Tibetans in Delhi: Of Living in Exile and Finding Second Homes

The people of Tibet first started coming to India around 1960, after the Tibetan uprising against the Chinese rule in 1959. Soon after they arrived, the government of India allotted the area of Majnu Ka Tila, in north Delhi, to them. The place has since become an attractive tourist spot and a regular adda for students of Delhi University close by. Along with cafes, shops, a Tibetan school and a monastery, it also has a clinic called Men Tsee Khang, where patients go to get Tibetan medicines, a huge number of Indians among them. Incense smoke wafts through the air as one crosses the busy courtyard of the monastery and passes by walls mapping Dalai Lama’s travels through newspaper clippings.

A cafe in Majnu Ka Tila

In 1964, the Tibetan Welfare Office was set up in Delhi to address the needs and concerns of the Tibetans living in India. When I go to this office in Majnu Ka Tila to know more, a perplexed Lekyi Dorjee Tsangla, the welfare officer, looks up from his files and tries his best to answer my questions: “You can ask me in Hindi. My English is not so good and I can only manage broken Hindi.” Tsangla is not from Delhi and looks back with wistfulness at his previous appointment in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, a place he knew much better than Delhi, where he got appointed in 2009. In his official capacity, he acts as the link between the Tibetans in Delhi and the Tibetan government in exile. “If a big religious ceremony is to be held, I receive instructions from the government about how it should be organised and pass them on to the people. After it is concluded, I have to prepare a report and send it back to the government.”

It is from this office that educational scholarships to Tibetans are given out, both government and non-government. “If someone wants to put up a shop and an agreement has to be made about space, they come to me. If a family is trying to get their child admitted in a school and don’t know how to go about it, they approach the welfare office. We also certify nurses so they can get jobs in private medical institutions, as without citizenship they can’t work in government organisations.”

The issue of citizenship of course is one which keeps cropping up because a citizen identification card becomes a mandatory document to avail of many services in town. Tsangla talks of how the Election Commission keeps saying Tibetans would get citizenship soon while the Ministry of Home Affairs maintains that no such rule has been framed yet. “There was a 2014 circular saying they would get regulation. Some people who arrived in 1962 have ration cards while most others do not, though electricity and water supply has been there.” So far, says Tsangla, there has not been a tussle over resources with neighbours either.

For Tibetans to be identified to their own government, there is something called a green card which serves as proof of identification. A charge of Rs 60 has to be paid for it per year and if a Tibetan national does not have a green card, they apply for one at the welfare office.

Children also get scholarship from nursery to class 12 to study in the Tibetan Children’s Village (TCV) school but expenses overall have been on the rise. “After passing out, if they do not get seats in colleges, they directly get into jobs like call centres or hotels,” adds the welfare officer.

Tibetan Children's Village School

There are a lot of small businesses run by Tibetans in Majnu Ka Tila. They also get loans up to a lakh from the Tibetan government to start their venture. The interest rate is one per cent and the loan has to be repaid in three months.

But running cafes and selling woollens are not all that Tibetans in Delhi do. Tashi Tsering came to Delhi from Dharmshala. When asked if he faced any discrimination in Delhi, he responds in the negative. “A lot depends on the individual. For example, if you get into a taxi and start talking to the driver, he will do the same. And if you sit quietly and give him tough looks, he will act in a similar manner. Our cultures are different and in the beginning misunderstanding might be there when people look at each other curiously. You should take this in a positive light.” He admits that at times people are deliberately insulting. Once when he was in Noida with a group of friends, a guy tried to bully him. Tashi and his friends did not react and then another guy, the first one’s friend, came and apologized on his behalf. 

Compared to other places, Tashi finds people in Delhi relatively more open-minded. “We had gone to Uttarakhand for a trip and some local people came and started asking us questions about who we were, where we have come from. They kept following us.”

