Hauz Khas

Hauz Khas Village. 

For us young people, it's the place to be. There's an uppity commercial street offering the best food and drinks and there's a nice old fort to give it a nice "feel". I've been visiting the streets of hauz khas almost everyday for the past two weeks and what I've found was not what I was expecting to find. 

I visited the basti behind the parking lot and met an old lady, Murti aunty, her family has been living there for decades, generations have been born there and died there in the same house. This is the response I got when I asked her if the loud music on the weekends playing in the pubs troubled her and I quote her reaponse , " हम तो परेशान हैं बेटा. लड़का लड़की कुछ भी करना शुरू कर देते हैं यहां, दारू इतनी पी लेते हैं कि अपने आप को संभाल नई पाते. हमारे घर पर बोतल तोड़ते हैं, लड़ाई करते हैं. गंजा पीने वाले छोटे छोटे बच्चों को भी शामिल करते हैं. किसिंग और सेक्स भी करना शुरू कर दिया है. "

" We're fed up. Girls and boys do absolutely anything here, they drink so much that they can't handle themselves. They break glass bottles on our house wall and fight with us. Weed smokers involve and influence small children. Kissing and sex has also started happening here". Now sympathy will do nothing here. All I'm trying to share is the matter or rather question of perspective. This is their home, for us it's a space designated for leisure. So, why can't we fix this? Why have we forgotten to be sensitive to the needs of our own people? Why can't we take a 180° turn, change our perspective and understand? 

All of these pictures is Hauz Khas. It's two worlds existing together, but just existing,not living together. This space is a brilliant example of the economic disparity that exists in every part of the world. The rich use it for recreation and the poor live here. Sounds odd when I put it that way. We'll, obviously the poor came here and settled decades ago, much before the commercial street existed. Our economic disparities are making two groups of people, living in the same city, exist together, but giving no potential to ever live together.

Whose perspective do we look at?