The Stray

Millennia of breeding will do that

To wolves -

Make them prance for affection
Even if they're stray
And gray
And wet,
At a blinking early-morning traffic light.

Decades of city life will do that
To men -
Make them chary of affection
Even if it prances
And wags
And begs,
At a blinking early-morning traffic light.

The last grasp of Kamal Nath

"The dying gasps of the Congress", Vasant Saberwal remarked when I told him about Kamal Nath's land schemes as we cycled through the Aravalis on Saturday morning - ironically, just a couple of hours before the NCR plannng meeting.

"Not gasps", I responded, "grasps. Ten years of grasping, a wretched, avaricious manipulation of land zoning, clearances and insider rigging, that has made land-sharking the most-preferred occupation for upwardly mobile Indians.

As expected, Kamal Nath steam-rollered all objections and ensured that 500 hectares of Haryana forest land is cleared for 'tourism-related" construction by builders. 

Here is the text of the DNA article* that documents what happened that morning:

Kamal Nath overrules environment secy, grants 500 hectares to builders as parting gift

Saturday, 26 April 2014 - 6:05am IST | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA

Rohinee Singh

Two Congressmen — Union urban development minister Kamal Nath and Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda — on Friday hijacked the NCR planning board meeting despite stiff resistance from senior bureaucrats and signed an order converting 10 lakh hectares of forest land into a "natural conservation zone".

Nath and Hooda showed the door to environment secretary Dr V Rajagopalan and his team as they had vehemently opposed Nath's attempt to change the 'land use' of the prime forest land spread over Faridabad, Gurgaon and Aravali hills.

"You are not a member of the NCR planning board. So, your comments are not required," Hooda is learnt to have told Rajagopalan. And Nath is understood to have said: "If the environment ministry has any problem with our decision, they can approach the court."

Rajagopalan apparently walked out after heated arguments. In his written comments, he strongly objected to the forest being converted to a natural conservation zone. "The Supreme Court judgment on forest clearly says that a hectare of land, with 10 per cent area under canopy will be declared as forest land and its status cannot be changed. And here it is 10 lakh hectares of forest land," he wrote.

As reported by dna first, Natural Conservation Zone regulations permit construction on 0.5 per cent land for tourism purposes. Thus 0.5 per cent of 10 lakh hectares comes to 500 hectares of land. The catch is Kamal Nath is opening the doors for builders' lobby to grab 500 hectares of prime land in Gurgaon, Faridabad and the Aravali hills.

Conservative estimates of the government peg price of 500 hectares of land at over Rs50,000 crore.

The NCR planning board meeting fell short of quorum. There should be at least five members of the board present for approving or amending a plan. In Friday's meeting, four members, including Nath and Hooda, were present. Nath urgently called minister for housing and urban poverty alleviation Girija Vyas to complete the quorum.

In their desperation, Hooda arrived for the NCR planning board meeting half-an-hour before the scheduled time. And Nath too reached dot on time to initiate the meeting.

The Election Commission had allowed Nath to hold the meeting, but had prohibited him from taking any policy decision owing to the model code of conduct. Still, the NCR planning board went ahead and approved a major land use change in the Haryana sub region plan.

Nath and Hooda's hastiness is evident from the fact that the high court of Punjab and Haryana had put a stay on the state for issuing any new licences to builders. The court had said that the state should first make land available for construction.

In one stroke, 500 hectares of land is up for grab and thus it also opens the door for the Haryana government to issue new licences to builders.

As reported by dna, Nath's name had surfaced in a conversation with corporate lobbyist Niira Radia. Tarun Das, the former chief mentor of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), told Radia over the phone that he had pitched "big time" for Nath for the surface transport portfolio.

"Highway construction and road construction is a big priority. He (Kamal Nath) is a doer. He can make his 15% in this. You can do national service and also make money…", Das said in the tapes. Radia had responded: "This (surface transport ministry under Nath) is still an ATM."

* http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-kamal-nath-overrules-environment-secy-grants-500-hectares-to-builders-as-parting-gift-1982206

kamal nath

Kamal Nath's parting gift to NCR builders

In an earlier post, last autumn, I wrote that entrenched interests were hoping to be able to convert parts of the NCR's reserved forests into real estate projects

"One day, he will make this into a landscape to rival Gurgaon, or Delhi, with bright lights everywhere.", 
a chowkidar told me in the Asola-Bhatti reserve forest. Naive old me said,
"Unlikely. The Central Government has declared this a nature reserve, and that's not going to change in a hurry."                   .