But while looking for work in the field of web development or digital marketing, Tashi did not have to face any hassles because of his origin. “You have to be good at your work so nobody can point a finger at you.” Sometimes, even working with Tibetans could have challenges. Tashi gets projects from monasteries in India and some of the senior monks he has to deal with are often not flexible with their requirements, not being well versed with technology and its limitations themselves.

Tashi’s aim is to ultimately have his own start-up, a gaming company that targets mobile users, for which he finds India fertile ground. If it doesn’t work here, Tibet and the US would be his other options. “India is a free country and you can have your own business. And I don’t need to earn billions. Just enough to survive decently and time for family and friends.”

What makes for challenging logistics is the lack of documentation when one tries to set up a business or get into jobs. Tashi feels that where he lives right now, in East of Kailash, the requirements, say for taking a house on rent, are more relaxed than in a place like Laxmi Nagar. That is probably one reason why the colony houses a number of Tibetans.

There is an important difference to note between the two kinds of Tibetans currently living in India. The birthplace of some is Tibet while others were born in India. The latter find it easier to make cultural adjustments in their country of birth. But the Tibetan government takes care to ensure that all Tibetans stay connected to their culture. Children in Delhi are sent to a school called Tibetan Children’s Village where they learn the Tibetan language. The people I interviewed proudly recalled how Dalai Lama refused Nehru’s offer of sending these children to English medium schools in India but instead established TCV. In 1961 the Indian government established the Central Tibetan Schools Administration (CTSA), which has 28 schools, both day and boarding, under it in different places in India.

Tashi believes that while these platforms educate people in the Tibetan language, they miss out on learning other languages as fluently. Once he has set apart enough savings for the investment, Tashi plans to build translation tools for Tibetans. “People like Steve Jobs can never be my role model. What is the good of earning so much money for yourself? Once you have enough, it is more important to give back to society.” He also finds it limiting that for Tibetans direct political participation is often seen as the only way of contributing to their country. “Two years ago I started a social networking site which also became political, though I didn’t want it to be. Why does everything have to be like that? Or maybe I am selfish. I do understand that my family in Tibet may have to face pressures I am free of in Delhi. Still one cannot say that protesting is the only way to work for our people.”

He also admits that living away from home opens up new vistas. “You can try anything. You face problems on your own, become mature. You can take your own risks free from your family’s anxieties and expectations.” After coming to Delhi, Tashi did not do much for a year, then realised he needs to do something to stay financially independent, became a web developer, started taking freelance work. He also opened a cafe with a partner and later sold it when his other work became too demanding. “Sometimes I see other families and miss mine. I do have relatives in Nepal but don’t go there much as I have become too used to my own freedom. I tell myself that even if I am away from home at least I am not not wasting going to parties every day. I am trying to do something good for myself.”

He has a strong network of Tibetan friends around. “We regularly call each other, meet and hang out together during Tibetan festivals.” When in college, he first got to see Indian students his age at close quarters. “We were two Tibetans in class and most of the students there, in Punjab Technical University, were Punajbi. Punjabi guys are serious. They reply when you talk; they don’t initiate conversations. I observed that he had a group earlier but later we would mostly see him alone. When we asked him, he said the others had stopped hanging out with him because he had scored well in the exams. We tried to befriend him but he seemed tense and overburdened by his family’s expectations.”

Tashi remembers a student in class who would look down on others and pretend to know it all even when he didn’t, a quality he says he later observed in a lot of Indians. I become conscious of my own continuous nodding throughout the conversation and make it a point to stop and ask Tashi for more clarity later in the conversation on things that are new to me. “If I don’t know something, I’ll come out and say it. On the other hand, this one student who would always laugh at me had actually failed. It was only when I pointed it out in class did he stop being contemptuous.” Talking of cultural differences with Indians, he gives the example of marriage: “In our society, it is not a big deal if a rich person marries someone poor. We don't have restrictions imposed by our families. As for religions, I feel we should pick the best parts of all religions and practise those.”

