Khirkee Voice (Issue 3) English

KHIRKEE VOICE

MAY 10, 2017

ISSUE #3

12 PAGES

Drawing the lives of our winged and four-legged neighbors

72 Domes of a Khirkee Monument

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W E A T H E R M AY 1 0 , 2 0 1 7

BAGHDAD, IRAQ

THE

SPECIAL ISSUE ON URBAN HABITAT

Supported by

Jahajee Great Grandmother’s saga continues

Umbrella Streets of Portugal

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TRANSFORMATION OF JAMUN PARK

photographs: malini kochupillai

After years of being an unclaimed and unloved wasteland, the dramatic transformation of Jamun Park has injected new joy in the Khirkee and Hauz Rani communities

DEMERARA, GUYANA

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN Jamun Park in 2015

Malini Kochupillai

KHARTOUM, SUDAN

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA

NEW DELHI, INDIA

PATNA, INDIA

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butting the always-busy Press Enclave road, directly across from Select Citywalk Mall is a stretch of open space, which was once lush with Jamun Trees. The trees were cut down over fifteen years ago, for ‘growth and development’ and the inevitable parking lot. A bureaucratic tussle between the many agencies that claim to have control over the space had left Jamun Park in a state of extreme neglect, with unscrupulous builders using the grounds to dump garbage and construction debris. Kids from Khirkee and Hauz Rani would play cricket and gilli danda in the midst of this rubble, women would scarcely venture anywhere near the space after sundown, when groups of huddling young men would take it over for their evening drink and card games.

All that changed on March 11 2017, when the gates to the new Jamun Wala Park were thrown open for the joyous residents of Khirkee and Hauz Rani. The community project is a CSR initiative by Select Citywalk Mall, who, in conjunction with SDMC have created this much need public amenity for the residents of Khirkee Extension and Hauz Rani. The park is accessible from 6 AM to 11PM everyday, and has many different zones designed for various uses within it including two gazebos on gently sloping mounds

Jamun Park in 2017 , designed and landscaped by Select Citywalk Mall as a CSR initiative with SDMC

that offer a panoramic view of the winding red walkways cutting across green lawns, and a corner with brightly coloured outdoor exercise equipment.

Shanti Ji was working out

on the shoulder rotator, “I come here to exercise twice a day, morning and evening.

I have arthritis, and recently had a gall bladder operation.

My doctor told me that I must exercise regularly to

help with both digestion and joint pains, and having this space to come to has really helped.”

Alam & Harish Rajan, young boys from Khirkee who have come 2

Khirkee Veterans Reminisce photographs: mahavir singh bisht

O N T H I S

D AY

May 10, 1994 Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black President

Ram Pradeep Jha at his tea shop

“It is said that there was a tunnel from the mosque or Quote of the Day from Satpula all the way to “I asked my soul Tughlaqabad Fort. Once a goat What is Delhi? lost in Tughlaqabad was found in She replied The World is the body these parts, perhaps it wandered all the way here through that and Delhi its Life” tunnel?”

Mirza Ghalib

Pradeep Sachdeva at his Aya Nagar studio

Jha Ji in front if his kirana shop

Moolchand Mehra at the new Jamun Park

“I tell people that this is the real India. You have a mix of people: you have the poor, you have the landlords, there is little infrastructure, but it keeps you rooted to the ground. Living here has its challenges, but it also has its upsides- like the kind of space we managed to build here. ”

“After the mall came up, property rates have skyrocketed.

Due to the hospital also the price of rentals rose. Earlier, land would sell for Rs. 2,000 per sq yard, now it is close to Rs. 1.25 lac per sq yard. But this is a wonderful place, even a poor man can make a good life here.”

“This was all full of jamun trees some 20 or more years ago, and all around were fields and forests. Nothing to see for miles!

I prefer things now though, there are people, social life, it is more lively, there are good facities around, life is convenient.”

KHIRKEE VOICE • May10, 2017

THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF KHIRKEE

JAMUN PARK / from page 1 to the park only once or twice think it is an excellent and much needed improvement to the space.

While they are appreciative of the initiative taken by the mall, they were a little weary about issues of openness, “we appreciate that the Mall needs to put in place rules against damaging the amenities, but they must keep it accessible to everyone, denying entry to anyone, like they do in the mall, would not be ok.” They are happy that the park is currently open to everyone.

The densely packed neighborhoods of Hauz Rani and Khirkee Extension have a dearth of open spaces for public use, with no fields for kids to play, members of the diverse community to congregate or celebrate, or for recreation. Given this paucity, the newly revived Jamun Park has

Exercising regularly in the park has really helped improve Shanti Ji ‘s health

Earlier it was full of debris and overtaken by unwanted elements drinking and gambling. The barb wire became necessary as all sorts of boys and men would line up on top of the wall and ogle into the park, making all the women uncomfortable, now with the barbed wire they can’t do that.”

While the park is bound by two layers of white lattice work wall on the Press Enclave side, it is secured with a formidable looking barbed wire fence along the village.

Curious about this discrepancy in treatment, we spoke with Kusum Kaushik, whose house overlooks the razor sharp wall dividing her back yard and Jamun Park. “There is no entrance from the backside, if the park is meant for the village, how come there is no entrance on the village side? They should have

village and absence along the main road, suggests a lack of faith in the very community that the park is meant to serve. But is this suspicion warranted? Can the Khirkee community come together to preserve and protect this precious new amenity without the forced control of a barbed wire fence?

Mirza Salauddin, a resident of Hauz Rani for the past seventeen years, thinks that people are improving. “Now that the space has been cleaned up and made usable, I believe people will not spoil it.

But it is better to be cautious for now, some restrictions need to be in place.”

