Midnight ice cream at India Gate

At this roundabout I give my turning the miss, deliberately. Once in the car I did it thrice prompting my co-passenger to firm up her mind on what she always suspected: I was a directionless nig-nog. Its hugeness doesn’t let me notice the hexagonal shape but allows me to zip, zigzagging through traffic. There are many pedestrian crossings where you wait for animated families, parents dragging skipping children lost on ice lollies. Many continue earnestly into their slightly raised mouthpieces without missing a beat; couples hand-in-hand, springing steadfastly towards what would seem like certainties for a while. When on the motorcycle, I catch a few eyes, I rev my engine to hurry them along – or maybe it is a subconscious yearning for an acknowledgment of ‘here we are.’ Once it comes your way, your eyes dart towards the fading seconds. Some of the younger passers-by are fleetingly attracted to my ride – eyes fix on the gleaming twin cylinders, flared and angled upwards. I am glad that I paid that extra dosh at the wash last week for buffing.

Though this isn’t exactly the shortest route from Hauz Khas where I stay to my usual hangouts like Khan Market, IHC, Lodi Gardens and surrounds, and even though jaywalking picnickers take over the area on weekends, I still take it for the uninterrupted view of the India Gate from many points. I am not the usual patriotic – I believe patriotism is nationalism attempting an ill-fitting garb of respectability and rationality while nationalism itself is misdirected patriotism. But given an option – I have had many before – to live anywhere in the world, I will continue to remain here. I feel everything the India Gate represents – what we are today, where we stand today, are built on people who walked, loved, talked, breathed, sang, rode, ate, fought, kissed, read, shat, yawned, cried, just like us. We have them etched in stone and ensconced in an undying flame. We don’t do these things anymore.

Passing through on weekdays when the Rajpath axis leading to the President’s House (Rashtrapati Bhawan) is not blocked, I ride till Vijay Chowk, stop my motorcycle next to the tended lawns and gaze up Raisina Hill. The silhouettes of the secretariat blocks fill my horizon. I take the same photographs every time – it never tires me. It is a splendid installation which continues to enthral even a century later; the capital of the Indian empire was moved from Calcutta and re-established in Delhi in 1911. Architects Edward Lutyens and Herbert Baker were assigned with the design. They decided to develop the city on a geometrical design mainly using triangles and hexagons.

The silhouettes of the North and South Blocks fills my horizon

Lutyens’ vision was a great capital like any other great capital of the world – broad avenues, smooth and long which were flanked by unending lawns. The chosen site was Dinpanah or the low-lying Raisina Hill. At the core of this is the Central Vista. The only place in Delhi where I happily miss a turn to get lost in. The 35-hectare area which has in addition to the Rashtrapati Bhawan, Parliament House, Moghul Gardens, North and South Blocks, the Rajpath (‘King’s Way’ then) that radiates all the way to the Prince’s Park. Here is also the India Gate where midnight ice-creams are equally a ritual of living in Delhi as they are a reminder of the heritage and humanity at hand.

No human life, not even the life of the hermit in nature’s wilderness, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings. H. Ardent

The land use of Central Vista, among the biggest public spaces of Delhi, was changed by federal authorities from ‘recreation and public facilities’ to ‘government use’ in March this year amid Covid outbreak and the resultant chaos and lockdown that kept getting extended. Hasty notifications, namesake, farcical committees, a rudderless and mute opposition, a bought-in green tribunal and a puppet Supreme Court – everyone oversaw cunningly, some haplessly, this obliteration of history and overturning of character. The anguish of historians and civil societies was ignored and half-baked ordinances were passed overriding their legitimate concerns. In the anvil is a 200 billion rupee project including a new parliament house and ministry blocks; in all, accommodating at least 70,000 government employees in this little urban oasis. The plan is so haphazard and smacks of the current government’s hobby horse mentality that despite the magnitude of the project and far-reaching implications, there has been no detailed study on the impact on heritage, environment and traffic. Despite more pressing requirements like tackling the pandemic with the money, the dispensation totters sniggering, blinkered heavily, towards this postiche, a myopic self-aggrandizement.

In an economy that is expected to continue depressed for some years, it is unlikely that the Delhiite will be taking off to the hills on many summer weekends to come. Then, it’s not like the average person living in Delhi ever waited for weekends to head out, even headed out for that matter. Every time I used to pass by India Gate, the lawns were abuzz: raucous games, boisterous bun-fights, pet dogs chasing Frisbees, yoga groups early mornings, joggers, freestyle exercisers, dating couples, kids floating paper boats in the fountains, corporate training sessions, in tucked away corners the hookers and little urchins with wide boy swags. Even cops looked relaxed around here, while cabbies with fares disappeared behind bushes for a quick widdle on wintry days. Bukaterias on wheels dotted the area, selling chaats, paani puris, ice cream and sodas. In short, the Central Vista was always humanity in action – nurturing itself by drawing from each other, encountering and relating to the other, thriving and growing together.

A public space is a social space that is generally accessible and open to people. In a broader sense, it is a space in which people can chose to be at regardless of their ethnicity, age, ideologies and gender. Wikipedia

Urban researchers posit that city dwellers are subjected to many stresses including noise and pollution, work-related pressures, domestic issues and health problems. We need relief from all these continuous assaults – a relief that is easy, cost-effective and within easy reach are open spaces with rich cover of vegetation. I have many a time wished to crawl under a hedgerow and go to sleep; mine is just hemialgia from heartbreaks. Then I see many already there, sometimes the maali, the gardener himself, taking a well-deserved break. Nature’s embrace, even the promise of one, is so comforting that just a gaze at the beckoning canopies and half your problems vamoose. I ride on.

The Yamuna banks by the Signature Bridge will not be developed for years to come

The Central Vista is too precious in that sense to let go; we mustn’t allow a bunch of bureaucrats or politicians to hold the aperture to our mind growth and emotional advancement or human cohesiveness. I have seen street plays practised here, migrant families catching up, kids rehearsing speeches, homebound paraplegics out for fresh air with their caretakers, those in ghettos come here to unbosom to a view of the blue sky; I have had many rendezvous here, of many qualities. Midnight forays for ice-creams while looking at the India Gate itself lit up like one gigantic flame, I tell you, is life-changing.

If authorities say they will develop alternate sites for public recreation, they are bullshitting. The state treasury has gone belly up with the virus. Case in point is the Yamuna bank by the Signature Bridge. I was privy to the grandiose plans to develop this area. Just one look at the blueprint and you would be on a Venetian gondola or riding up the Burj. But it will be years before one brick goes to make a bench here.

With the construction proposed to begin in August this year, it might be too late to harp on the heartlessness of open spaces meant for public use being appropriated for government buildings and residence. Like any maniacal obsession, this one too will spare no cost, effort or ego and the project is expected to be completed by 2024. Robust rumours do the rounds of underground tunnels for the prime minister to reach office from his residence; vivid parallels are drawn with Hitler’s bunkers and schizophrenic sanctuaries. A significant historical, lived and architectural heritage is being razed to make way for a megalomaniacal coterie in a barren rush to rewrite unflattering leitmotifs and revive insipid legacies.

Any time – the India Gate

Soon in place of pedestrian crossings there might be skywalks, what used to be sprawling lawns car parks. Where trees with enormous boles stood might be bus stops and the ponds public toilets. Where once lolled expanses of grass, there might be park benches with donor details engraved. The India Gate itself might be visible from a few metres only and cops deployed to chase away ice cream vendors way before midnight. It might be really tempting to take my exit from the roundabout – vastly reduced now you know it is a hexagon – at first sight.

I still won’t.