A piece appearing today in DNA this morning* suggests that our environment Minister of the next 21 days, Mr. Kamal Nath, is about to bequeath 500 hectares of forest land to builders. Ironically, this will be achieved by declaring 1 million hectares of land as a Natural Conservation Zone, thanks to a clause which permits 0.5% of such land to be allocated for construction of tourism facilities.

Clearly, the chowkidars of Asola-Bhatti knew a great deal more than I did about the fine details, and the coarse corruption, inherent in our environmental protection plans.

Here is the full text of the DNA piece, entitled :

500 hectares. Rs 50,000 crore. Kamal Nath and the builder lobby eye NCR forest land

(Raman Kirpal)

It is 10 am. In an hour from now, Union Urban Minister Kamal Nath will have the last roll of dice to change the landscape of Delhi NCR. At the stroke of 11, he, as chairman, is holding a full NCR Planning Board meeting at India Habitat centerer in Delhi today.

In the heat and dust of elections, Kamal Nath has called full NCR Planning Board meeting to radically change the 'land use' of the Haryana sub region plan. He wants the board to endorse his idea of declaring 10 lakh hectares of prime forest land a 'natural conservation zone'. This prime forest land is spread over Faridabad, Gurgaon and Aravali hills.

Sounds good on paper, doesn't it? But Natural Conservation Zone regulations permit construction on 0.5% land for tourism purposes. If you calculate 0.5% of 10 lakh hectares, it comes to 500 hectares of land

And here is the catch. Kamal Nath is opening the doors for builders' lobby to grab 500 hectares of prime land in Gurgaon, Aravali hills and Faridabad, and even by conservative land rates of the government, the cost of 500 hectares is no less than Rs 50,000 crore.

Sources in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MOEF) had opposed Kamal Nath's move on environmental grounds. And the PMO had endorsed the MOEF's stand and had prevented the Union Urban Ministry from holding meetings in February and March in this regard.

However, Kamal Nath reportedly gained permission from the Election Commission to hold the NCR Planning Board meeting today to enact his last design. Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is fully backing Kamal Nath on the issue.

This is happening despite the fact that the Supreme Court has declared this area as forest land under the Punjab Conservation Land Act. The apex court has even declared that protected area and wildlife sanctuaries, as is this 10 lakh hectares area, shall be treated as forest area and should be governed under the Forest Act. The Aravallis have wildlife and act as catchments for lakes in the area.

The Supreme Court has also declared that 10km of area around the forest should be notified as an eco-sensitive zone. Egged on by the builders' lobby, the Hooda government hasn't done so.

Kamal Nath's name had surfaced in a conversation with corporate lobbyist Niira Radia. Tarun Das, the former chief mentor of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), told Niira over the phone that he had pitched ''big time'' for Kamal Nath for the surface transport portfolio.

"Highway construction and road construction is a big priority. He (Kamal Nath) is a doer. He can make his 15% in this. You can do national service and also make money…" said Das in the tapes. Radia had responded: "This (Surface Transport Ministry under Kamal Nath) is still an ATM."

*http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/standpoint-500-hectares-rs-50000-crore-kamal-nath-and-the-builder-lobby-eye-ncr-forest-land-1981857

Happy Songkran

“They need some Punjabi blood here”, I whooped as we loped down to Nopparat Beach. The road curved down from our hotel, over the creek, and into the clear light of the bay, Krabi’s signature islands still shadowy in the early sun . On the pavement outside a store, a little clump of children stood around a large blue plastic drum. Tentative, they splashed some clear water on us from a little kitchen bowl. “Happy Sonkrant”, I beamed, my hands folded. “Namaste”, then swooped into the drum,  my enormous hands cupped into twin scoops, and showered water in arcs of joy.

“Happy Sonkrant”, 20 yards down, I teased a garden hose from a smiling teenager, and sprayed my son and our friends with the energy of a North Indian Holi mobster. Our hosts beamed and smeared our cheeks with the most innocent of white pastes – talcum powder and a daub of water. “Thank You”, I turned the hose on them and did a bhangra jig.  

Outside the Holiday Inn Resort, white tourists with pink calves lined the kerb, wielding fat-barreled water-cannons in Disneyland plastic colours. Thai hotel workers dressed in black tended hoses and  vast plastic drums. “Happy Sonkran”, we screeched, and grabbed a hose. Someone turned on generic pop and we bobbed and sprayed.

A pick-up van slowed as it slithered towards us, teenagers clustered around the drums tethered to its bed. “That’s evil!” Maya screeched as they splashed us with iced water. “Turn the hose on them.” Some of the water cannons followed suit, some more iced water was rained, and one pick-up van was followed by the next.

