Evening walk

19 July

After dinner tonight Punnu, a participant in the program, and I went for a walk. Wandering through Sector-22, we saw the [Saturday] nightlife of Chandigarh. Shops remaining open were quite busy with many, and more than usual, middle-age men crowded at the edge of the parking lots. Young men were apart from them, crouching on scooters and standing in pairs talking on their mobile phones.

Punnu and I concluded that if we were to walk in a square, as Chandigarh is divided into grids, we would eventually make it back to where we started. That sort of worked out until we followed a curved road. We discovered and paid a short visit to a gurdwara, recharging our spirit for a jaunt through darkened streets and past people hurrying home to their families. As we walked the landscape changed from a partial shopping district into residential housing units and later, apartment buildings. At one point, we were walking down a narrow street and heard a motorbike approaching from the rear. Despite moving to the side of the road, there was the squeal of a brake and the bike gently rear-ended Punnu – pushing him forward but not injuring him. The rider muttered, “I’m sorry” and then struggled to straighten his bike and rode off. From his original trajectory, I assumed he was pulling into a driveway but I guess his judgment was a bit off in thinking that a pedestrian would not assume the side of the road.

Eventually we found our way back to the business side of Sector-22, having gone in an adjacent circle to our original square. It was there that we discovered the earlier crowds had disappeared and the shops closed.

In place of sardars (Sikh men with turbans & beards) and other Punjabi shoppers, the Bihari migrants were out in numbers. Biharis are distinct from [ethnic] Punjabis by their facial features, build, and skin color. Men were washing clothes via the bucket method, pounding the soap and dirt out on the marble tiles lining the shopping arcade. Other men were crouched at propane stoves, with oversized pots of water coming to a boil. Women were gathered, with sleeping children, in small groups in parking spaces.

This is the side of Chandigarh, of the nightlife, that people miss or turn a blind eye to. Could any of these migrants foresee coming to the city, living on asphalt, arriving after the populace had left, only to clear out before being seen in the dawn. The Biharis and other migrants operate below the service class, much like day laborers in America. They live a life of toiling service to meet the needs of their basic subsistence, unable to purchase goods from the high-end stores they peddle in front of, rent the homes they clean, or eat alongside the people they transport in their rickshaws. On a number of occasions I have seen, and been told by, turbaned Punjabi men not to associate with them. Yet, Chandigarh would not function as the City Beautiful without the men I see at sunup sweeping the streets and collecting leaves from the gutters. Nor would the city businesses function efficiently without someone there to open the door for customers, sweep the floors free of debris, sow garments, or deliver goods.