Rules and restrictions aside, the park is an enormous success, and has made everyone in the Khirkee and Hauz Rani communities very happy. As we left the park, narrowly

We bring you this third edition of Khirkee Voice with great enthusiasm and excitement, summer is in full swing and our neighborhood has a brand new park to celebrate it in! This issue looks at Khirkee as an urban habitat, and the lived experiences of its past, its present and its many possible futures.

As a place to live, Khirkee has many things going for it- its is well located in the many types of amenities and services available within a two km radius, including public transport, hospitals, schools and colleges, and retail, sports and leisure facilities. It is relatively affordable, and as a result, provides housing for a wide cross section of society- a feature that makes its social fabric that much more culturally diverse and interesting. Its narrow streets offer an abundance of shade in these harsh summer days, and its close-knit roofs offer a welcome respite from the stuffy indoors in the evenings. Some of our stories in this issue are about imagining what Khirkee could be like in the future, how it will evolve as a space for living, learning, creating and playing, while also tackling some of the pressing concerns that face our city; like problems of pollution, rising temperatures and a deteriorating environment, and the animosity engendered by an increasingly fragmented public realm.

In this latest issue, we bring together stories from some of its oldest residents, who tell us just how much the neighborhood has changed in the last 20 years; and also stories from some of its youngest visitors, that dream up a utopian future for this unique habitat, including a vision of an inter-connected urban farmscape on the roofs of Khirkee. How wonderful it would be to have an undulating farm to walk in at the roof level of the tightly knit neighborhood, a kind of parallel sidewalk in the sky! Also peppered throughout this issue are little reminders of our winged and furry friends, who inhabited the city long before we got here, and must now share their transformed habitats with us. The drawings remind us that these animals are trying to make the best of the city just like us, as they struggle to survive and seek shelter for yet another day.

We also hope to raise some critical questions about community participation and engagement, or lack there of, in the design and maintenance of the public spaces of our neighborhood. With the rejuvenation of Jamun Park, everyone has seen for themselves how much benefit can come from an egalitarian, accessible, and well maintained public space. We hope that this will encourage our somewhat fragmented community to come together and take on the responsibility of improving the rest of our public realm. Small changes at the personal and collective levels can make a world of difference to our streets, and by extension, to our lives.

We would like to thank Khoj International Artists Association for their continued support in bringing out this publication.

The stark contrasts in the edge treatment along the village and the main road is striking.

been a breath of fresh air for this neighborhood.

We spoke to Chanda, who has lived in Khirkee for 38 years, as she was using the exercisers.

“It’s wonderful that they have redeveloped it, I come regularly.

thought about it. All I can see from my place now is this sharp wire.”

The barbed wire fence, while acceptable to a few in the community, has been a point of contention for others. Its conspicuous presence along the

Adults and kids enjoy working out on the outdoor exercise equipment

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avoiding kids playing with buckets of water, we saw a small group kicking a yellow football around.

Adil Mehdi, originally from Iraq, has been in Khirkee for around nine months, and was playing football with his two sons and a

Sudanese friend, Abdul Wahab.

Abdul is a student in Hyderabad and is on a short visit to the city, “this place was a dumpyard when I came here last year, it is great to see how it has changed, they have made it really beautiful. I come

here whenever I can to play with kids from around here.”

Even though there are no longer any Jamun trees in Jamun Park, it is good to see it full of laughter and activity, one hopes it will only get better with time.

Adil Mehdi and his sons were playing football with Abdul Wahab

May 10 , 2017 • KHIRKEE VOICE

Khirkee Aur Darwaaza Anupam bansal

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his is a short tale of Khirkee & Darwaaza. About a village named ‘Khirkee’ and an old haveli with an ornate ‘darwaaza’ that lies nestled deep inside it. My association with Khirkee Village started in 1999 when looking for a studio space for my architecture practice. A friend recommended a rare place in Khirkee Village, and it was love at first sight; the place was

one of the only original surviving Havelis in Khirkee Village, with a beautiful arched entranceway, a raised plinth or a ‘deori’, and a courtyard and rooms with wood & stone ‘tukdi’ roofing. With a few modifications we occupied the place for almost a decade.

We soon realised how different this area was compared to the other parts of the city. In the pre-mall era Khirkee was still quite a sleepy and non-descript village. Khirkee

mosque was its only claim to fame. Marked by narrow winding gullies and tightly packed, adjacent houses, it reminded us of old 18th19th century towns. It was often tough explaining the location to visitors. Many people started to refer to our studio as “the one opposite a tabela” as it was located opposite a cowshed belonging to our neighbour whom we all knew as ‘tauji’.

The Khirkee Haveli with the ornate Darwaaza that pulled us in at first sight.

While the days were occupied with work, we would often transform the Haveli at night for parties or small events. I cannot forget the look on the face of a diplomat coming for a music evening. Having spent more than an hour wandering in the by lanes of the village he had a stunned look on his face when he finally arrived.

Having driven straight from Chanakyapuri, he probably felt as if he had arrived into a ghetto of sorts. However, with a few visits people would start to discover the richness of this area.

Parties at Khirkee would often go to wee hours with loud music.

The village neighbours would complain about girls with short skirts, smoking outside the haveli or the bad influence of parties on the village culture. We would often end up in police stations with our music systems, speakers and DJ ‘in custody’.

The space at the haveli was

reflective and introverted, while inside it was meditatively silent & still. The deeper one retreated into the haveli the deeper was the sense of calm and repose. The sky and sunlight was the only slice of nature visible. Parks or gardens were a rarity. As one entered the haveli it immediately drew a cosmic connect.

Food was a great part of the unique character of the village.