Shack-owners and shop-keepers gave way to food stalls with satay sticks and cut pineapple, with fried cockroaches and grilled cocoons. On the beach, a thousand picnics celebrated the New Year with movable feasts and Thai pop thumping  from parked cars. It was everybody’s Sonkran, if you wanted. Or not, if you didn’t. The streets were awash with water from drums and pistols, hoses and plastic buckets, but no one was sprayed unless they were willing. And though the young who cruised Ao Nang on their motor cycles and  vans were well-fuelled by Singha beer, there was no drunken revelry, no hint of festive energy turning renegade or threatening.

“Same-same like Sonkran?” our taxi-driver asked when I told him about our Holi. “Indian festival have colour, no?” Yes, it has colour. Too much colour. And too much energy. An energy that turned demonic and aggressive, and had to be taken off the streets of my native Delhi. Shut behind the walls of our homes and our clubs, and our farm-houses. Where like now only meets like, and the public becomes private. Where the goodwill of a festival that could spread clear across a bay, or an entire peninsula, is confined  within tiny little pools isolated from each other by sand banks of fear and privilege.

Theater that pays

Two kinds of people hover about the driver's window in Delhi - stoplight denizens such as vendors and beggars, and petrol pump attendants.

The former, while a great deal more pesky, are by far the more benign. When a petrol pump attendant offers to clean your windscreen, and engages you in small talk, or patters on about windscreens, don't look him in the eye. 

Watch that meter! 

This morning, I was in a particularly benign mood - it was Holi, there was not much traffic on the streets, and I was going to drink a friend's home to drink a cold beer in the warm sun. I paid for Rs. 2000 worth of petrol - roughly 27 liters - and then chatted with the smiling, blue-faced attendant who asked me to squirt water on my wind-screen, so he could squeegee it off. I didn't stop to think, "Nobody ever asked me to do that before; they use the squeegee to rinse the windscreen with water." After I had spread some of the good cheer around and received the receipt for my money, I turned the key, and noticed my tank was way less than half-full. I asked the attendant to look at the gauge. He protested, but weakly, and concurred that the amount of gas filled was less than Rs. 2,000 worth. I told him we could do get into a whole drama of reporting and tests, or he should top my tank up by as much as they had tried to steal.

He quietly added another 10 liters into my tank, and I quietly drove away.

I wonder how many times a day this drama of distraction works.

Lucrative theater! Barry John once told a group of young actors we were working with - look at beggars on the street. See how realistically they act. Their very livelihood depends on how convincing they are at evoking the right emotions. 

The petrol pump attendants are equally professional actors, ensemble performers. It requires at least 2 or 3 of them to have worked the whole act out. I wonder how often they change the script. Over their chai, at the beginning of the day, do they toss a few improv ideas around - today, let's try it with a scratch card offer. Or, how about you try - Uncle, how come you've stopped coming to our pump so frequently? 

It is a sad commentary on our nation that you always have to have your wits about you. Even in the most mundane of transactions, there's every chance you'll be fleeced.

2013 - Finding Meaning

2013

“If running is the answer, then what is the question?” Ron wrote me, provocative as always, when I told him I had taken to long-distance running.  To stay the course, you have to slow down your mind, turn it from outside in, use your awareness to ease your body, even while pushing it. Running became easier in 2013, and I ran 3 half-marathons, all at an even pace, and without the fatigue of my first long run, in 2011, where I melted at the finish line.

Can I find more lightness in running, more grace?

And in life?

There was grace in my birth. India reminds you of your privileged circumstances every minute - when domestic staff do your laundry and your dishes, when you see people cooking on the pavement outside the hospital in which they hope a family member will recover.

For my son Kedar, I pray the inheritance of grace doesn’t harden to a sense of entitlement. This summer, we took him to Ladakh, to volunteer at government schools in the remotest villages of the region. “This is the failure of the demographic dividend”, I told him when we left Turtuk, where the children sat cross-legged on gunny sheeting, the school’s only atlas was irretrievably locked in the Principal’s cupboard, and science experiments would be just another remote account in textbooks. “How can these children ever jump the great divide between how you learn and they do?”

From the Nubra Valley, we returned to the dusty, faintly hippie cosmopolitanism of Leh, where smudgy cakes and stodgy Italian food were on offer, alongside Ladakhi momos and roadside kebabs. On the last leg of our Ladakh trip, high above the cobalt waters of Tso Moriri, we heaved our carcasses up to the snow at 16,000 feet, and for the first time that summer, I felt reasonably fit. We were all stretched, though, and Kedar said he had never been so exhausted in his life. Yet, when we returned to Delhi, he said he would go back to Ladakh any time.

