My friend and I had reached Saket when we got a call from the venue
saying that the Metallica gig had been cancelled. We had only just asked
the taxi to turn back, when my mother phoned from Allahabad giving us
the same information. By the time we got home, we realised that the
cancellation had become national news and was all over the TV channels.
Minutes later, the Internet was abuzz with comments about the gig that
never was.
There was a curious slant to the debate. Those from
Bombay and Bangalore launched into an attack on Delhi. This, it seemed,
was not about a band and a cancelled concert. This moronic inferno was
about Delhi versus the Rest of India. People from other cities rubbed
their hands gleefully. What did you expect from Delhi? - that crude,
horrible, power-hungry and anarchic city.
Comparison
There
is something curious about this. It's the West that has often spoken in
superior tones about India's inefficiency and ineptitude. In the
aftermath of the gig fiasco, people from Bombay and Bangalore seemed to
take on this superior attitude. They behaved as if they come from
ultra-civilised societies where everything works like clockwork. We know
what the reality is. We know that they come from crowded, dying cities
that are riddled with ethnic and regional concerns, and where morality
is regulated by the state. They come from cities that have seen terrible
riots, where dancing is banned at live gigs, where parochial
concerns-whether it be Telangana or the Marathi manoos-dominate.
Delhi,
in many ways, is a young new city. It doesn't suffer from any of these
bugbears. A couple of days after the Metallica cancellation, it became
clear that the organisers of the event were responsible for the chaos,
that angry people went berserk only after the event was cancelled. It
could have happened anywhere. When a hundred thousand people peacefully
watched the Formula One race on the same weekend, the Internet trolls
were silent.
Young Delhi, on the other hand, is mature about what
happens in other cities. Weeks ago, a group of friends went out for
dinner in Andheri West in Bombay. They were heckled by drunken men. When
two members of the group protested the harassment they were killed.
Delhi didn't rub its hands in glee. We didn't say, oh god, Bombay, awful
city, why can't it sort things out? We commiserated. Every time Bombay
gets flooded, we don't clap our hands and stomp our feet.
There
are a couple of things that are happening here. People from other cities
do not realise how far ahead Delhi has moved. There is ignorance. The
gap between Delhi and the Rest of India has widened in the last decade.
There is jealousy too. Those who have experienced this change, realise
that this is the only big city in the country that allows one the space
to breathe, while also guaranteeing anonymity. Things happen here,
culturally there are more events taking place in Delhi than in any other
city, and traffic moves here, even during rush hour. There is also a
diversity of professions.
The issues that the young grapple with
here in Delhi are different in nature from other cities. We are not
bothered about morality, religion, what's in our culture and what's not,
all this old-fashioned stuff. The young here are dealing with new
issues, more modern issues, like the influx of foreigners and how they
fit into our lives. For the rest of this piece, I'll concentrate on the
new immigration, for I believe it illustrates that the young in Delhi
have more pragmatic concerns.
Delhi has attracted more foreigners
in the last ten years than ever before. Many of them are part and parcel
of the life of the city; they settle here because they find it more
habitable than creaking Bombay or sleepy Chennai. This new expat does
not work in an embassy or a multinational, and is certainly not a
hippie. She works instead in publishing, plays in local bands, edits
magazines.
Expats
Gavin Morris, a Londoner, visited India
almost ten times over a period of five years. Having lived in London and
New York, he wanted to move to a big city but not to one in the West.
New Delhi, India, was a natural choice. It helped that he could find
work here. Delhi is host to several international publishing majors;
Gavin designs book covers for many of them. He likes Delhi because it is
constantly changing. "The Metro is amazing, and there are tons of
restaurants now. I remember the choice being pretty limited earlier on.
The city has really transformed itself."
Stefan Kaye is a musician
and event organiser. He's the man behind The Medicine Show, a
successful variety show that blends Broadway musical, farce and cabaret.
Arundhati Roy is a very vocal fan of his band The Ska Vengers, regulars
on the Delhi music scene. Before turning up in Delhi, he spent time in
Barcelona and Brighton. Stefan has singlehandedly rejuvenated the live
music scene in Delhi, proving the point that the new expats are
contributing in a big way to the cultural life of our cities. Just as
Indians went to the UK to realise their dreams, now people from other
parts of the world are coming here, and to Delhi in particular, to
realise theirs.
Expats, once they become part of the local fabric,
also become important agents of change, trying to jolt the natives out
of their somnolence. The Medicine Show's Bangalore edition had two men
in rabbit costumes gyrating to Louis Armstrong's "We've Got All the Time
in the World", followed by an act by Adam Pasha, Bangalore's very own
drag queen. Manola Gayatri, a performance artist danced naked, while
Stefan's band performed.
Hurdles
She was spray-painted from
head to toe; the nudity was cleverly camouflaged. She flashed torchlight
on a gasping audience. When the show was over, a middleaged woman came
up to her and said, "I would never have dared to go to the beach in my
swimsuit. Seeing you I feel better about my nakedness." Stefan says, "My
show has adult themes but no sexism or racism. I want to show that
women can be sexy but not for the gratification of men. In my own way,
I'm trying to redress the prudery that came to India via us Brits."
It's
not all smooth sailing though, being an expat among natives. Stefan has
encountered his share of aggression in Delhi. He's been asked to go
back to the UK or "whichever shit hole country he comes from." A music
magazine printed an anonymous letter that asked fellow Indians to "kick
his teeth in." Some local musicians, jealous of his success, have
insinuated that he finds it easier to get gigs because he is white. He's
had people barging into a recording studio and telling him he can't
write songs about Binayak Sen and Narendra Modi simply because he is
"not from around here."
Stefan though is planning to stick it out.
He loves Delhi. He says he is not going to behave like a guest all the
time. "I will not keep silent just because I am a foreigner. If I see
injustice around me I will react. As a primate I think it's my duty to
do so."
A vibrant young multi-ethnic Delhi is showing other cities
the way. We are working out a new template for the future. We are still
in the process. The cancelled Metallica show was just an aberration.
And it was certainly not our fault.