Slumdog part 2: the commonwealth of filth

I don’t hate my job. I, in fact, have a weakness for the office, the people, the location, the timings, the smoke breaks, and once in a way, even the work.

It’s just a newspaper. You come up with story ideas, execute them -- i.e write the stories, 'omit needless words', give headlines, run spellchecks, adhere to deadlines and smoothly pass the buck if you’re asked what’s happening in Parliament.

Being friendly helps. And if you aren’t averse to chatting with the higher-ups in the editorial food chain every other time you see them in the corridor, life is a biscuit. There is an impression. It’s out there. You’re the cat. And the ability to hobnob with the big daddies ups your street cred.

Like my father said, “Child, it’s not what you do, it’s what they think you can do.”

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My job has flexible timings. I skip the worst traffic. No 9-5 rush hour for me. People envy my job.

It’s an important reason I stick to the “cesspool of sloth” I work in. (A colleague came up with that one). For the most part, I get to come and go whenever. Sometimes questions will be asked. Is your copy in? Have the photos been shot? Is the page made?

Trick is to stay calm, lie, say yes, then rush back to make sure what they ask for is done well within deadline.

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But while the work is mostly a cakewalk, it’s the drive – not even the driving -- to office that has me bored out of my wits. In the nearly three hours a day of commuting, I work myself up into a rotten mood thinking of how ugly Delhi is, and how immune we are to the filth in this city. The bits that were pretty are still pretty -- Aurangzeb road, anyone? -- and the less affluent parts -- all minus Aurangzeb road and it's neighbours -- from going to the dogs, they look like they’ve been taken over by wolves. The Commonwealth games will come and go but Vasant Kunj will remain a dump.

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I keep my camera with me. I like to snap what's pretty and awww. Motion in a snap pleases me, etc. But there’s only so much motion in dust and construction and men taking a leak and garbage that can please! Day after day, I wish this place was more beautiful, that the subjects of photos weren't so - I have no choice but to write like I speak -- lower middle class! I know I know, it's elitist and classist and wrong and I should behave myself and be rational and acknowledge progress, but I think I'm on a venting roll and I need to know: must everything in this city, we're not even Bombay, look like a poster of Slumdog Millionaire?

Sometimes the highpoint of my day is, while driving, is a sprig of bougainvillea that has accidentally taken root in the middle of the road or the sky when it’s about to break – to no credit to any urban planning council committee or a lay Delhi-person such as myself!

On route to work, I see this man spray water on his litchi bunch.
He has to sell the fruit minus the dust from the construction behind him

I have to change my driving route to office. I don’t care if it takes longer, but I think seeing hideousness day after day, twice a day, is damaging my innards. It's making me screw my nose at the drop of a hat, but is it wrong to have basic standards? In the paranoia to pretty up the city before the games, Delhi’s an ugly, chaos zone. And I don't think I'm being hormonal in wondering, what were we thinking putting green cats eyes in the roads?!

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There’s construction everywhere, garbage is overflowing, and we’re still not doing anything about the graffiti, the cheap posters, the ball scratchers, the snot blowers, the traffic flouters, the red light jumpers. Sure, the airport looks nice and Lutyens has it’s fabulous green roundabouts and fountains, but what of the dusty roads 20 kms east of beloved India Gate and even poor, dug-up Khan Market robbed of it’s dignity and pavement? We shan’t talk about Gurgaon, the free for all hell where I live, or the National Highway, where the careless, uneducated asses toss their toll slips out of the cars and hoot when I yell BASTARD. We shan’t talk about them. We're a city whose heritage has dwindled to uncouth, uncultured, unplanned and unscenic.

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When I get back home from office and transfer my photos to my laptop, I am reminded of how ugly parts of my city are. Dusty auto rickshaws, beggars to whim who I never give money, construction work, signs with warped English, and the cheesy things people write on the back of their cars.

Yesterday I saw something like this AARushi and AARav. You have to visualise this. It was a common AAR for the 2 names -- presumably the kids of the person who pays the EMI for the car -- and then in a tinier font ushi and av. Felt too jaded to photograph that, but it was there.

If only they let me work from home, I’d save on fuel, I wouldn’t have to drive, and then I could be the head-burying ostrich avoiding the city’s filth and jarring aesthetics and deal with a different crisis, an altered ennui.