The only places to order food were dhabbas, or street vendors. We eagerly awaited the “tak tak” of the Tikkiwalla. Fresh and prepared right in front of our eyes, the tikkis were assured to be delectable with chutney and dahi. While I would refrain from indulging on a daily basis, my younger colleagues’ buy would make it irrepressible.

As the Saket malls developed opposite, the village character underwent rapid transformation.

The population increased manifold and became more cosmopolitan. It always surprised us how rapidly houses were demolished and reconstructed with little regard to safety. Shallow foundations and tall structures mushroomed side by side. As architects, we always felt nervous of these mushrooming buildings. Soon, we realized that much like the village culture, being adjacent and jostling with each other, these buildings behaved as a group supporting each other rather than as individuals standing in isolation. They could absorb each other’s shocks.

Since having moved our offices to a DDA colony, the epitome of modern planning, the contrast to Khirkee cannot be more

pronounced. The DDA planning is a complete antithesis of the organic informal or even chaotic life in the village. Without setbacks, narrow streets as the active spines, jostling for space, coexistence and with bare minimum service provisions; the Khirkee ecosystem thrives on its own logic, often incomprehensible to an outsider. The streets teem with life, sometimes to the extent of choking up with traffic.

One experienced in Khirkee the remnants of village and small town culture, which is lacking in the planned parts of the city. One had an opportunity to interact and cross paths with people of all walks. It was and I believe still is more inclusive in that sense.

Villages such as Khirkee enable planners and architects to commit mistakes & absorb all the spillovers.

Even though the villages have been included or rather engulfed in the city physically, our city remains fragmented because conceptually they have remained isolated, distant from the planning process.

Khirkee and the Darwaaza may seem like an embodiment of an indigenous and past culture, however they remain relevant examples of sustainable and inclusive living in cities. Even though the physical infrastructure in the village left a lot to be desired, the spirit of the informal streets in Khirkee village and its environment fuelled our creative energies for a large part of our journey as practicing architects.

anupam bansal

THE NAMESAKE Shweta Keshri

“

What I love about Delhi is that it is one of the most historic cities in the world.

And in terms of just the litter of monuments, it’s the greatest.

Istanbul, Rome, Cairo are second division compared to Delhi. You can’t take a swing on the golf course here, you can’t walk through the Lodhi Gardens, you can’t turn around the traffic circle without meeting some medieval tomb from the Tughlaqs or the Lodhis. And what’s happened is that this excess of monuments has left the people just not to value them.” said the Scottish historian-writer William Dalrymple, whose famous novel City Of Djinns (1994) is an ode to Delhi, a city he has called home for nearly three decades.

Dalrymple’s agony is relatable, as many monuments stand estranged to the passing crowds of Delhi.

Hidden in plain sight, Khirkee Masjid is a reminder of the city’s rich heritage and past. Although its lineage as a mosque or fort is uncertain, it lends the neighborhood its identity.

Khirkee Masjid, at the periphery of Khirkee Village, shares a similar fate. Even as a self-proclaimed heritage enthusiast, it took me four years and a persuasive editor to walk the 550 metres from my home to this little known historical gem.

What’s so special?

Spread over an area of 87 square meters, and raised on a plinth three meters high, the monument looks like a small citadel. Built by Khani-Jahan Junan Shah, the Prime Minister of Feroz Shah Tughlaq (1351–1388), it was constructed in a fusion of Islamic and Indic architectural styles, and derives its name from the perforated jali windows, Khirkee in Urdu, that dot the walls of the mosque. “It is the only North Indian mosque to be mostly covered,” reveals Brijesh Kumar Tiwari, the ASI caretaker who has been here for six years.

Lit through its windows and four courtyards, over 400 arched

pillars are immediately attractive and inviting. Some of the arches deviate from others in appearance reflecting an attempt at restoration.

“ASI began a restoration a few years ago, but it had to be stopped when the work started to turn pink,” informs Tiwari. At the eastern wall are two staircases that lead to the roof, covered in 72 domes divided in clusters of nine. The sight becomes more stunning with the Khirkee skyline as its backdrop.

Fortress or a Mosque?

Although it’s referred to as mosque, a few residents of Khirkee Village believe it to be a fort. A report on the monuments in the area by World Monuments Fund and INTACH states, “The mosque with its massive sloping rubble walls, corner towers and forbidding facade certainly looks less like a place of worship and more like a citadel.”

A group of students told me of

an incident in 2015, when some ill intentioned individuals tried to enter the monument to offer prayers, sparking tensions in the otherwise peaceful village. The Muslim residents of the area had never used the place for worship.

The situation was calmed with

police intervention who enforced a prohibition on prayers, citing the Ancient Monument and Archaeological Site and Remains Act of 1958. Things have since returned to the normalcy and peaceful coexistence this community is known for. shweta keshri

A stunning view of the 72 domes on the roof framed by the Khirkee skyline

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KHIRKEE VOICE • May10, 2017

EXCLUSIVE SERIES FORCED INTO THE OCEAN 3rd installment of an Artist’s rendition of his great grandmothers forced migration.

C Into the Demerara TEXT + ARTWORK ANDREW ANANDA VOOGEL

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homp, chomp, chomp, a sluggish iguana paces through the jungle, chomp, chomp, chomp, leisurely attacking the low hanging leaves of overburdened ferns and trees. A young girl silently crouching in the bushes goes unnoticed as he passes her by. Intently, she creeps up from behind and briskly grabs him up by the tail! She bursts out of the gently buzzing morning bush triumphant. Her hand grips the bright green tail victoriously as the distressed iguana gently struggles against his new captor. Mala rushes across the dirt path, tardily heeding her mother’s calls: “Mala, it’s time! Get your things and go on to school.” Mala hurriedly runs

up to her mother, who patiently sat by the tawa, gently flipping the morning rotis. Her mother, Budhni looks up, but pauses when her eyes meet the befuddled gaze of

the captive lizard. Unimpressed, she raises her head to look at her daughter and quickly pushes two wrapped rotis and some dal into her daughter’s clenched hand. Mala

reaches for the container of dal and loses grip of the frightened iguana, who scampers off unimpressed back into the thick of the jungle.

