Horizontal Slums, Vertical Slums

Deepa has come back from the Switzerland. Last week, I and Aditi went with her to check out her brother’s flat at Gurgaon. Bought for Rs 80 lakh, the flat has been lying vacant for nearly six months. As Deepa’s bro claims that his fridge always remains stocked with good eatables, we looked forward to an enjoyable day-out.

The flat was on the 12th floor, and a swanky lift took us to it in seconds. Deepa turned the key, opened the door and walked in; Aditi and I both stepped back hit by a punch of stinking smell. It’s not the humid odour of a long-locked house, but the stink of something rotting inside. We decided to probe.

As we crossed the drawing room and opened the door of the first bedroom (it had three bedrooms), we saw water—a sea of water on the floor. The carpet was wet, furniture were standing on inch-deep water. Ditto with the next bedroom. By then we could hear the sound of water falling in the bathroom. The bathroom was small: it had a small basin, a commode and a bathtub from which water was spilling all over. I tiptoed to the bathtub over a slippery floor and tried to close the tap. But the flow wouldn’t stop. We understood that somebody had left the faulty tap open while there was no water in the tank. Perhaps that was the time when Deepa’s brother took possession of the flat. Later when water came to the overhead tank, the tub filled up.

We also realised that there was no drain in the bathroom. The tub, commode and the basin had their own outlet pipes, but the water spilling on the floor flooded the entire flat, day after day, month after month. Much like the sewage in the slums, that flows away into all directions, but not underground. Meanwhile, Aditi (after all, she has a Masters in Physics) found out a small local Sintex tank perched near the ceiling, from which water was coming to the bathtub, the toilet and the basin. I had to stand on the toilet seat to close the inlet valve of the tank. The flow stopped.

Mopping up the water was left to Deepa (after all, it’s her bro’s flat), and Aditi and I set out to find out the source of the stink, that refused to go away even after opening all the windows.

The smell grew stronger as we approached the kitchen. The spacious kitchen was neat and clean, with black marble top, rectangular chimney, waste-chute, and a wide window overlooking a slum nearby. Then we turned to the huge three-door fridge built into wall. And as I swung open the deep freezer, the mystery was solved. The fridge wasn’t working, and all stocked provisions—sausages, salami, beef steaks--have got rotten. But why wasn’t the fridge working, when the electricity was there. I saw a small locally made stabilizer lying beside the fridge, and gave it a nudge. It started and went off again. So, it needs a support to function. The driver of our car was hastily called. We told him to get rid of the provisions and bring up a brick. The driver refused: he won’t touch meat products and security wouldn’t allow him to carry a brick upstairs. Aditi came out with the idea of putting a thick book under the stabilizer (and it worked), and the provisions were put into a plastic bag.

Then, we helped Deepa finish mopping up the floor, and left the flat craving for a hot cup of tea. The guard informed us that the nearest Coffee shop would be at Iffco Chowk, five kilometres away. We decided to first dump the rotten provisions into the drain near the slum that we saw from the window. We did so and walked to the nearest hut and slumped into the charpoi lying outside the house. Some women and children gathered around us, and we asked, “Is there a tea shop around?”

“Have tea with us,” they said, and started narrating their problems in working in the high-rise flats.

But that’s another story.