Earlier that summer, Kedar had taken two flights and a long ferry ride out to Havelock Island, in the Andamans, where he earned his Advanced Open Water Diving spurs. The shark and the mating octopi he saw on the dive are among the highlights of his year. His first major adventure without his parents. Letting go…

This was also the second year I let go of my annual autumn trek.  With Pa’s condition frail, time away from the family seems an indulgence. We had planned a short circuit around the base of Stok Kangri when we were in Ladakh, but the freak June weather made us abandon our plans; instead, we stayed in Leh, and watched the horrific images on television, as the Chorobar tarn burst, washing away the Kedarnath settlement. The temple still stands, and I hope the new settlement that comes up around it will be more restrained, more aesthetic. On my first trip to Kedarnath in 1969, I was exalted by its beauty, by a sense that it connected us into a cosmos of deep velvety blue, lit by intense silver stars. Since then, I have watched with dismay as it deteriorated into an ugly, plastic-littered slum.

In 2013, I made several visits to Sangam Vihar, supposedly Delhi’s largest colony. At its northern fringes, where it borders the opulent Sainik Farms, this settlement is becoming distinctly middle-class, with 3-storeyed structures painted in crisp white paint. Three kilometres deeper in, though, land dealers carve agricultural land into hanky-sized plots which house more recent immigrants into Delhi. Joint families of 3 generations sleep in one room, and spend the day on the narrow lanes that grid Sangam Vihar. At the end of one such lane, we bought 150 square feet of land for a man who has worked part-time at our home for over twenty years, and seen two earlier home investments go sour. Three months after the papers were transacted, and four little brick columns erected to mark the plot, it became apparent Prakash would never find the money to build even the tiniest hovel; in for a penny, in for a pound – I commissioned a local contractor to build Prakash his home. The family was extremely happy, and the room, with an attached loo, is larger than the one they currently rent, but a part of me felt like I had forever condemned a family to a space that is really too small for decent living. In India, you can put every dime you earn into lifting people out of pitiable poverty. How much you do, and how you do it, is a function of what we call ‘apni apni shraddha’, your level of devotion.

Premila’s devotion is to another patch of turf, in Satoli village, where we have had our mountain home for nearly two decades. This is where we spent the first 6 years of our life together, and Kedar grew from a freshly minted baby to a school-going boy. This is where he learned to walk and talk, to swim in the tank shaded by peach trees, and to put his favourite movies into our clunky desk-top computer. Over the last 10 years, Satoli has seen a rush of second homes, and Premi’s recurrent nightmare has been a row of town-houses overlooking our little patch of heaven. Every year, we have put some money into buying pieces of the forest behind us, and into stitching together the little holdings that make up the meadow to our west. As our quilt of land grows larger, we feel more comfort in the prospect of a peaceful return to Satoli.

That is still a few years away – Kedar needs to finish school, and be guided into University and beyond. My father’s retreat from the world is at the same time organic and distressing; though my younger sister Kanika takes on the main responsibility of caring for him, my presence supports her, and Kedar and Premi are two touch points for my father, two lamps of light in his world that is increasingly clouded and timeless. By the serenity of his mien, I like to believe that his clouds are not threatening or obscuring, but vast cushions of comfort, intimations of the eternity beyond.

Have a wonderful 2014.

Sand Mafias and Sunday Swims

Delhi's best swimming spots lie at its fringes, in the Asola-Bhati sanctuary along the Faridabad border. Decades of quarrying hollowed out vast jagged craters in the red soil of kikar forests, where nilgai and hyena roam. When concern for the environment led to a ban on quarrying in the 90s, this 35 sq. km. enclave was declared a protected area, and the cavities began to fill with rain water.

The finest of these water bodies, Bhardwaj Lake, lies about 4 km. from the nearest human settlement, so the water is unpolluted by human or industrial waste. Judging by the dimensions of other quarries in the south of Delhi, its depth is considerable, so the silt settles far below the swimmer, who has the exquisite pleasure of stroking through clear, fresh water under open skies, without having to drive too far from home. In the summer, the one hour walk to and from Bhardwaj Lake does seem something of a chore, and by September this year, I had abandoned it for ICTM 2, named after the College of Traffic Management, from which you can get to the water in a 20 minute trot.

The urban detritus of partying students litters the shore of ICTM 2, smashed beer bottles and shredded styrofoam cups, empty packets of chips and namkeen, cigarette stubs and plastic cutlery; inexplicably, even men's undergarments and fragments of sarees. But when you dive out into the water, it is cool, dark and clear, and in a minute, you are with your breath and your stroke, with the lowing of cattle on the far cliff and the wheeling of a kite high above the scrub. Even the silver glimmer of a jet that was held by the earth at Palam just minutes ago adds to the sense of being isolated, privileged.