“You mustn’t mess with dem things

May 10 , 2017 • KHIRKEE VOICE

gyal” Budhni calmly reproaches her middle daughter. “Yes, ma” Mala acquiesces. But, she secretly held a vendetta against the escaped lizard, promising to find him again if she catches him back in her part of the jungle. “Now, go on an get to school, ya’ unda’stand?” Budhni quipped. Mala looked at her mother’s bright yellow sari, how it clashed with the dull brown dirt, for a moment she tried to angle her eye with the jungle and the sari to see if she could find a more suitable pairing for the bright yellow, but her brief meander earned her a swift smack as her mother sent her running off to school. As she paced out of her village she took note of her neighbor Choka’s coffee plantation, she imagined herself later on that day, upon the encroachment of dusk, sneaking into the plantation to pilfer some fresh coffee beans. This put a smile on her face.

Canal Number II as it was called, was an Indian village. It sat along side of a winding creek whose dark bubbly waters earned it the name of Cola Creek. On the weekends, children would salvage old timber planks to create diving boards that would launch them far up into the air before they would come crashing down into the soft currents of the creek. The pages of Canal Number II contain countless puzzling histories far beyond what

Because much like unrequited love, a Guyanese river trip will lure you in and fling you back from whence you came, without so much as a kiss goodbye.

If you happen to have the courage to leave the small waters of the gentle Cola Creek, you eventually join the winding Essequibo River, brother to the Amazon, resting place of many a colonial captain and captor, an empty alluring liquid highway where the tenets of reality begin to fade and passage into the eerily lit otherworldly dream of the interior begins.

Now I should stop at this point; for it is important for us to decide where to go from here. We’re still safely in the waters of Cola Creek, Mala has gone to school and Bhudni is still minding the tawa.

You see earlier this morning, Mala’s father, aka Lifta’ Man Polo, as he was know around the plantation, decided to head out of Cola Creek and down the Essequibo River.

He did this, of course without informing his wife or anyone in his family, and there may or may not have been some rum involved, or it could have been chai, let’s not make any assumptions too soon.

Lifta’ Man Polo is literally a lifter man, he minds one of the large cranes that operates at an old sugar cane plantation in the East Demerara. His father, Bhoj

Facing page, Top: Canal No. 2, Silver Gelatin Print; 2007 Facing page, Below: Demerara Dreaming; 2011 Below: Puja Space, Guyana, Silver Gelatin Print; 2007

can be written here. But, if you continue this meander with me, I promise to share the best ones with you.

At the edge of the canal, sit half a dozen river-boats with outboard motors that are constantly chugging away, awaiting passengers and carriage to shuttle in between the plantations. Morning, noon and night, Jahajee men sit beside their vessels, drinking chai or rum, awaiting fares and practicing their cricket pitch amidst the sweltering heat. The destination is not important, but your purpose is. For if you have the gusto to take a ride down any river in Guyana, there must be a good reason.

came from Uttar Pradesh in 1908, bamboozled by a scoundrel that lead him out of his village and to the Port of Calcutta, a swift British ship brought him to this far off land and alas to India, he never returned. Fast forwarding through time, we’re back at this morning when Lifta’ Man Polo, under the influence of rum (or chai was it), decided, machete in hand, to pay a man to take him out of Cola Creek, down the Essequibo and into the interior. As for the purpose, we will just have to wait and see.

my Cacophonous street

illustration: ita mehrotra

punyasil yongzon

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s I stare outside my window, laying on my bed, the mountains in the distance slowly reveal their grandeur; glistening bright against the morning sun. I sip my cup of Darjeeling while the birds chirp away to glory, announcing the start of a new day. A ‘cock-o-doodledo’ in an alto breaks the harmony and with it, my sleep. With a deep yawn and a long stretch I somehow manage to pull myself out of the warm bed.

The rooster across my lane has become my alarm off late. He wakes me up at 7 in the morning and thus begins my day. Sitting on my throne, I take a look at developments around the world, but after reading through a few pages, voices on the street beckon me to look into matters closer home.

It begins with a distinct call early in the morning. Not understanding what it was for, I once ran to my balcony and discovered that they fix sewage lines. Manual scavenging is still an everyday reality in this neighborhood. Their call, a long drawn out, surprisingly melodious ‘naaaaal’ finally made sense. There are few of them who do the rounds in the morning and their voices slowly fade into the crowd by 8 am. While I have never really seen anyone engaging in business with them, I don’t think there will be much as the lanes have now been laid with new sewage pipes, promising smooth, unclogged operation. But the one sound that really gets everyone’s attention is the constant honking coming from the van ferrying children to school. It creates an emergency like situation and I go and survey the area from my balcony. It is usually Ms. Chouhan’s son who parks his car carelessly, creating a hurdle for young, bright minds from reaching their temple of knowledge.

Sometimes it is her tenant’s two wheelers which create chaos. Her

tenants are young talented group of boys who perform at events and their practice sessions are so rigorous and loud that at times I feel I am an integral part of their troupe! Sometimes, there are impromptu performances at night which usually draws a huge crowd. Their intoxicating performance ends up with the elderlies screaming and banging their heads. To escape their unruly fans, they often leave behind their vehicles and run. The mornings that follow are the noisiest as the van driver is faced with many

I have grown to find peace among these sounds. Their chaos is where I find my comfort. Finding solitude while living amidst the cacophony is the bliss I enjoy. obstacles along his way towards completing his purposeful duty.