Tashi feels impatient with some Tibetans of the older generation, because he has faced ageism from them. “I used to work in CTSA and nobody would listen to me over there. You have to have grey hair in order to be taken seriously in Tibetan society.” While working in Dharmashala with the education department in 2014-15, he was offered a permanent position but he refused because he felt he would not get enough exposure there.

Learning new things is something that most excites Tashi. “I would get the fourth or the fifth rank in school but I was quite good in sports, painting and computers. After graduation, I was going to pursue fine arts and become a cartoonist.” But he eventually got interested in web development and self-taught himself a lot of the relevant things even before he went for a professional course. “I recently met an old man in Nepal who was a musician and had just started a soya sauce making ‘factory’ in his small room and was selling the products himself on the streets to earn money. No skill goes waste.”

In Jawaharlal Nehru University, another Tibetan is brushing up on a skill. Tsering Tharchin is studying the Chinese language. He feels that in the days to come Tibetans would need more and more resource people who understand Chinese, especially with regard to political matters. Tharchin has been in Delhi, where he came from Himachal Pradesh, for seven years. Having been in India since 2002, he doesn’t find it difficult to adjust here, though he is still learning to cope with Indian spices. In Delhi, he found the opportunities that he says aren’t available at other places in India. “I have’t experienced discrimination here. Sure, at times there would be racist comments but the people who would pass those would be in a small percentage. Delhi is a liberal place and it feels like home.”

Amongst Indians aware about the political context of Tibet’s struggle, it is easy to see every Tibetan through those lenses. An Indian friend with contacts in the Tibetan community told me many of them do not want to speak to the media as they are tired of always being seen as refugees. Sonam Dolkar, now 25, came to Delhi when she was 18, and is pursuing her MPhil in Japanese Studies in JNU. She says that she does not mind if people see her in the light of Tibetan’s liberation struggle, “Even if I can educate one person about our struggle, that’s one way I can contribute to the cause.”

Protest posters on a Majnu Ka Tila wall

Culturally, she finds Indians more outgoing and also outspoken. “Studying and living in Delhi was one of the best decisions for me.” As far as the city of Delhi is concerned, she would like to work here after her academic life is complete, “although there were times when Delhi was not so safe for women and people like us . . . because of the fact that we look like Chinese. I constantly experience people calling us different names and gawking at us. But the positive thing about Delhi has been learning to use our freedom. In the Tibetan school, we were constantly under the eyes of a teacher, school captains and warden. Living in Delhi and having the freedom from all these pressures has been, in one way, very liberating.”

If not the only, or the permanent home, the city has definitely become a second or a current home for a lot of Tibetans, not all of them young students. Tenzin Passang came to Delhi after his education in Mussourie and set up his shop in the Monastery Market in Buddhist Vihar, near ISBT. “I am grateful to the government of India for this place, for the amenities of water and electricity. If I have got the chance to do business here, I too make it a point not to dupe customers. Even students are happy with the reasonable rates at my shop.” Has he ever had to face any racism here? “Maybe one in hundred persons is like that. And if that person says something, other Indians explain to him, tell him about us, where we have come from and why.”

Sonam Wangyl is in the Indian army and helps his wife manage their shop when he comes to Delhi during his period of leave. I ask him about some of the clothes at the shop and he gives an embarrassed smile, saying it’s really his wife who knows the shop best but is unwell and thus away from the shop. He is happy with his job and satisfied with the running of the shop, “Business is good; the environment is favourable for doing business.”

The president of the market association, Sonam Dorjee, explains that since the ministry of urban development exclusively allotted the place to Tibetans, even shops run by Indians are owned by Tibetans. At the time of the interview, Dorjee was extremely busy because around Buddh Purnima a lot of religious ceremonies take place around the monasteries, which the market association has to arrange for. On the question of whether the market people have tiffs with the Indians around, he says, “Sometimes, but we try to ignore these things. While some local people might discriminate against us, most are not bad. If there is any trouble with customers, we go and pacify things. With time, things are becoming smoother. We advise our people that the customer is god in Indian culture and that they should be dealt with carefully.” He feels Tibetans are well looked after by the Indian government.

