If you buy from the Survey of India inJanpath their antique map showing the first John Company rendering of Delhi’slayout, the one feature that has remained the same for two centuries is thecity’s drainage pattern. The Najafgarh Drain once formed a protective moatand, including feeders originating from the Ridge, it describes three quartersof a circle before debouching at Wazirabad Barrage. One feeder skirting theCantt is Ganda Nala which achieves some respectability after Janakpuri under thename of Palam Drain.
Any visitor to Delhi from a fresh air situation knows 40 kilometres away that heis nearing the metropolis by the sweetly sick smell of sewage that clings to theair. For the poor, stewing in your own juice is understandable but Delhi’srich who live in posh areas remain studiously indifferent to the waftings fromthe open drains that pollute the air of their colonies. Perhaps because of thepoor image given to foreign missions, the drain that rises behind RashtrapatiBhavan is covered in the Chanakya-puri section. Met by a drain originating onthe JNU campus this VIP nala turns east at Sarojini Nagar, is covered again (byDilli Haat) and joins Khushak Nala near the Defence Colony flyover.
Follow the lie of South Delhi’s drains and the contrast between wealthybuildings and the refusal of their owners to acknowledge the existence of nalasis palpable. The (in)famous dividing drain of Defence Colony rises in SainikFarms and flows past upmarket colonies like Soami Nagar, Panchsheel and GK-I. Toprove the hollowness of the mantra that "citizens need more education" isthe fact that a parallel drain rising opposite Zamrudpur encloses on two sidesLady Shri Ram College, the Teachers Training Institute and the VocationalCollege. This latter drain cuts through Lajpat Nagar and, in spite of the flashyshowrooms on Veer Savarkar Marg, no one invests a glance on the filth that clogsit. Mohenjodaro 3,000 years ago understood better the sanitary imperative thantoday’s Delhi.
Tourist maps both by the Survey and Eicher leave out the drains and who canblame them ? Those cartographers who still depict Delhi’s nalas continue touse blue instead of the reality of ordurous grey or faecal khaki.Optimistically, in an age of throwaway plastic, they insert arrows to indicatethe direction of flow. The smell of sullage is malodorously the same whetherfrom rich or poor backyards, or from believer or atheist backsides. A seriouscontender for the award of Best Drained Colony must be Dilshad Garden which hasnalas on all four sides. Rivalling it is the Pusa Institute.
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This article originally appeared in Delhi City Limits, December 15,2005