He, however, being a determined and a responsible adult, awakens the neighbours from their deep slumber of ignorance and ensures the matter gets resolved immediately. Thus, deriving my energy, I rush to work.

Evenings after work are the best. The low drone emanating from Gauri Shankar Mandir creates a certain ambience in the air and there I find tranquillity.

Sipping my coffee and reading the rest of the newspaper, I wait for Machismo. I never fail to miss the siren he rings as he zooms through the narrow lanes sitting upon his mean machine which is so rudely loud that it gets everyone talking. He also brings me a gentle reminder that it’s time for dinner.

I enjoy my time in the kitchen as I get to cook listening to Classical Hindustani ragas, performed live

by my neighbour upstairs, everyday with her harmonium. Sadly, this luxury is brief, only till my dinner.

The tempo picks up its pace and I prepare for the rest of the event which tends to get wild sometimes.

It starts with our favourite pack of canines crooning their necks to raise their voices above that of the motor vehicles and their blaring silencer pipes. They are all great and consistent throughout the night. Of late, however, they have a competitor. It’s this rooster with an amazing talent to yodel at night. His distinct note stands out among all; he repeats it a couple of times and then it fades out softly.

The dogs pick it up from where he leaves, whining and howling, trying to create a perfect symphony.

The show gets over by 3 am and the audiences start leaving for home. Their laughter and giggles suggest the show was much liked.

However, sometimes they like to linger around a little and enjoy an after party. That gets really exciting.

The clanking of their stilettos and their laughter enraptures me and I sneak out of bed for a peek. From the balcony, I can see beautiful figures clad in dresses that are so grand that it can be hailed as the epitome of power dressing. I have seen many men scoot away upon seeing these figures approaching them. They are bold and beautiful, masculine and feminine. Guess it is this inbetweenness that makes them unique, often getting them categorized as the third gender.

After enjoying a brief party, they make their way home and I go back to my bed.

I have grown to find peace among these sounds. Their chaos is where I find my comfort. From growing in a quiet hill town to now calling Khirkee my home, life has taken quite a massive shift. Finding solitude while living amidst the cacophony is the bliss I enjoy as I stare out my window, onto my neighbour’s balcony, her clothes drying under the summer sun.

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KHIRKEE VOICE • May10, 2017

Dreaming of an Urban Farmscape in the Sky

illustration: diti mistry

Kush Sethi

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n 2014 I was part of a community-art project on ‘urban farming’ at Khoj studios in Khirkee. Artists explored the potential of urban farming, considered the politics of food and urban food systems, while some grew edible art installations. As the only non-artist and a chemistry student, my interests were more inclined towards learning how to grow food, gathering stakeholders in the neighborhood, recycling waste materials and imagining a

circular economy around food and food waste.

My point of interaction became a local neighborhood park surrounded by rental apartments, residences of native villagers with shops along its periphery.

Glancing up at the balconies & roofs revealed lush money plant vines drooping from paint buckets, and tulsi and kadi patta potted in every other house. Conversations with locals unraveled stories of former farmland, orchards & water catchments that existed right under our feet. Everyone was talking of

a greener past, and it was getting evident that there was a common desire for open green public spaces, for growing food and the love for plants in general.

Venturing into homes to speak with people about growing food, I met Mrs. Rizwana. We rode to nearby nurseries on her husband’s yellow Vespa to buy some starting materials - planters, soil mix and seasonal veggies & herbs. Inspired by this, more residents invited us to provide interventions in their private balconies & more queries came from the shop owners around

the park. It felt like the inception of a local food & gardening movement. Considering what we were learning by observing, discussing and experimenting with these residents, it was becoming easier to imagine a parallel, green street-life in Khirkee.

The unexplored and often unused rooftops of Khirkee are a potentially vibrant community space for the neighborhood. These interconnected rooftops could easily become a parallel means of movement between houses, creating the possibility of an

alternate ‘street’ on the roof for kids to play and jump around in, for neighbors to share ideas, coproduce & build their individual roofs to act as building blocks of the neighborhood’s ecosystem.

On a recent visit to one of Khirkee’s many roofs, overlooking the malls in the south and slowly pivoting on the spot, I began to create a mental map of the terraces.

If Mrs. Rizwana could grow food for a family of five, with some motivation and encouragement, so could the rest of the neighborhood!

I closed my eyes and pictured an afternoon of early spring in 2035 to visualize Khirkee’s roofscape as a food forest spread over 500 terraces in half a square kilometer area.

In my daydream, the 20 ft wall between me and the immediate neighbors - Saini’s, is lush with vines and creepers. The Saini’s have upcycled 5000 litre water tanks into garden beds and are maximizing the space by growing creeping beans, gourds, grape vines and even melons against mesh structures on the wall. It’s gotten so dense that the white wall is hidden behind neon green leaves, hanging fruits and flowers. Honey bees and butterflies are hovering around the flowers everyday. On the other side below us is a 400 square foot roof space, where three young agriculture students are experimenting with drip irrigation, rainwater harvesting and aquaponics. They’re learning and in parallel teaching the community how to grow herbs and veggies like basil, mint, lettuce, spinach, pak

Work Space - Home Space Disjunction Devika Menon

T

he only so-called hurdles while walking on the street in Greater Kailash are cars, more cars, and the occasional street dog, that most people are trying to get rid of.

In the lanes and gullies of Khirkee however, things are a little different. Hurdles may include bunches of men gathered together and talking over tea, dogs of all shapes and sizes that no one cares too much about, vegetable and fruit sellers, ear cleaners, cigarette sellers, burger vendors, momo vendors, magicians, trapeze artists, monkeys, egg street food vendors, and many others I cant even begin to think of.

