"How does he like the footpath life, I ask him.
'I like it very much. I have no problems. I don't want a home; I am more free on the footpath.'
'How do you find Bombay?' I ask him, as others have asked me. 'The flats, the cars?'
'These things don't attract me. I don't want to live in these flats; they imprison people. On the footpaths you can establish relationships, friendships. If I become rich, these relations will be spoiled; if my poor friends come to visit me, the security guards won't let them in. The footpath is the friend of the poor. How many people it accommodates to sleep on!'
A recent survey showed that two-thirds of the city's footpaths are unusable for pedestrians, in large part because of people like Babbanji. The battle over the footpath is a battle over rights: of the pedestrians to walk on it (the original purpose); of the homeless to sleep on it; of the hawkers to make a living on it; of the vehicle owners to park on it. The city is in a continuous agonized debate over whose need is the greatest."
-- Suketu Mehta, "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found"
No comments:
Post a Comment