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Very narrow streets, power cords hanging right over our heads, the local ice cream parlor and the unbearable smell of the open sewers brought me back to a world I had been a part of for a long time in my life. My father was an immigrant from rural West Bengal who made Delhi his second home in the early 1980s in search of a better life. When moving, migrants are always looking for their community or their proximity. The language, the food, the clothes – especially the culture and knowledge of what one tries to make comfortable in the early days of homesickness and alienation. My heart trembles when I think of my mother who was only 15 when she married my father in a town that dresses, walks and speaks differently.Up until her early teens, I observed her wearing many cotton saris, held stiff by soaking them in hot rice water (a starchy paste made by sifting cooked rice or boiling it until it completely dissolved in water) in soaked in a cloth that I see now only live in remote parts of Bengal. It was draped without folds, unlike the pretty drapes of the main characters Devdas and Parineeta. My parents started out by renting a small semi-furnished room in Beadon Pura, Karol Bagh where they developed a very good relationship with the owners of the house and their closeness culminated when one of them nicknamed Guriya approached me. Daknaam or nicknames are an important part of Bengali culture and all your family – whether familiar or large – will recognize you by your Daknaam. If you ever mention Hasin or Husnaar (the name my mother prophesied to me) to them, they will be lost, utterly lost! My father worked hard (and later found out he was partying more; it was hard for my very young mother) and was soon buying a building floor by floor at the same gala (we don’t drive semi-ghetto blocks; except this place is still my permanent address). Each floor had only 25 groves (223 square feet), including stairs and walkways. The concepts of a living room, drawing room, study and master bedroom were foreign to me until I became interested in architecture and read all about the layout and details of the house. There were no trees in my gala, just a fig tree outside the gala on the main street (it’s still there and tall). For example, frequent blackouts in the 1990s and early 2000s led to sweaty nights, as everyone went outside with their steel torches when they realized the blackout was going to be long.The men had “invaluable” talks on business, cricket and politics and the women talked about their children, lunch menus and mayeks, with one saying “Hamare waves toh itni light nahi jaati”. Always willing to give up belonging to her husband’s house when things get too uncomfortable too often. Some relationships have deteriorated over the years, others have grown rock solid and have withstood the hard and soft days of life. We weren’t poor. My father, a damn fine goldsmith, made enough to make us bourgeoisie.But my parents, who were illiterate, struggled to get into a small private school that looked at best like a small Level 2 city hospital, yet where I spend the best years of my life and where one of my closest lifelong friends, Shalini, will win. My father used jugada and bribery to get my brother and I into the English speaking world. However, what he didn’t know was that 99% of the students and even the teachers only spoke Hindi. The window of our house opened to the window of another house less than 60 cm away. Privacy, ventilation, and the movement of sunlight and wind were concepts never understood during the indoor period. As a teenager you have to go to the toilet to cry dirty. You have to wait until the whole family goes to bed to find some alone time. Surrounded by noise, children always want quiet. You can’t invite friends over for the night (not that Maa would ever allow that). You get used to taking up small spaces in your home and showing the peak of imposter syndrome in other spaces.You will see your parents fight because they cannot ask you to go into your room and close the door. And if you happen to witness violence followed by a torrential downpour of love, your idea of ​​love will take shape in something that wants and expects wars. Because blood is red and so attractive! Until we moved to the rich and densely populated Punjab village of Karol Bagh in 2013, I didn’t have a room of my own. I was greeted with lots of sun, a big bed, all modern furniture and a bathroom with such perfect flooring that I spent many weekend afternoons there because my boyfriend was a luxury I never dreamed of, but he came willingly, she came , lay down on my lap and caught it like a moth catches a flame. When I entered Shri JJ’s colony (central location) and walked the streets, it took my breath away for a few seconds. The area is an urban slum with most houses under 100 square meters. Children use the area in front of the education center as a playground. They come here hoping to get an education, a place to socialize with friends, and get refreshments from their parents, who work every day, which they can’t afford. My time there felt less like an education center and more like watching kids hanging out with friends, paying bills, seniors playing with their crushes, and all the other delightful and mindless pleasures. A group of three girls stand in a circle and listen to the story of one of them who has something urgent to tell. When I step out of their world and think that privacy should be available in the public space as well, I think of this country’s perennial apathy, indifference, and indifference to housing. The news that 80% of Vienna’s population is entitled to social housing rubs salt in the wound. Looking across my little balcony off my bedroom into my newly rented room with a view of the fig tree, I am convinced that no one should live in a slum. Cheap labor will keep this country poor.Living on the edge is not my destiny, it’s my project. And finally, this laziness is not an option when our fellow human beings suffer every day.

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