I imagine most people living in Khirkee would someday want to move to an upscale neighborhood like GK. As for those who live in GK, they probably don’t know that Khirkee even exists, unless they

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have had to park their cars in the part of the neighborhood opposite the mall.

I was born and raised in GK, but over the past year, have been working at a small café in Khirkee.

Although I haven’t really been inside too much, even walking down the road from the mall has taught me how valuable Khirkee is, and how much the world can learn from the Khirkee community.

To begin with, there is the magic of the street. GK streets bear a deserted look, and you rarely, if ever, can get to see children playing badminton on them. Khirkee however, has people spilling

over onto every available nook and cranny of the street, having conversations and catching up over tea. You see not only Indians of all manner and colour, but also people from various ethnicities and nationalities at every corner.

GK on the other hand, has a kind of homogeneity, a sameness that seems to blend into the background.

Recently, I went out for a walk around Khirkee at 8 pm. I was so surprised to see so many people out on the street! In GK, people are huddled into their homes by this time, and the only people you see out on the street are domestic helps, guards and young girls living in paying guest accommodation.

I admit, as the lanes of Khirki became narrower, I started to get afraid. I was trying to remember the streets to figure out where I could get an auto from to go home.

I was also playing cool, walking on as if not to attract attention to

myself, someone who looked so visibly different. I was clutching my belongings close to myself, hoping I don’t get robbed. But once I got over the initial hesitation, I looked at my surroundings with intrigue.

Ultimately, even a complete outsider like myself felt a little bit at home. I saw a “Kerala Store”, which made me realize that a lot of Keralites live in Khirkee. As a mallu myself, I had never thought this could be possible. I saw a lady who seemed to be very comfortable out on the street with her dog, chatting casually. Although I did see many more men than women, I felt no threat.

I realized that neighborhoods like GK can never have or see so much diversity. Every house in GK has similar make-up, both the physical structure of the house, and the people living inside.

Khirkee has all sorts of settlements, from abandoned houses, to oneroom setups, to proper BHKs, not

to mention the complete diversity of the population. I had a very limited worldview when I came to Khirkee last year, and I didn’t know how long I would last in the neighborhood. However, over the year, I have come to experience Khirkee in ways my upbringing or class couldn’t have imagined.

If GK could learn something from Khirkee, it would be to engage with the outside more. This neighborhood forces you to engage with others, it doesn’t give you a choice, which is not always a bad a thing. GK residents don’t need to engage with the outside, and this is possibly what it is lacking. Living in an isolated bubble is only good for so long. Although I am not ready yet to move into Khirkee, I would love to experience it more. With all its sights and sounds, colours and smells, it can surely give GK something to aspire to.

May 10 , 2017 • KHIRKEE VOICE

choi and much more.

This roof adjoins the next one with a promenade that runs through the 500 terrace roofscape.

It is built with bridges, terrazzo pathways made of reclaimed tiles & glass from the construction sites and arbours made of metal and trained creepers. These walkways have been used daily by walkers, by handheld rickshaw pullers, by weekly visitors, birders, students and the neighborhood’s most famous parkour freerunners. More so, the garden association has developed a “Perennial Khirkee” app to provide people with the route map, cafe reviews, sellers list and offering produce or services under the barter / volunteer section.

Walking right through this walkway one reaches Ahmed uncle’s roof. He loves flowers and primarily focuses on the edible kinds. Bright orange nasturtium flowers trailing along the floor and trying to climb into his kadipatta hedges. Besides them are mallow flowers which he suggests are great in tea as well as yellow marigolds, pink periwinkles, purple dianthus, blue borage and pansies of all kinds. Today, he and his daughter are setting up a stall to sell boxes full of these flowers in the evening. His daughter Sheena is a great pâtissier and has planned for some desserts made using these flowers. It’s evident because I can already smell vanilla in the air. A bite of her cakes and each passer by wants to also grab a box of uncle’s flowers.

In this beautiful daydream, every rooftop gardener is experimenting, improving and sharing in the community. If only I could take you with me on a walk into my dreams of this rooftop food forest, to a future where cities and its communities grow their own food.

NEW SHOP BECOMES HUB FOR MUSIC LOVERS Swati Janu

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phone recharge shop, a travel agency or a tea stall is one of the most lucrative and quick retail businesses to set up across Indian cities today, requiring little to no initial investment. Within minutes of pulling up the shutter of my phone shop in Khirkee Extension, customers started trickling in for recharges and media. In the ever-changing streets of Khirkee Extension, several such shops have opened and shut, to be replaced by another one in a few months.

Just like the people from diverse cultures, nationalities and religion move in every month here while others leave for elsewhere. Delhi is made up of migrants and Khirkee Extension is a microcosm of that.

Shops form the backdrop to the street life in our cities. You don’t get just your groceries or recharges here, but also the latest local news, gossip and political views. Similarly, from inside my shop, the street itself seems like a stage. While the backdrop is defined by a brick wall, it changes every day based on what is parked there – from a momo cart to a tractor. New characters

A crowd gathers at Swati’s shop to watch one of her impromptu screenings of Bhojpuri movies

pass by everyday while some of the familiar ones make regular appearances. From the noisy swarm of cheerful Afghani kids returning home from school, the Bihari construction workers and the local tailors who crowd around the snacks carts in the evenings, the Somalian women who drift by in their elegant burkhas, sellers of different wares from carpets to brooms, guitar toting youngsters, elderly who have lived here all their lives or new arrivals looking for a place to rent – there is never really a dull moment that passes by on this street.

