims even as they bleed to death before us. In the rush of our hectic lives, mercy is in short supply. The city’s sins are many. But when calamity struck, it revealed a different face.
As soon as the news of the blasts spread across town, Ashok Randhawa, president of the Mini Market Traders’ Association, Sarojini Nagar gathered a bunch of volunteers and drove down to RML hospital where many of the injured were admitted for emergency treatment. The volunteers were on call day and night for blood donation. Randhawa also made sure that the patients’ relatives were provided food and water at regular intervals. He had lost a dear friend in the October 2005 blasts at Sarojini Nagar Market. The memory of his friend’s death spurred him into action when three city markets were stunned by the blasts on September 13.
There were many other random acts of kindness that night that went unreported. Buoyed by them, the city began it slow trudge towards normalcy the next morning.
Delhi is a city of survivors. History tells us so. City residents taste the truth of this historical fact on a daily basis. Mighty empires were built and razed to the ground here. Seven cities, (beginning from Indraprast of the Pandavas) stretch like shadows behind the face of Delhi as we know it now. Each shone like a jewel in its heyday. Many crumbled into dust as time went by. The city has seen some of the most brutal invasions in recorded history. In 1739, Nadir Shah and his army ransacked the city and unleashed a terrifying orgy of violence. Rivers of blood flowed on city streets. Emperor Shah Alam, the ruler of Delhi, was blinded in the presence of his courtiers. The city was forced to say goodbye to two of its invaluable treasures: the Peacock Throne that had adorned the Diwan-I-Khas for centuries; the Kohinoor, the diamond that symbolized Delhi’s grandeur (‘who-so-ever holds the Kohinoor holds Delhi’ goes the legend).
Delhi is no stranger to loss. It has been built and rebuilt, brutalized in unimaginable ways. The city is a phoenix that has risen from the ashes of every catastrophe. Millions of refugees flowed into the city after Partition ripped apart the sub-continent in 1947. Delhi grew like a hydra-headed monster to accommodate them. It is a city that defies geography; a city that keeps expanding at will; bursting at the seams with a population that charges ahead at the same manic pace as Delhi does.
The old and the new boast of a brazen co-existence here. There is room for the crumbling havelis of Old Delhi as well as the upstart skyscrapers of New Delhi. Room for the roadside barber and the five-star stylist’s salon; the computer programmer and the calligrapher. Delhi is its crumbling forts and tombs and the lush green garden the Lodhis built many moons ago. It dances to hip hop and stays up all night to listen to a Sufi singer pour heart and soul into his song at a dead saint’s tomb. Delhi is a kaleidoscope that can never make complete sense – a mix of faiths and customs and communities that have made this city of contradictions their home.
It belongs to no one in particular and belongs to everyone. It is a jigsaw puzzle every resident is free to piece together in her/his own imagination. It has seen the worst, this giant city and still retains the optimism to gaze into the future, its shell hardened by the memory of many natural and man-made cataclysms. From the moment the sun rises from behind the imposing ramparts of Red Fort till bleary-eyed midnight, it is propelled forward by the dreams of its citizens. Some dream of glory, others of power. Most, simply want to survive. It is their heartbeat that keeps the city going. Their resolve that sees the city through every night of terror to the clear light of dawn.