Delhi is deluged by our own trash: Despite the misogynist boors who run riot here, die-hards continue to love the capital

Delhi is a violent city. We live with this fact, not so much because we are brave and resilient, but because we don't have an option. We make do.



We hope for the best. As citizens of the crime capital of the country we are used to crime: rape, burglary, murder, road rage, female infanticide.



These crimes don't happen on the periphery, they happen to people like us who live in the heart of the city's so-called posh areas.



Dangers: A misogynist culture of violence and aggression can spoil a night out, but it does not stop people loving life in the capital

I know friends whose old parents have been murdered. I know friends whose cars have been smashed up in road rage incidents.



I know friends whose houses have been burgled in broad daylight. I know women who have been pushed around physically by men over a parking spot argument.



I know friends who have been beaten to pulp by bouncers. The government comes up with new guidelines and suggestions, all of which put the responsibility on the victim.



Instead of protecting the victim, the government puts curbs on her. Do not work after eight.Be home before sundown.



Better still, don't work at all. No stags allowed in clubs, as if all men are criminals.



Soon they'll be telling parents not to have children, for these children will grow up soon, and want to hold jobs, and go clubbing, and that will only lead to crime and chaos. Better to have a zero child policy.



The government seems to be saying: Let's turn Delhi into a ghost town. When there are no people, there is no crime.



Like in Mohenjodaro today. To say that rape is a reprehensible act is to state the obvious. But each time a rape takes place, the debate about violence in the NCR takes on gender overtones.



The discourse then becomes one about crimes against women-Delhi's women have to be protected from Delhi's men.



The truth is that Delhi's men are as vulnerable to gratuitous violence as its women.



Violence: Women and men face many threats while out in the city



While they might not get raped, they are under constant threat of being attacked with iron rods, or anything that comes to hand: hammers, fists, boots, guns and knives.



A friend of mine was dragged out of Café Morrisson in South Ex-he wasn't stag but with a woman-and beaten up mercilessly by the bouncers. When his lady friend realised what was going on, she called the manager-luckily an acquaintance of hers.



He came out and put a stop to it. I've been kicked out of Hard Rock Café in Saket-fortunately they didn't land any punches-for reasons still unclear to me. It's an act of catharsis for the thick-headed bouncers who don't know what to do with their strength-it has to come out some time.

It's a bit like nation states stockpiling arms until it reaches a point where the military feels: what's the point of having all these toys unless we use them? Let's go to war!



Just the other day, a friend and I were having a bite at the Twenty Four Seven in GK2 at one in the morning.



We were standing at a counter and having hotdogs when a group of men came and put their stuff down on the same counter we were at.



The message was clear-get the hell out or else. This is our territory. We had no option but to scoot.



One man was bragging about how many rape cases he had filed against him. I felt I wasn't in GK2 but a small town where local goons rule and exercise absolute power. Unprovoked firing is the norm in Delhi.



It is difficult to talk about Delhi's endemic culture of violence without talking about Delhi's physical location.



We can't do this because it is politically incorrect. When Sheila Dixit blames the states that share a border with Delhi, she faces a backlash.



But Delhi does share its borders with Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, two states with a horrible record of crimes against women, from honour killings to infanticide to rape.



Where Sheila went wrong was in excluding Delhi from the list. Not all crimes are committed by 'outsiders'; Delhi too is part of the matrix. We all know south Delhi has high rates of female foeticide.



In fact Delhi, UP and Haryana are all afflicted by a brutal macho culture (unlike, say, Kolkata where women are literally worshipped), and it would be foolish to ignore the role this culture has played in Delhi becoming the crime capital of the country-a city that is unsafe for men, women, tourists and senior citizens, in other words just about everybody who is not a goon.



In Delhi, the battle lines are drawn between the literate rich and the illiterate rich.



Threats: Delhi, pictured, can be a dangerous place with violence, burglary, road rage an everyday occurrence

I use these terms broadly. It's the difference between those who are in sync with the multicultural ethos of a big city where men and women go about their business and leave each other alone, and those, on the other hand, who have citizenship of the big city via money and power, but no understanding of how a big city really works.



The literate rich includes the middle class, and the illiterate rich might include kids who have been to Bishop Cotton, say, so literacy isn't about the schools you have attended. It's more a battle between the cosmopolitans and brown trash.



Strangely, it's the bars and clubs with strict rules, those which charge a bomb to enter, those who don't allow stag entry, those who have a battery of bouncers, which attract the worst brown trash.



Violence is always in the air in these places. People-like-me avoid these places like the plague, places where sullen men wear expensive watches and polished shoes and full sleeved black shirts, and the women LBDs.



There are oases. Like the bar 4S in Def Col where women can sit at the bar and have a drink, where there aren't any bouncers, where men can go in groups wearing shorts and sandals.



4S has never seen a brawl because brown trash don't go anywhere near it-they go to flash malls in Gurgaon or Saket, where they can flaunt its money to others of its ilk, places that provide it with a context.



Hauz Khas village has become another such safe enclave, where the literate rich can hang out without fear. Middle class kids with a bit of capital run the cafes here; many are not from traditional business backgrounds, but young people with an entrepreneurial spirit who want to do something different.



'Even though I don't have an 8pm urge to rape, or a dying need to get a car's length ahead, I am a North Indian boy. And I am going to miss you Delhi. Sniff.'



There are independent bookstores selling books by small presses, screenings by feminist documentary filmmakers, book readings… stuff which doesn't attract brown trash, the illiterate rich with a penchant for violence.



The Village, as it's now called tongue-in-cheek, just like Patparganj was jokingly called Left Bank, is one of the safest places for women to hang out.



The Village is where you take on the village. Delhi is a rough and violent place no doubt, but those of us who live here also love it.

I just hope that our ranks will swell, until it reaches critical mass, a point where brown trash feels uncomfortable, and is forced to behave itself-where it feels, oh, I can't do this here; a city where rich rusticity is forced into an urban mould; a city where young men don't brag about rape cases filed against them at the top of their voices, because it is simply not done. The unconditional love for Dehli runs deep.



As a friend who is moving to Bombay wrote on his Facebook wall: 'Even though I don't have an 8pm urge to rape, or a dying need to get a car's length ahead, I am a North Indian boy. And I am going to miss you Delhi. Sniff.'