In the long days of the Corona lockdown and slowdown in Delhi, we often found ourselves confined to our immediate neighborhood. This would seem to limit our ability to interact with the city itself, to explore its secrets. But Delhi is dense; not only in people, but in their interactions and struggles. Their dreams and tall tales. So dense that even our small corner of the city has enough stories to last a lifetime. Few are written down and fewer are verifiable, but if you could hear them all you would understand everything about life.
One morning, we woke up and found my bike gone. We went around the colony asking guards and sabziwallas (veg-sellers)- the people who occupy the street- whether they had seen anything. We got no leads on the bike, but our plight stirred some of these guys to such emotion that they decided to impart some wisdom on us. One stood out.
He was tall and so thin that his eyes seemed to jut out of his head towards us, maybe in his thirties. Not a sabziwalla himself but the helper or friend of a sabziwalla he was hanging out with. The kind of guy you’d see a thousand times in a day in Delhi, but never really look at, or wonder about his life.
He quickly exploded with vigor when he heard about the bike. “Delhi is very dangerous. People will take anything and everything!”
He then told us a story. I understood no more than a few words, but I caught the drift of his storytelling power as he vigorously gesticulated, widened his eyes, and spoke with great emotion.
It was clear that he was bringing us, the listeners, to a world much more edgy than the quiet colony evening in which we were standing. Mallika later translated his words to me, and through the dilution of translation and memory I will try to relate them to you now with no editorializing. For background, the term Hijra refers to a member of India’s transgender community, who often live in groups together at the margins of society.
“One time my phone was stolen. I knew who took it; it was a Hijra I was working with. I knew where they lived. So I decided to go get it back.
“I got myself a stiff drink.
“Then I went to where they lived, and I was ready to just take the phone. I also had 10,000 Rupees with me. I found the Hijra and got my phone back. I was trying to leave, but the other Hijras knew I was there and that I had the Rs 10,000. So they came after me.
“I was running away as fast as I could, but they were still chasing me. I had had a stiff drink. I decided to just stop where I was in the road. I stopped all the traffic. I turned to them and said ‘if you want it, come and get it!’ They had no response to that. They turned and left.
“I was still scared, so I sprinted all the way to Duala Kuan.”***