THERE was a time when editors were read and television anchors seen. This was also the time when politicians would either be in their constituencies or drafting policies and, for fear of being seen as partisan, stay away from the elite and the ruling classes. There was a time when you could never access an editor except through a column blandly referred to as ‘Letters to the Editor’ and to meet television anchors you would have to either be in theatre or for that matter the performing arts. But then all of this changed.

We became a society which resembled a melting-pot of various influencers rather than one which remained in its groove. Money which used to be a negative factor suddenly became an acceptable denominator and indeed one by which society then began seeing you as either relevant or for that matter worthy of being discarded. When money became a critical factor, so did the need for these various segments of society to integrate, because then money was not the only driving force. And this is worthy of some detailed analysis. We were slowly becoming a society which understood that while money attracted fame, the reverse was also true, which is why the media then became very important: hence the need for some members of this society to cosy up to the editors and their ilk.

 

So where are we today? Nothing epitomises the cosiness amongst these various estates of our establishment more than Delhi. For various reasons too. While Bombay will remain the glamour capital of India, what is seen (and we have audio recordings as evidence) is the manner in which Bollywood has used politics as a crutch and how politicians have used Bollywood as a means of not just getting noticed but as campaign fodder too. Amar Singh and his famed associations with Bollywood are part of this new-age thinking amongst the political-film fraternity: thinking mired in the belief that there are no holy cows left any more which is why we are seeing the mess today. The Radia tapes are not an indictment of some crazy power-hungry woman but indeed an indictment of the society we’ve become, especially in Delhi.

So why did Delhi go though this change of soul and no other city? Why, for instance has Calcutta retained its soul whereas Delhi has lost it so easily, that is if you can call it that? I believe that most capitals of the world have power as their lowest common denominator and with power comes a sense of overriding brazenness which is what was apparent in the various scams that have unfolded. To make Suresh Kalmadi the only symbol of this incorruptible power would be silly. He represents a class that has been allowed to get away with murder and in many cases literally so.

Look at the arrogance with which people like Manu Sharma behaved post the Jessica Lal murder? Look at the manner in which the judiciary was sought to be compromised by the Nandas when both the prosecution and defence lawyers were acting in tandem? I am not here to pronounce a judgement on Delhi. And nor should we, sitting in our own little ivory towers, judge the people who are making these changes happen. The reality is these changes are happening and there is a sense of throwing caution to the winds. What is worrying is not the metamorphosis.

 

What is worrying is the manner in which it is being conducted. Brazen, in-your-face, as if cocking a snook at all the values that we must hold dear. I have often said we are not seeing a breakdown of society: what we are experiencing is a change in the order itself. An order where everything is possible and where the measure of success is a mix of money and power: we have conveniently given knowledge and intellect the short shrift which is why even where the arts are concerned, we have groups that are aligned to political parties rather than to the art itself.

But like in everything else, let us pause and reflect on the history of Delhi itself – Dilli as it was then known and Delhi as it is referred to today. The moorings were in crony capitalism. Contractors who built Delhi and thereafter the refugees who settled in Delhi had their own worldview of life and a set of values they needed to abide by. Delhi was in its infancy as a power-centre but equally a power-broking centre and this tradition has continued, except that it is today out in the open. The manner in which the wealth (not the moneyed) looked down upon these power-brokers in the good old days has also disappeared, as the lines separating the two have melted.

When the British were around, jee-huzoori was a critical component of enduring success: post 1947, the colour of skin was all that changed. The jee-huzoori continued, except it was to our very own people. But while there was an ample amount of crony-capitalism, there were bounds of decency that no one dared cross: we had kept the various segments of society pretty intact and true to their core.

Journalism was a profession borne out of intellect and a desire to change the world. Money was irrelevant. Editors used to loath the rich: socialism was in the air and being poor and bright were tremendous virtues. But they would not remain so for long. We were seeing a new order unfold as our economy grew: with this, came the need to acquire and own and this was not something that journalists shunned any more.

 

Then there were the services. The reason why I mention the press and the administrative services is because, to my mind, these were the watchdogs who shunned money; shunned coming too close to those who could take advantage of them and yet maintained a snooty air about themselves without caring for the trappings of money as it were. But then journalists and service officers realized that they too had families which needed to be taken care of. So the justification for letting their values fall was almost always transferred to the family than to their own overarching and new-found greed.

