Tear it down

Yahoo! India: Over 80 boundary walls of residential buildings in Defence Colony were pulled down today as part of MCD’s drive against illegal walls in the Capital. A total of 300 houses have been affected in the drive so far.

According to the MCD, the boundary walls of many Defence Colony houses encroached on the municipal land and public roads. ...

Brigadier VK Dandekar, a resident, said, “My wall is well within the permitted area... but they still destroyed the wall. They were not even willing to look over the official plans, and now they are asking me to pay Rs 7000 as demolition charges.”

An MCD official said, “Though the MCD is taking action based on visible evidence only, and do not measure the plots, there is little room for error. These people break the laws themselves and then blame us.”

They destroyed my landlord's wall this week; see the picture, taken from my balcony, of what is left of the front yard. Dr K is in blue.

Although I do agree that there are a lot of illegal constructions in Delhi, and took a great deal of pleasure in watching fashion designers beat their breasts as their MG Road malls were razed, this effort seems so arbitrary. Dr K has already rebuilt his wall, and it's...about a foot from the previous location. The detritus of the former bound now clogs the nalli, the protection of which was the ostensible reason for the drive.

Some things feel so futile here; break down, rebuild, break down, rebuild. Life's like that, I guess.