Ektachromatic: From Flea Market to Protest Central

'And then she added, My box takes pictures of things that aren't there. And it sees things that weren't there. Or sees things you'd never in your wildest dreams imagine.'

Gunter Grass (The Box: Tales from the Darkroom)

As I read The Box, I step out with mine. I see through The Box, if not through Herr Gunter.

As I walk from Janpath flea market to Jantar Mantar, a thought comes to mind. How many would notice that Jai Singh Road, adjacent to the observatory, is named after Maharaja Jai Singh of Jaipur--the very raja who built the observatories in Delhi and Jaipur? It’s in fact one of the five observatories that Swai Jai Singh built between 1724 and 1730. It was Emperor Mohammad Shah who requested the polymath king to build these observatories—the aim was to correct the information then available on astronomical positions.

Jantar Mantar is now ‘protest central’, a place where the quixotic is a grind. On a Sunday, revolution takes a break. Mendicants, police informers, revolutionaries, take off. Police men loiter around their pickets, looking less bored and even less menacing. The NDMC food wallahs are also on holiday.

The walk started from Janpath. The road houses an art museum, the national museum and a sarkari handicrafts dukan. The flea market gets set up at around nine. Hawking preceded by setting up. The hawks are busy nesting their wares, before the prey predates. The mendicant looks like an ascetic bhikshuk unfazed by the commerce. I snapped it up.

Oh, by the way there is this satire, Janpath Kiss—a play written in the ‘70s by some Akhileswar Jha. It’s there on Amazon’s India site.

Please buy. It’s all about a young married man meeting a beautiful lady on the pavements of Janpath… Now, let’s see.