I lived in Satya Niketan. The building collapse is not a surprise
I wonder what this tragedy would mean for students who come after me. What it would mean for the students currently residing in that neighbourhood. How do you resume everyday life knowing that the very roof above your head — your supposed home away from home — can collapse any moment?
Rescue operation underway after a building collapsed near Satya Niketan at South-West Delhi on Sunday. (ANI Video Grab, Enhanced using AI) As a student from Lucknow, I worked towards a dream — a seat in Delhi University. The university is a symbol of possibility for many who couldn’t otherwise afford it. Despite the city’s reputation, parents nurture their child’s dream because of its promise. They eagerly accompany their child to look for a “home away from home”. I remember my parents’ faces dropping as soon as they entered the clutter and squalour of the Satya Niketan area. For the 17-year-old me, the dirt and congestion didn’t matter as much. I had cinched a seat in Jesus and Mary College in the Psychology Department and was over the moon. I had also known that this is all that my family could afford in the South Delhi neighbourhood. All I could imagine was how I could transform this matchbox-sized room into 100 square feet of cool. So I stacked books, put up fairy lights, and filled my walls with posters and keepsakes.
In hindsight, what I was really trying to do was to replace the claustrophobia with things that would soften the harshness of returning to a suffocating room with no ventilation or sunlight. It would soften the reality that I’m paying upwards of Rs 12,000 in rent (which was about the same as my annual college fees) and sharing a “queen” bed, one tiny toilet, and a small desk, of which the chair collided with the bed the moment you stood up.
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