Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Basti basna khel nahin hai/ Bastey bastey basti hai 8212; Faani
In an effort to locate a book I discovered a basti. The maid who accompanied me found the basti suffocating. For she had lived her life in a slum. What upset her intrigued me. Amidst the dirt, stench and heat I found warmth, camaraderie, courtesy. A basti is not a slum. The word cannot be translated even as a neighbourhood. A basti has dimensions which are a gift of time. Age, history, ritual, a thousand little ways of eating, nurturing friendships, remembering ancestors, personal and collective; enjoying the company of children and old men, welcoming strangers who acquire the aura of relatives; patronising dingy cafes that excel in tested foods, the same foods that perhaps drew the fancy of a foreign woman with the name of Charmeen O8217;Brian who found in them not just nourishment for the body but for the mind and soul. Hence a cookbook of Nizamuddin basti titled, Recipes from an Urban Village. Intrigued by its title I went looking for it. I never found the book but found a place that has withstood time.
The lane stretches endlessly. I walk past cafes emitting aromas of spiced foods. I see old men in corners sitting and chatting, children run behind a ball in the tight space as if it is a playground. I look for sign boards on shop fronts but there are none. In a basti such as this people know each other without reading signs. Every one I stop to ask, even the children know Shobha Ram8217;s shop. Keep going you will find it, they say, pointing a finger down the lane without an end. I reach a shop with sacks of grain lying at the door. Where is Shobha Ram8217;s shop, I ask. 8220;This is it,8221; a small old man mutters. Are you Shobha Ram? 8220;No, I am his son.8221; I have so many questions to ask but he has no time to humour me. He is busy, doling out small packets of dal, rice, oil, rock salt8230; He digs them out of well-worn canisters. His hands are weathered as is his face. He attends to each one silently, without a word. The shop must be old, I hum. Nearly 60 years, he says without bravado. I want to know why Shobha Ram set up shop in this tight lane, in a basti predominantly Muslim. Thoughts that cross our minds these days perhaps never occurred to a man like Shobha Ram. He was true to his name 8212; doing his duty and lending glory to the name of his god.
