Walking through the narrow alleyways that are throughout the settlement, you see a bustling independent ecosystem, a city within a city if you may. The densely populated camp has migrants from all over India. A woman whom I interviewed had stayed in Sanjay Camp for forty five years. She excitedly
told me about her three sons and how she had raised them in this place....
“This used to be a forest earlier”, my final interviewee is another old woman. “We came here from Aligarh because of some family conflicts. I came with my father and my husband. We chopped wood and used rocks to build our houses.” Her eyes become distant as she recollects the now dense and
widespread busti emerging from nothingness. I stored each of these stories in a corner of my mind, never to be forgotten, and bid adieu to Sanjay Camp, taking with me a Delhi I had never seen.
- By Ambuj Sen Patra
Every place has a story to tell. Unlike the usual novella, however, these are stories that are understood using all the senses and receptors available. These stories are living organisms, growing and developing with the constancy of a river. These are stories that I cannot relay through my paltry jigsaw of words,
because if it’s a place you’ve never been to, you can never imagine what it was really like. But as every person trying to make the bare minimum impact with their lives would say, it’s all I can do. So, dear reader, let me take you to a section of South Delhi that’s a world away from our Sarojinis and Hauz Khas
Villages.
Welcome to Sanjay Camp. The pink line metro pulls in to the south campus station, about a kilometre away from the camp we are headed to now. As we descend the staircase, one should always mentally prepare to be surrounded and hounded by autowallahs eager to fleece every last penny off your person. Lucky for me, a veteran Delhiite, I was able to get an autorickshaw to myself for forty rupees, to head to the Singapore High Commission, the landmark given for Sanjay Camp. “Aapko painting karne jaana hai na?” I clearly wasn’t this man's first customer headed to “Rang Badlav Ke”, the event for painting graffiti on the busti walls.
Walking through the narrow alleyways that are throughout the settlement, you see a bustling independent ecosystem, a city within a city if you may. The densely populated camp has migrants from all over India. A woman whom I interviewed had stayed in Sanjay Camp for forty five years. She excitedly
told me about her three sons and how she had raised them in this place. Her cosy little house had been painted in a way that spoke of professionalism. “Mera ek beta painting ka kaam karta hai, hotel mein” (one of sons works as a painter at a hotel; probably part of the maintenance staff) the lady states
proudly, her toothless, hunched frame as if getting a few inches taller. She tells me she’s from the fisherman community from Jharkhand, to which I cheekily reply that I’d love some fish since I’m Bengali. She verifies the stereotype, claiming that Bengalis are a large part of their customer base back in
Jharkhand.
Every adult is eager to have their walls painted by the volunteers. Having already gone further into the camp than the painters, I get called back a lot to ask the painters to come paint these peoples' walls. I laugh in response, trying in vain to explain that they’ll take much longer to get there. A maze of houses
often leads me back to where I started from, as I struggled to stop myself from going in circles. The back end of the area opens up to a railway track. The scenic view could have been something out of the movie “Stand by Me”, if not for the mountainous piles of garbage and waste on either side, and the
stench of sewage in the air. “They do clean this up sometimes, but it all piles up again. “, another elderly interviewee says, the annoyance clear in her voice. “Even drainage and water supply just arrived two years ago.”
A little boy whom I had interviewed just before her was clearly eager to tell the woman about it, going on about “Daadi, inhone mera bhi interview liya” The kid loved running, telling me that he can beat me at an 800 metre run. Whether this was true or not is doubtful, for he couldn’t have been more than seven years
old. I am making an estimate, since the kid didn’t know his age. He would eventually challenge me to a run where I get beaten hollow. Or pretend to lose, it depends on how one sees it. Interviewing the kids was an absolute delight. They often turned up in groups and asked me to click pictures. On asking questions I get a chorus of responses. Many of these children study at the Sanskriti School, right next to Sanjay Camp. I see reflections of my own childhood here, even though the surroundings look so different from the place I grew up in. These children too are big fans of “Doraemon” and “Taarak Mehta ka Ulta Chashma”, two shows that can be considered the holy grail of
Indian pop culture. These kids play bat-ball; and kabaddi, and promise me a box of sweets if they do well in their half yearly exams. I soon find myself next to the train tracks, where a passenger train to Kanpur is now blocking my view. I
chat for a while with a local man, who’s frustrated at not being able to cross the tracks to get to work. Having grown up here, he now sells cell phone accessories in Moti Bagh. He clearly is worried about being late to work, and adamant on crossing the tracks, since using any other route would be too long
and complex. I take his leave when the train starts to move.
“This used to be a forest earlier”, my final interviewee is another old woman. “We came here from Aligarh because of some family conflicts. I came with my father and my husband. We chopped wood and used rocks to build our houses.” Her eyes become distant as she recollects the now dense and
widespread busti emerging from nothingness. I now reconsider calling the mere nineteen years of my life enough to make me "veteran”. I stored each of these stories in a corner of my mind, never to be forgotten, and bid adieu to Sanjay Camp, taking with me a Delhi I had never seen.
