Dressed in a bright yellow saree with a bunch of pretty white bangles on her wrists, Bimala Bhatt squats in a square area, baking rotis over a smoking chulha (traditional indoor stove). After kneading the dough into round moulds, she lightly tosses each circular disc on to a pan. Logs of wood are strewn around, some propped up against the walls – a dirty blue, with the plaster peeling off. Thick wisps of smoke curl over the fire. “Food tates better when cooked like this,” she says. Does the smoke not cause a headache or make her otherwise unwell? “ Matke ka paani, aur chulhe ka khana, sabse accha hota hai [Water from an earthen pot and food cooked on a chulha are the best].” Though she has access to a gas cylinder, Bimala prefers the chulha . She cooks five kilos of wheat daily, churning out nearly 20 rotis a day. The water is first purified using ‘Pureit’ and then cooled in a big earthen pot.

PHOTO • Urvashi Sarkar

Away from the daily routine, there are fears about losing land and changing social interactions.“I moved here 30 years ago,” Bimala says. She looks young, her skin is flawless. “I don’t really know my age,” she remarks, smiling wryly. Bimala, originally from Rajasthan’s Sikar district, is married into the family of Puran Bhatt, a national award-winning puppeteer. Many families in this colony migrated here from villages in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the 1970s.

PHOTO • Urvashi Sarkar

Puran Bhatt’s house is one of the most well-known addresses in West Delhi’s Kathputli Colony – the Delhi Development Authority's (DDA) first in-situ slum rehabilitation project. As per the plan, residents have been asked to move to transit camps where they will have to live for two years or more, after which they will be given flats in Kathputli Colony. The flats are to be built by Raheja Developers in a public-private partnership with DDA. Some families, which do not possess land in the colony, are in favour of moving to the transit camps. Those who have land, are wary of leaving – they are sceptical that the promised flats will not materialise and they may lose their land in the process. “We have always lived here. Why should we leave?” asks Bimala. She is joined by her 15-year-old daughter Dipali, who concurs: “Flats are closed spaces. We won’t be able to freely meet our friends and neighbours.” Dipali wants to have tea; we leave her mother to the cooking and sit in an adjacent room where a little girl with kohl-rimmed eyes and a bobbing ponytail laughs at us gleefully from her spot on the floor. She is the neighbour’s daughter. Children breeze in and out, stare at us indifferently, and leave. The houses in Kathputli Colony are packed together, small topsy-turvy constructions tucked into narrow lanes and meandering bylanes. The overflowing drains and sewage, frequent piles of litter and faeces, and a shortage of water indicate chronic neglect by government authorities. The home interiors are clean by contrast.

PHOTO • Urvashi Sarkar