Greed has many willing accomplices and a canny way of marking its existence. In the good old days, one balked at receiving gold chains and Black Label bottles at Diwali: but then all of this changed. The stakes became higher and greed was unbridled. Again, reflective of a society that now needs wealth to describe its ascent (or descent): look at what we’ve done to weddings? Greed was also an effective way of creating desire where none existed: so the hapless editor suddenly discovered a farmhouse as a means of creating an abode. The editor also felt that he was entitled to more than just a hack’s existence and we began to see the stakes in the media rise: mirroring the growth in our GDP and our desire to build palaces rather than homes.

Ostentation had created a new benchmark: Lakshmi Mittal, Britain’s richest man, shunned the Birla way of life and instead married off his daughter at Versailles, even though half the guests still cannot pronounce the name! You then had Bollywood stars that saw the plight of the legends and decided dancing at weddings was not bad after all, especially when you got paid in the millions of dollars and we saw a new marriage descriptor take place. Recently at the Reddy wedding in Hyderabad, more people remember the names of the Bollywood performers than that of the bride and the groom.

Delhi remained the epicentre of greed. As it did of corruptible power and a pliable fourth estate.

 

Today’s Delhi has changed so much that one wonders if one lives in a city or in a bank vault pretending to be a homogenous city. Many don’t know (or even care about) their neighbours. Gated communities have been created, not for security but to protect their insularity. Colonies in the good days were the harbinger of joy: today, we see gunfights over parking lots. Power has many facets: some fight for parking lots, others fight for tenders. But the fight rages on. With greed, we’ve also embraced a sense of violence which is why though the silly Police Commissioner may warn girls not to venture out alone after midnight, the problem is not the woman. It is we. A collective we who would like to do nothing, if it doesn’t help us in any way.

The families of the victims of Uphaar will mourn every day and come together at the site once a year, but the perpetrators will continue to go about their daily lives without a care in the world. The same editors and politicians responsible for their punishment will be (and are) breaking bread with them. It is this triad that we need to worry about. Not because it will harm us any more than it already has but only because it will erode everything this wonderful city stands for.

 

What has happened in a ghastly way is the purchasing power being ascribed to every thing we hold dear. There is a price to buy culture, a price at which you can buy fame, and a price at which you can create a legacy that may not have any foundation. I have seen how icons in the cultural world have created a stranglehold by way of which no new talent can emerge and if it does, then will not get the patronage it deserves. I have seen how the media has manipulated facts and people only so that they remain relevant and powerful. These times are strange. In Delhi, earlier, you had to be relevant to be in the news. In today’s Delhi, you have to be in the news in order to be relevant. We have not changed the rules of the game. We keep changing the game everyday, thereby delivering a body-blow to the city we once loved and now fear.

Whenever one is in Bombay, the inevitable comparison with Delhi is touted. Earlier, they used to compare the people of both cities: today, the mention of Delhi reverberates with fear. Why has Delhi gone down such a chasm of immorality? What have we done to the home of Bahadur Shah Zafar and Ghalib? Why are we chipping away at the salons and the soirees that this city once boasted of? Where has the tehzeeb gone with which we received and greeted guests? Why have we lost that rootedness, the Punjabiyat and the large-heartedness which came with the refugees from across the border who, despite having lost everything, never lost their generosity?

Cities by themselves are edifices to history and chroniclers of the passage of men and women. They are not meant to have a soul. The Taj Mahal would have been just another monument, shorn of the romance it was surrounded by. What has happened in the case of Delhi is that its people have let it down. The old-Dilliwallahs have allowed compromises to become a way of life: they too may have had no choice given that a new world order was overtaking us all. The people who were the gatekeepers of Delhi’s soul abandoned their responsibility only because it was difficult and inconvenient to be that way in today’s largely immoral world. In a way, Delhi has been let down by its own and the tragedy is so grim, that in today’s India, no one wants to own up to being a part of Delhi. It is almost as if we shying away from the belongingness, as it were. This is the cruellest blow we can inflict on a city which has given us so much and more.

 

But like in history itself, there are cycles with cities too. So hopefully, Delhi will emerge from this social rubble stronger and more rooted. Its people will finally realize that cities are about congeniality and not convenient social graces. We will perhaps once again become a city which became the symbol of resilience and tolerance, where power was just a by-product and not the raison-d-etre of our existence.

But till then, let the ravaging scavengers of this city not deter either our spirit or resolve. Treat them as a passing storm. Eventually, there will be calmness and purpose. Eventually we will triumph.