One morning, when the sky was bright with post-monsoon freshness, we had just gathered our wet swimming things, and begun to cross the rocks to the path that climbs out of the lake. Yielding a stout lathi, a sinewy young man of about 20 bounded down the hill towards us, a wispy teenager in his wake. He didn't stop until he was within touching distance of me, and raised his lathi to block our path. "Chai-paani ko kharcha", he demanded.

"What for?" I asked.

"Anything could happen to you..." the old threat-promise that a gangster will protect you from himself.

"And who gave you the responsibility to protect us?", I asked.

"Bhadana."

The word meant nothing to me, so he explained, "Bhadana, MLA. You want to talk to him?" He reached for his cell phone.

"Sure," I shrugged. Our would-be protector dialled a number, and held the phone to his ear. "Can't get through... the network...."

The reference to a higher authority, the lack of a connection - the threat seemed to fade. We passed by him, even as he demanded his protection money, and threatened to meet us again.

The very next time I came to ICTM 2, the same young man was running down the rocky trail, running with an enviable animality and infectious joy. I smiled at him, and he responded, with an uncertain smile that couldn't quite summon up a grimace. Later, as Sharad and I were about to enter the water, he appeared by the rocks, and regarded me somewhat uncertainly. "Swim?" I asked him. "No." he shook his head.

We stroked away, and did a fast lap to the far bank and back. "You don't get tired?" he regarded me. "Your breath doesn't swell?" He was intrigued by this grey-haired old man. Intrigued, and challenged. "Let me find something", he muttered, and went off to beachcomb. By the time I surfaced on the far side, he was in the water, wearing discarded underwear from the ICTM 2 picnic spot. His young energy almost made up for his lack of technique, and he dog-paddled across to me, his breath rasping with the effort, his eyes alight with the joy of accomplishment. I waited for him to reach me, and kept him quiet company for a few seconds. "Very good. Not too tired?"
 "I never tire!"

I waited half a minute, then, "Let's head back." A strange companionship.

A few weeks later, the swimming season now coming to a close, I visited ICTM 2 with a band of hard-core athletes. One of my company was struggling to put on his wet-suit, the other setting his GPS-enabled watch to his triathlon target distance of 2 km., while I postponed  swapping my last warm layer for the cold water. A skinny man of about 30 drifted down to us, unshaven and unkempt, but very much at home.
"Going to swim?".
"Yes."
"You can't."
I wasn't sure whether that meant we shouldn't, or may not, so, "Oh, we swim here every week."
"You must be coming very early, but I don't allow any one to swim here. In fact, you're not even allowed to come here, if you read the board."
"Never saw the board", I said, now getting ready to wade in.

Half an hour later, my companions were doing their last lap, but I had conceded to the cold of the water, and was pulling on my fleece jacket. "You give me a hundred rupees each." Quite matter of fact.

"You live in Anangpur?" I asked him.
"Yes, but I work here. Looking after Bhadana's sand."
"Sand?"
"Yes, there's sand everywhere - didn't you know?"
I hadn't really noticed, but I guess...
"Yes, he employs me. One day, he will make this into a landscape to rival Gurgaon, or Delhi, with bright lights everywhere."
"Unlikely. The Central Government has declared this a nature reserve, and that's not going to change in a hurry."
"You're probably right. Anyway, the JCBs run through the night, and in the morning, we don't let people come in. But you swim really well, Uncleji."
By now, my friends were climbing out of the water, and I turned to help them gather their gear. The guard of sand piles faded up the hill. "Nice meeting you - see you soon."

I missed my swim the next weekend, attending to business in my mountain village, but as my friends crossed the road at the Traffic College, they encountered a slightly hysterical young woman in over-sized dark glasses and pink fleece jacket. "Don't go that way, we were mugged." Two friends followed, another girl, and their male companion. "We've called the police, and 'The Colonel'. The guy had a knife."

"I don't know who the Colonel is", my friend Mohit recounted the incident. "But Sanju's a big guy, and Sonny's 6'2", so we decided to keep going. To be safe, though, we headed all the way out to Bhardwaj Lake, where we've never seen any local activity."

All the same, we decided to scour the Google maps for another water body in which to log our swims. Economic benefit and political power make for strong vested interests, and when they co-opt the under-employed, you have the makings of systematic violence, which is hardly worth challenging for a weekend outing.