6 अक्टूबर की सुबह कुछ घंटे पहले, संजय कैंप की सुनी गलियारों के बहार, खड़े थे कुछ कलाकार; आंखों मे उमंग लिए, हाथों मे बदलाव के रंग लिए , और मन मे उन गलियारों मे बहार ले आने की चाह लिए |
दीवारों पर वह रंग हरे, नीले, गुलाबी और पीले नहीं थे, वह रंग थे वहां के छोटे बच्चों की आँखों मे पनप रहे अनदेखे सपनो के, वह रंग थे अपनत्व के, ख़ुशी के, समृद्धि के आगमन के, और चारों और फैली दरिद्रता के अंत की उम्मीद के |
संजय कैंप, अनगिनत बिलासपुर जैसे छोटे गाँव से आये परिवारों का; इस अनजान से, ना समझ आने वाली भीड़ मे कहीं घूम दिल वालों की दिल्ली मे एक मात्र सहारा है| एक ऐसे हकीकत का आईना लिए वहां लोग रहते जिसका सामना शायद हम शहरी लोग करना ही नहीं चाहते| बेरोजगारी इस तरह से अपनी जड़ें फैलाई बैठी है की , अपने आप मे हर रूप से सक्षम भी, बेबस बने बैठे हैं, लाचारी की बेस्वादी रोटी खाने को मजबूर बैठे हैं |
संजय कैंप मे मेरे वो 5 घंटे, प्रतिदिन नयी उमंग से ज़िन्दगी की नयी तरंगों को छेड़ने का, हर छोटी खुशी मे सम्पूर्णता ढूंढने की सीख दे गए |
बस्ती की उन दीवारों के अंदर बसे लोग एक दूसरे से अभी तक बेखबर, अरुबारो थे | पर मानो यह रंग, इन सबको आपस मे मिलाने की एक कड़ी, डोर बन गयी | जिन दीवारों पर, जिन घरों पर सिर्फ कब्ज़ा करने जैसे ख्याल आते थे मन मे, आज उसी पड़ोस के बच्चे , उसी आंटी के घर की दीवारों पर कौनसा डिज़ाइन करेंगे या करना चाहिए यह बताने के लिए तैयार बैठे हैं | यह रंग मानो सांप्रदायिक एकता की उम्मीद बन गए थे |
अंत्यंत रूप से लोभने वाली बात थी की बस्ती के काफी, तकरीबन सारे घर महिलों द्वारा ही आर्थिक रूप से चलाएं जाते हैं | पति बेलदारी से इतना नहीं कमा पाते, इसलिए घर मे कपड़े सील कर, पास के घरों मे रोजाना के कामों मे मदद करवाके और उसी एक कमरे मे छोटी सी दूकान खुल के घर की आर्थिक जिम्मेदारी को बखूबी निभाती हैं | घर मे दिवाली के दौरान रंग करवाना एक बहुत महंगा खर्चा है जिसके लिए ना जाने कब से पैसे बचा के रखे हुए थे | घर का मुफ्त मे,बिन कहे, बिना मदद मांगे रंग जाना किसी बिन मांगी मुराद पूरी हो जाने जैसा है |
वहीँ की २6 वर्षीय निवासी रेखा रानी कहती हैं, “दीदी, देवी माँ की ऐसी कृपा कभी नहीं हुई, हम अपने गाँव मे , नवरात्रों से पहले रंगोली बनाते हैं, और अब देखो, इस बार तो यहां हमारा घर ही पूरा रंग दिया | माँ बहुत प्रसन्न होंगी | छोटी सी 12 वर्षीय, ज्योति कहती हैं, “दीदी, ऐसा लग रहा है, मानो दिवाली अभी से आ गयी हो.| उनकी माँ बोलती हैं, की मेरी बेटी पास के एक बहुत बड़े स्कूल मे जाता है, और हम EWS quota से इसका दाखिला वहां करवाएं हैं, यह हर साल आकर बोलती थी, पापा मेरे दोस्त इस दिवाली यह कर रहे हैं, घर ऐसे सजा रहे हैं | बच्चे बहुत खुश है की इस दिवाली उनके पास भी कुछ बताने को है | ऐसे ही छोटी छोटी ख़ुशी इखट्टे करते हुए, सूरज को अलविदा करते हुए, नन्हे बच्चे अपनी अपनी दीवारों पर अगली सुबह नयी सोच उतरते देखने के इंतज़ार मे अपने घरो को लौट चलें |
सच यह रंग बदलाव के हैं, एकता के, मानवता के और भेदभाव की बेरंगी भद्दी दीवारों को प्रेम से रंगने के है!
Drawing inspiration from Gandhi’s words “be the change you wish to see in the world”, I decided to volunteer for the much talked and much awaited event – Rang Badlav Ke, organized by Button Mushrooms in collaboration with Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation. It was my first significant step towards some social work and needless to say the first hand experience I got was mesmerizing. Roaming in those narrow lanes, capturing smiles and thoughts of those people, being captivated by the newly adorned walls surely made my day. Who says you need myriad of resources to feel happy and contented? The people of Sanjay Camp taught me how to find happiness in small and simple playthings of life. Looking forward to more such enthralling experiences!
While talking to local residents I came across hardships they suffer and the way they tackle each problem with the cheapest way possible. Sanjay Gandhi Camp residents were overwhelmed by Rang Badlav Ke, the initiative taken by Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation.
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