As long as I can remember, those given the responsibility of
keeping the drains clean and unclogged in Delhi have continued
an annual charade that would be revolting had it not been so
ridiculous  Quite a few of my childhood memories have a
connection with Delhi. I was born here and even when we had gone
to Aligarh for 10 years, we came to Delhi almost every summer to
spend time with our father’s cousins and my childhood memories
of summer and monsoons are intractably intertwined with Delhi.
One of these memories forced itself to the top of my mind in a
kind of a déjà vu situation this last Saturday. The image that
triggered the memory was an overflowing manhole near Kotla
Mubarakpur and it reminded me of an exactly similar situation at
Kucha Pandit Near Lal Kuan in Shahjahanabad in the monsoons of
1958, when we were visiting Delhi for the wedding of a cousin.
Coming to think of it full 55 years have slipped by, from an
8-year-old I have grown into a senior citizen of 63. From the
dreams of an equitable sel