batla house: captivating:)

BATLA HOUSE

Thronged, suffocated, full of similar looking people……congested lanes…..where driving a heavy vehicle is a crime (which some idiots commit)……broadly speaking there is nothing too exciting about the whole scene….nothing too bizarre for me….but the experiences when you look around or walk on the streets cant be born in vacuum……every experience…..be it full fledged or fractured….. is worth taking shape of words……….the place is BATLA HOUSE…..the name is quite afresh in any common man’s mind who is not too indifferent to read headlines….. Whatever reason it is popular for….I perceive it as someone who stays nearby and often visit the place
Its bleak presence comes into existence when the rickshawallah has to get down and pull the rickshaw harder to ascend the slope… there, at the very outset, begin the territory of beggars……two are permanent ……a short heighted lady and a man physically capable to earn his bread but mentally tamed to beg….the third one who shows up quite seldom is suffering from thyroid……he must be a guy into his early twenty’s with his hair flaunted very carelessly on his torso…he always keeps his head down…..his legs(they are too long and extended because of the disease) carelessly sprawled on the road……I have never seen him asking for alms!!!!!It seems more or less a place to relax for him or he is too indifferent to care whats going around…….

When u move further there is a trail of wooden carts……flaunting things like fancy mirrors,combs,rubber bands ranging from oversized gaudy to just a strap, hairbands made of iron which when you put on gives this look of furrowed fields to your hair..ear rings, which u flaunt when you are into ur teenage…..scary age…since it is winters u get to see sweaters lying in heaps as if they are abandoned………then there r t-shirts, vests hanging behind the carts available at dirt cheap price……… the entity giving competition to. Carts is shops…. numerous shops lined up on both sides of the road…..shops of fruits,clothes,mobile recharge, beauty parlour,juice,bakery(theres only one bakery here-UNIQUE…)meat….I have seen ppl chopping off meat so mechanically that it seems as if not even once had they thought about the creature as living……..its fate is to be dead……the scientific logic to maintain the food cycle…or may be to quench the appetite born out of the habitual itching ur tongue feels if it is devoid of the taste of animal cooked in the form of numerous dishes….i find the latter viewpoint more convincing …

However unlike shops the people here provides no variation..u see guys in long kurta…little longer than knees, the pyjamas deliberately kept little above the anklet……purely because of religious reasons……ladies or young girls are mostly clad in salwaar kameez….with decent fit…or sometimes a complete misfit which challenges the very notion of covering head the religion preaches..well this outfit particularly belongs to the residents of batla house or nearby areas……u do find girls in kurta jeans (the young breed of university students)……or teenagers flaunting fancy t-shirts and designer jeans……the only type I miss in this locality is the sophisticated type or too casual…..the dressing style ppl flaunt here is more or less sober, mellowed down, decent….nothing too outraegeous or relaxed which might represent the collapse of moral certitudes………………
The batla house is more or less a cynosure of jamia nagar…..it leads to joga bai, jakhir nagar……but itself remains as the vein throbbing hard with life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The place gives me an image of cluttered waste around me….but too much clutter brings warmth and creates an aura of safety…..inspite of the fact that you have too many eyes staring at u when all u do is nothing but sitting in the rickshaw with your college bag on your back or that finding a girl on the streets of batla house after 8 is quite a task….it is congested yet lively trying hard to keep its culture intact in its tiny details and somehow successful too…the whole experience is highly ironical!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Monika..
21st dec. 2008