P K Datta
Civilisation in Dwarka is nearly fifteen year’s old. The early settlers have gone through all phases of life, be it climbing up all the floors to their house for their household chores, receiving a guest at the gate of the society or getting an electrician from nearby Palam or anything else.
Even my own relatives during their visits to my house in 2001 would not forget to bring Samosas and Jalebis from Aggarwal Sweets at Janak Puri for a memorable visit to a forlorn place known as Dwarka. Remember the nostalgic moments of traffic jam even at 12 noon on a Sunday afternoon at Madhu Viar pulia and the pulsating race of crossing the same before anybody else to avoid the jam.
Rickshaws used to charge five rupees from Madhu Vihar to Ispatika at Sector 4 which is just four times now. The advisory from master ricksaw wallah was not to venture after 9 PM towards now sector 9 metro station where the big peepal tree was known to house a Bhoot and many Dwarkites used to tell their experiences about the same.
Things change with the times and the same happened with Dwarka also. The weekly bazaars of yesteryear catering to all household needs and a common place for meeting of people having moved from different parts of Delhi to Dwarka were a common site are nowhere to be seen. Kite flying, a regular ritual during August was in vogue, is nowhere to be seen now and probably we had no shop selling kites in Dwarka this year.
A child born after 2000 in Dwarka certainly would be astonished to see the old games, like, Pithu, Kanche, Guli Danda, Lattu, Dibri, Packet etc which his parents must have enjoyed during their childhood.
Despite a passage of nearly fifteen years and the transition during this time, the heart still bleeds as the space towards Mahu Vihar pulia still clogs every day most of the times during the day, engrossing all the crossings up to Raja Puri backwards, the covered drain approach towards Dabri, Shakti chowk towards right and the most notorious crossing at Sector 2 and 7 to allow entry to hell towards Dwarka flyover to be followed by another obstacle at Indian Oil Depot crossing which is a big mental agony for all drivers be it morning or evening.
The traffic managers are acting more energetically as “revenue collectors” for the coffers, undue police barricades are placed to harass the general public whereas the crime rate is going high by every passing day, the pavements are all broken paying their tribute to the greed of the contractor and workanship of the labourers, the trees on the pavements lurching towards every passerby to prick their thorns and branches into their heads and eyes, agency responsible for maintaining cleanliness allowing the garbage to be spilled over the roads in front of the main gates of the Society by placing the dust bins which could have easily been put in the service lanes and what I have missed. This piece goes incomplete without paying homage to the planners of the sub-city who carved out curvature roads to add to a high risk of accidents due to speed and poor visibility of the traffic ahead, built massive markets in all sectors, blindly forgetting to provide matching parking facilities and building a last decade flyover and giving a pass to West bound traffic from Gurgaon through Dwarka. The planners also need to be recommended for the highest award for their thoughtlessness and ensuring the hard ground water to most of the dwelling units thereby ensuring that a continuous use of the same for five years or so makes everybody a Baldy and having some skin disease to be typically identified as an honourable Dwarkaites.
All these have put a lot of pressure on the life styles of Dwarkaites. Despite all these, the only silver lining is “rising benchmark price tag of Rs. One crore”.
