Geetanjali Krishna: Fortune in the traffic jam

It was a chilly December evening. We had been standing still on a narrow lane in Chattarpur for the last one hour. Around us, everywhere (even in the few empty plots where Delhi’s finest hadn’t yet built “farmhouses”) there were cars, motorcycles, trucks, autos, even gaily bedecked horses and carriages — all trying to go in different directions. A couple of horses urinated copiously as disgruntled bystanders skittered in all directions to avoid getting splashed.

Just then, we heard a mighty shout from ahead of the road: “The jam is opening!” As we watched, a fourth lane was miraculously formed on the two-lane road, disgorging some vehicles gratefully inching in the opposite direction. We were still stationary, but with renewed hope beating in our hearts. An auto whizzed past, containing not one but two bridegrooms sitting on the edge of their seats, clearly very late for their own weddings. “These bridegrooms should have planned better,” said an old man in a truck too close for comfort. “Such jams happen every day in Chattarpur. Anyway, there are only 12,000 weddings slated for today. A few days ago, when the papers said the city had 14,000 weddings in one day, all of us in Satbari were laughing that it seemed as if they were all happening right here! The jam didn’t clear for hours and hours.”

 

It turned out that he had lived in Chattarpur for over 50 years, and had seen it change from being a sleepy hamlet on Delhi’s outskirts to being prime real estate for the urban rich. Walking up and down to keep our limbs from atrophying, he pointed out brightly lit wedding venues ahead on the road. “Can you see all those cars ahead of us? They’re actually parked outside a farmhouse hosting a huge wedding tonight. With our lane totally clogged, we’ll have to wait for there to be a lull in the traffic coming from the opposite side to get out of here.” All I could hope was that no driver decided to reverse his car, for then the narrow road would have become almost irrevocably jammed.

In the meantime, his phone was ringing continuously. It seemed he was also late to make his delivery of tables, chairs and wedding tent to yet another farmhouse for a wedding lunch the next day. “I’m totally stuck,” he said on the phone. “Don’t blame me – blame these farmhouses for not having adequate parking space!” As private citizens painstakingly located the drivers of the parked cars that had caused the jam, he said, “look at the bright side! At least we are not behind a moving baraat. Nobody can get past it for hours.”

The old man sighed as he looked at the plush farmhouses standing cheek by jowl as far as the eye could see. All this, said he, used to be wild forests and fields. “When I was a child, people didn’t walk in this area alone at night for the fear of wild animals. It seems unbelievable to be standing on this road surrounded by so many vehicles today,” he said. “What do locals like you feel about all this development, and the woes that it has brought?” I asked, feeling sorry for the old man who had to spend his twilight years watching outsiders pillage and plunder his once serene home. He cackled: “Most of us can’t believe our good fortune! My own land, if I chose to sell it, would be worth a fortune and there’s so much money to be made by truckers like me during the wedding season now, I believe the Mother Goddess herself has blessed us!”