Wading the piracy high sea

Sometimes a bit sticky but eventually rewarding, I have this habit of entering strange places through less-used accesses. Looking around for one in Nehru Place, away from the hawker-choked pathways, I found a secluded stairway. A dark crumbling stretch led down to the subterranean parking lot while a slightly brighter one went up to a corridor ahead of which I could see a sun-burnt square. In the midst of the square stood a dried up fountain with a cracked basin and snouts – remnants of merciless Delhi summers. 

Enter hawker country

The legendary Paras Cinema hall – or what it used to be – loomed like a concrete apparition next to it, too gone to even hint at its days of glory. With 1200 seats it used to be the largest cinema hall in New Delhi once. Old timer shopkeepers on a business-free balmy afternoon will engage you with stories on how the same movie would run to packed houses for months on end unlike the movies of today where a weekend marks one’s opening and, often, entire box office collection. They tell you about the gold rush crowds chanting in unison when Jai Santoshi Maa came out in 1975. Or how the audience would mouth dialogues together during Coolie in 1984, a whole generation before Dubsmash. One of these days Paras is slated to appear in a new audi avatar. What a loss.

A to Z

The corridor missed a liquor still. The alcohol was pavement-kissing material. There were people strewn everywhere – several men and one woman bundled up splotched across the floor, frothing at the mouth. Those who sat alongside, looked up at me animus, eyes dilated like batty. A thickset old woman sat next to a rusting water dispenser. A snotty toddler on her lap stared at me through unblinking eyes, a Velazquez come alive. The old woman cleared her throat as I walked past. When I turned around to look at her, she held my gaze while shifting her position atop a cardboard mat. Emerging from the dolorous quiet of the corridor to the sunny square was a jolt; the bone-white sun lashed my eyes. It was peak noon and the arena with the cracked fountain at its centre was burning. From the open space, wide stairways led to the main commercial area which was flanked by buildings. 

‘Software? You want software? What software you want?’

The pillar store

Rajesh asked, appearing out of nowhere. In his hand he held an A to Z list covering the entire gamut of computer paraphernalia. Over a decade ago, when I first came to Delhi, these guys would emerge from behind the columns – that too only when you were looking for them. Now they adorn every column and come for you. Besides an exhaustive list of games and software, I was also armed with the “leniency towards software piracy” stemming from “excessive pricing of original software”. The list was from a nephew who wanted to be a games designer when he grew up; the rest from a research paper on why people buy pirated software causing billions of dollars worth loss to the industry.

All you need

Dressed in a skeezy pair of trousers, Rajesh’s crooked foot only served to amp up his devil-may-care attitude. He wore a bright red pair of sneakers, frayed jeans and tee shirt with the slogan “You will never find me on Tinder” on it. An otherwise decent visage was contorted with a scowl into a shovel face. He would roll his eyes sometimes at my questions and slur his answers as if he was stoned. This was the tough man act put up by illegit street vendors. The discomfiture zone had to be maintained to discourage haggling. A weak sauce strategy. Rajesh took me around a few bends and finally up a flight of stairs to a pillar shop tucked away from public view. For that matter no lout will accost you in front of his own shop – there is usually a few minutes walk. This distance is a safety device in the event of a raid.

There were some customers already who stood avoiding each others’ eyes – as people are wont to in a centre of felonious fraternity. I was introduced to the big boss who heard my requirements for about 10 seconds and then unleashed a word salad world of options at me.

‘How old is your boy? If very young, you should avoid Medal of Honour and Dead Space. However, Mortal Kombat is fine – it looks too weird to be real. Call of Duty – Black Ops is currently hot but the graphics are sheer gore. And if you really don’t mind, go for the Yakuza 6, which is out now. The Song of Life. Oh, and Far Cry Five has come. Does your boy play alone? Then, how about Night in the Woods?’

Or something like that. My world of gaming began and ended with Need for Speed a quarter century ago when they were still using magazine shots of cars in the specs page.

Swanky, shiny

It was fascinating just watching things unfurl in that maze of concrete armpit. As more customers began to flock – Rajesh with his hobble moved faster than anyone – more boxes appeared out nowhere and spatchcocked to reveal every software ever invented to games from Abuse to Zork Nemesis. When there were no customers, the pillar shop disappeared too – it was an adda, a hangout for darty-eyed youngsters with slicked black hair. Boxes would disappear as they appeared – in a snap. Barring the rare raid at the behest of software behemoths, they were left alone. Everybody from authorised peripheral sellers to beat cops had their stake. Apparently, more cops in mufti roamed the bustling area than those in uniform. The idea was to keep an eye on demand on which weekly payouts hinged.

Jigsaw park

I repaired to the air cooled environs of a café. Through a slightly tinted window, I watched the wheels of a well-synergised commerce ecosystem churn outside. While the district is known for IT-related goods, the fabric shops on the other end too do brisk business. Some women sat outside the window probably waiting for the heat to abate before taking over the reins from their menfolk. One of them lit up and passed around tobacco in a pouch. Then a video clip was shared which made all of them clutch their sides laughing. For a long while I sat sondering at the lives of these lively ladies, Rajesh and others of their ilk. It was one of resilience, beating the odds, surviving an indifferent, often cruel city. A life trodden over by many, bearing the brunt of dreams seen only on hoardings. Everyday was a struggle, squalor followed them everywhere.

Nehru Place, named after the man credited as the ‘maker of modern India’ is anything but modern. Developed in the 70s, there are dangling electric wires, overflowing garbage cans, crumbling civic amenities and four-storey buildings with peeling facades. All these besides the ignominy of the country’s biggest fake IT hub.

Beedi break

Deciding to take a different way out, I took the busiest, most cacophonous one lined with shiny LEDs announcing laptop repair and data recovery. I was lobbed into a car park – one like I had never seen before. It looked like a mile-high pile up of cars had come tumbling down. If Rajesh was to be believed, there was order in all the chaos – you could take out any car in under five minutes. Well, Rajesh could be believed – he began his stint at Nehru Place as an attendant in this parking lot.