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are bits of iron rods left over or cut from such iron
rods as are sunk into the ground to make a bit of
private property. (Call it what you will...let's call
it Haeppie Villa!). These bits of iron rods arrive,
usually in a cyclecart cycler huffing.

The cycler stops and gets down in front of a solid
iron gate built into what seems a complete wall of
naked brick. The road into which the cyclecart has
turned is a narrow one. In fact it is not so much a
road as a lane. No, no. It is not a lane. It is an
alley. Huge crude blocks of cement stretch into the
distance. Walls of houses, naked-brick walls meet
unconcertingly in the distance.

One notices that these naked-brick houses are often
huge mansions walled-up 15 wall rising feet in the
air. One notices a maze of brickwork, constructions.
Windows grilled-up, verandahs protruding blocking the
light in the alley-way. One notices spots of lurid
colour -- just a saree hanging -- and big wagon-like
vehicles.

The cycler, meanwhile, knocks on the iron gates, which
open and swallow the cycler and the cart. Soon after,
an empty cart careens out of the alleyway.

Meanwhile, inside the iron gates the work has begun,
which will produce much smoke and smell but about
which nobody dares to complain. Inside, are being
produced Billi Gates' talons. Iron rods melted and
pared to a sharp point. Imagine the heat needed to do
that. Imagine the smoke. If you can, imagine
tuberculosis, Ye Olde Disease.
   
Billi Gates' 1000 talons reach out into the night,
protecting. Buttressing. Fortressing.

Smugly Billi Gates sharpens his 1000 talons. None
shall escape Billi Gates. Nobody can.

Everything, now, is shut up. The gates have closed, so
that a continuous fence comes up enclosing a bit of
the city turning that bit into a closed fortress.
Inside the fortress, houses breathe. Inside the
houses, people breathe. (They also snore, but that's
allowed.) It is night quite late. Street-lights shine
indifferently through tree-leaves. You are walking
through a half-light blanket mist in silence
punctuated by the whirr of ACs and the glow of lamps.
You reach Billi Gate.

Biili Gate sniggers and refuses to open. You implore
Billi Gates. You have to go home, you say. "Against
procedure," Billi Gates says, frowning. "It is after
10 p m."

After 10 pm nowadays, Delhi breaks up into bits. This
megapolis becomes bits of fortresses. There was a time
when "Delhi" signified the walled city. Today, Delhi
has become the city of fence-ins after 10 p m.

This city today is layer after layer of fence
protecting after 10 pm. In the cultural history of
this city, which remains to be exhaustively studied,
fences began to come around colonies and city spaces
precisely in the period in which exclusivity became
once more much-sought-after cultural capital

Exclusivity is a logic of difference and otherness.
Painstakingly, Delhi has nurtured this logic.
Difference and Otherness characterise Delhi's history
in the last 15 years like never before.

(But that's how Delhi always was, is it?)
 
At night Delhi fractures. These gates get closed.
These miles of Billi Gates. All over Delhi, spaces
become fortresses. Why has the "fortressing" mentality
so "colonised" Delhi? What does it mean to accept, in
the name of civility, getting fortressed-in every
night?

Billi Gates smiles smugly closing sharpening talon
waiting for hapless intruder.     

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