The phone recharge shop is a place to exchange stories. Someone tells me that he has been living in

the neighborhood for over 15 years before there was a jungle in place of the mall across the street. I hear of the new park in front of the mall from the kids who love it even though the horses and buffaloes which their family used to rear there have now had to move elsewhere. I discover that the space in front of a shop is a much coveted space with a vegetable vendor negotiating with me to park his cart there one day or the vendor selling clothes wanting to use it to set up a temporary shop on another.

Can the phone recharge shop become a place to create stories?

Just as the latest movies and songs are shared through phone memory cards, can we begin to share the

latest stories, jokes and recipes the same way? Now with our phones, we can easily make a video in an instant. What if we were to use this as a medium to talk about what we think is important or interesting.

What if you have a great recipe or a story you want to share or a song you would like others to listen to? This is what the phone recharge shop will try to find out, becoming a community window over time. So, come to the shop if you too would like to be a part of the street stories and conversations of Khirkee Extension!

-Your friendly, neighborhood shopkeeper, Swati Janu

KHIRKEE VOICE WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU We are looking for an enthusiastic young reporter to find and write about new and exciting developments and stories from within the Khirkee and Hauz Rani communities.

We are aslo seeking a language enthusiast who can translate from English to Hindi and vice versa.

Starting in the next issue, we are starting a new column titled ‘Letters to Khirkee’. Do send in your ‘Dear Khirkee’ letter, we are excited to publish the best ones!

For more information, comments, suggestions or queries, and to apply to the positions above, email us at KhirkeeVoice@gmail.com We are now on Facebook. Like us: www.facebook.com/KhirkeeVoice/

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KHIRKEE VOICE • May10, 2017

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May 10 , 2017 • KHIRKEE VOICE

SNIPPETS FROM THE WORLD WIDE WEB

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christopher macdeezee

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gudmund lindbaek

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gettyimages

Four Beautiful Streets from Cities around the World Nick Mafi

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ot all streets are created equal. Some are notable for their stunning natural features, such as the cherry blossom tunnel in Bonn, or the lush green vine shaded street in Spain. We bring you four stunning streets from across the world.

1. Chefchaouen, Morocco The streets of Chefchaouen, a small city in northwest Morocco, are famous for their different

Indian Immigrants’ Tea Shop Bridging Cultural Divides in Tanzania

shades of blue. Founded in 1471, the city was once used as a fortress for exiles from Spain. Over the centuries, many Jews moved to Chefchaouen, bringing with them the ancient belief that using blue dye would remind people of God’s power. For the most vivid experience, visitors should stroll down such streets as Al Hassan Onsar, Rue Outiwi, and the tight stairs leading up and down Rue Bin Souaki.

2. Jerez de la Frontera,

Andalucia, Spain Located in Andalusia, Spain, Jerez de la Frontera is a city known for its exquisite wine. Here, a street in the historic center is shaded by grape leaves from vines grown along the surrounding walls.

3. Águeda, Portugal Águeda’s Umbrella Sky Project began in 2011 as a part of the Portuguese city’s annual Ágitagueda Art Festival. Each summer, when temperatures soar, a handful of Águeda’s narrow

elspeth dehnert

elspeth dehnert

After Tanzania gained independence, many Indian families fled the country when resentment toward them grew. But the family behind the beloved K.T. Shop refused to leave their adopted home, where they had already spent decades planting their roots.

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ou’ll find some of the best samosas, kebabs, and chai at a nondescript tea shop in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. To get there, head to Kisutu, the city’s historically Indian neighborhood, and then make your way to Chagga Street. If it’s night, zigzag through the burning metal drums until you reach the silhouetted crowd. Or, if it’s day, look for the hole in the wall crammed tight with every type of Tanzanian—Hindu, Muslim, Christian, white, black, and brown.

You’ll know you have arrived when you smell the almost-half-acentury-old aroma of fried dough and sweet milk. The place is named K.T. Shop, and it’s where locals have been getting their Indian snack fix since 1968.

“We have all types of customers; not only Indians and Africans.

All types come and enjoy,” says Mansoor Ahmed Kadri, the 59-year-old co-owner of K.T. Shop.

Adapted from the original article at www.architecturaldigest.com/

Working alongside his two sons for the past 12 years, Kadri took over from his father, who took over from his. The shop grinds all of its spices at a mill before mixing them by hand and then adding them into their snacks. As for the chai tea, Kadri says the secret is in the cooking method. Kadri’s grandfather used the exact same recipes when he opened K.T. Shop in 1968. Thirty or so years earlier, he had immigrated with his family from Konkan, India to the British Tanzania—to work on the colonial railway system. But the story of Kadri’s family isn’t unique. Many of the 50,000 or so Tanzanians of Indian descent (Freddie Mercury was one) can recount similar tales.

Post Tanzania’s independence in 1961, many Indian families fled the country due to the growing resentment towards them for their economic success. But for some, like Kadri’s family, feelings of insecurity were not enough to drive them out of their adopted home. For Kadri,

who is a Sunni Muslim and speaks Hindi and Konkani at home, the place is a hotbed of diversity. It reflects Tanzanian society itself that is made up of more than 100 tribes, as well as a small number of Arabs, Asians (mainly Indians and Pakistanis), Europeans, and others.

While K.T. Shop is famous for its Indian snacks, its menu is also filled with local Swahili dishes and lots of vegetarian options for its Hindu customers. As for its Muslim customers, all of the food is halal. Clearly, it’s a place that wants Tanzanians from all walks of life to come, and not just for food. The place imparts a certain spirit as a result of Kadri’s family history of being an immigrant in a new land.

You’ll never feel like an outsider when you’re inside K.T. Shop.

And that’s exactly how Kadri wants it to be. “Everybody is welcome,” he says.

Adapted from the original article at www.munchies.vice.com

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gettyimages

South African Teen Wins Google Prize For Orange Peel Innovation

A Mansoor Ahmed Kadri, owner of K.T. Shop; Customers await their goodies at tea time

Elspeth Dehnert

streets feature canopies of colorful umbrellas that provide shade to the pedestrians below.

4. Cherry Blossom Avenue, Bonn, Germany For two to three weeks each spring, the magical tunnel created by the trees lining Cherry Blossom Avenue in Bonn, Germany, brings in tourists and photographers alike.

16-year-old South African schoolgirl has won the grand prize at Google’s science fair for using orange peel to develop a cheap super-absorbent material to help soil retain water.

Kiara Nirghin beat students from around the world for a $50,000 (Rs. 32 Lakhs) scholarship with her project submission titled, “Combating drought with a Low-Cost, biodegradable Superabsorbent Polymer made out of orange peels”. Her work was in response to the recent drought that has hit South Africa. The drought, the worst since 1982, led to crop failures and animals dying. Ms Nirghin, a student at the Anglican Church-founded St Martin’s High School in the main city Johannesburg, said three experiments over 45 days resulted in her coming up with the “orange peel mixture” as an alternative to expensive and non-biodegradable

super-absorbent polymers (SAPs).

It was made out of waste products from the juice-manufacturing industry, she said. These included molecules found in orange peels and naturally occurring oils in avocado skins.

“The product is fully biodegradable, low-cost and has better water retaining properties than commercial SAPs. The only resources involved in the creation of the ‘orange peel mixture’ were electricity and time, no special equipment nor materials were required,” Ms Nirghin added in her online submission (https:// goo.gl/RKaGCK). The student, who was awarded the prize at the annual fair in California, said she hoped it would help farmers save both money and their crops.

The competition was open to children from the ages of 13 to 18.

Sourced from BBC News, Africa diane bayle

Kiara with her installation at the Google Science Fair

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KHIRKEE VOICE • May10, 2017

Mahavir Singh Bisht I lost control of myself Whenever I thought of you In restlessness, My heart called out to you Every minute, every second.

It has wanted you Often in lonliness, My heart called out to you..

It was in these debilitating times of fear that there was an eerie silence that sounded like a brooding farewell to the world.

Romantic thoughts seemed to subtly dodge the explosions of bombs to make home in the streets of Kabul. While songs from Raja Hindustani impregnated Samir’s heart with love, films by Gulzar would raise a fire of rebellion in it, and the pages of his notebook somehow held these stories back. It was in these pages that love hides disguised as letters.

How could love have survived amidst the growing rage and chaos! Samir would make attempts at talking to his lover but came back home disappointed every time, relieved that he was still safe. Watching Hindi songs on the television in the evening would challenge his love. Unable to meet his lover, he would take on the challenge to pen his feelings down.

And wasn’t it rebellion in itself that he chose to write poetry in Hindi instead of Afghani? It was as if language was a transit from his world to the world of his dreams.

AFGHAN POET IS INSPIRED BY GULZAR Silence has no language Then how shall I speak of the pain in my heart...

Many years later, sitting in a small room in Khirki, Samir realises that language was never a transit but a destination and Hindi a new home that he has finally arrived at. He wondered: What is language? A state of mind or its reflection? Anyway, he had found his peaceful subspace in the chaos of Khirki where he tried to shape poems out of his nostalgia for a home he had left behind.

Initially, his poems were broken sonnets trying to make a song, but gradually they matured like his love, yet no one noticed his struggle. Where it was getting more and more difficult to earn a living, who had the time to love anyway?

With the increasing interference of America in the war, Afghanistan was coming down in rubble, while one found it extremely difficult to differentiate between ruins and people. Samir chose to move to India instead of Germany for the love of the language.

Some things cannot Be explained with words Feelings of my heart Cannot be explained...

His poems found a shady spot in

Samir’s photo of himself inside his beloved red notebook, filled with Hindi poems handwritten in Pharsi and Roman script

the gardens of Gujarat University.

It is believed that as one learns a new language, the mind moulds itself with it. His heart would loiter in the quiet streets and parks.

His friends would listen to his love poems and anecdotes with deep interest. When he missed home, he would write about it to reconcile. Hindi was a difficult language to write in even though he could understand it; he did not let these little obstacles come in the way. One doesn’t need to know grammar to write poems anyway, they are born out of feelings and experiences. Sometimes, he would let Urdu and Persian words slip in sentences between verses to make it

more enriched. He would write his Hindi poems in English or Persian scripts. Films were the easiest way to grasp language, so in his free time he hummed and sang along songs of the film Dhadkan.

Samir’s family also moved to India. On graduating, Sameer settled with his parents in Khirki Village. He was hired by a pharma company there. He finds himself surrounded by a lot of Afghani people; his mother has made new friends, and he met some boys too. But, Samir doesn’t have a lot of friends. He has befriended his poems. Life is stable, yet there is still struggle.

As the day transitions into dusk,

Samir has the urge to write poems and he attends to it by finding even a small piece of paper for them. His poems would talk about love, life, and everything that lay between them. While some would muse over bonds of friendship, others would brood on a different kind of nostalgia of home.

Samir lives a simple life which reflects in his poems as well, a lot of which talk to the point and in multi folds, as if all there is are verses from his journey.

I do not have the power To change my own destiny Or I would have transformed your sadness into happiness...

Layout design by Malini Kochupillai • Animal Illustrations by Ita Mehrotra • Edited by Malini Kochupillai & Mahavir Singh Bisht [khirkeevoice@gmail.com] • Supported & Published by KHOJ International Artists Association

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