The Tibetans who came to Delhi might be satisfied with their day to day experience in Delhi but those who have lived in the south of India find it an easier place to be. Tashi, living in the Tibetan youth hostel in Rohini, which houses around 300 students, finds the south more welcoming. At the same time, he also remembers protests in Arunachal Pradesh, which had asked Tibetans to leave.

Entrance to the youth hostel in Rohini

Tashi had left Tibet at the age of three, after his parents passed away, with other Tibetans. Living in Delhi, he tries to ignore differential behaviour towards them as much as possible. “Sometimes we are overcharged by shops. We know this yet we agree as we Tibetans are often lenient with our money.”

At times he is left flustered. “We have small eyes and that’s why we are called chinkis. Fine. But at least they shouldn’t call us Chinese. Many people think Tibet is an Indian state in the north-east.” On occasions when the harassment turned more aggressive, Tashi and his friends did not find the police very helpful. “Indian guys on bikes have targeted women around here. They snatch phones or abuse them verbally. We have had a few fights. We try to be around women when they step out in the evenings so we can protect them.” Yet he feels that those from the north-east have suffered more attacks. “And then those from the north-east have also wanted us to leave Majnu Ka Tila, because they want to run the market. But that is so unfair because we built the entire place. It was bare when we got it.”

Apart from the schools, Tashi mentions the Tibet House in Delhi, which promotes Tibetan culture beyond the Tibetan community as well, and the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in Dharmshala as another place where Tibetan art and culture are kept alive. Graduates of the school can then teach others. “After graduation, all of us have to find our next stop. I am thinking of JNU or the Jindal School.”

Scholarships from the Tibetan government are from those scoring 60 per cent and above. If someone gets marks above 80 per cent, another 7,000 is added. “Financial aid is there but limited and you are not left with much for additional expenses after paying for food and transportation. But we all try to help each other. There are Tibetan people with money who sponsor students.” Tashi also works to support himself, helping organise tours when he has time to spare.

In the same hostel lives Phurbu Tsetan, a second year student of English literature in Ramjas College, Delhi University. Her birthplace is Kollegal in Karnataka. Right after she passed out of the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Dehradun and started preparing to come to Delhi, she heard news of racial attacks on people from the north-east. “Since we look alike I was afraid. My senior reassured me that while the news is correct the media also exaggerates.” Soon she was explaining to locals that she was not from the north-east, and where Tibet is. “In the beginning I didn’t get this hostel as I am not from one of the Tibetan schools. When I was looking for a house, I was asked for huge security deposits that other Indians did not have to pay.” Like for most other women, traveling in Delhi is not stress free for Phurbu, though she felt less afraid in Dehradun and even more comfortable in Karnataka. For vacations, she prefers to go to places around Bangalore. She says India is an evolving country and she understands that sometimes misunderstandings and discrimination can happen. “But one student had some really bad experiences here. She was filling someone's survey and wrote that Indians are fake. I was shocked as I found it rude. She then agreed to write that Indians are mostly nice but rude at times. Actually because of what Tibetans have faced they're close knit. So probably college friendships where you just hang out and go back home seemed fake to her.”

Phurbu herself has friends from different places. “One is from Arunachal and we definitely share more solidarity.” Phurbu, like many Tibetans, closely follows the teachings of Dalai Lama. “His Holiness says our culture is all we have right now. So we have to be attentive to it. We observe each festival with equal fervour. On our national day, I wear our traditional dress.” The most anticipated occasion is Losar, the Tibetan new year. Dalai Lama’s birthday and the day he received the Nobel Prize are important.

Talking more about her culture, Phurbu says, “Tibetan parents take a lot of risks. They send kids to boarding schools at a young age. They believe they will get prepared to face the world. When I was in the sixth grade I travelled to Bangalore alone. There is no pressure on us related to marriage. Though my mother was too lazy to be romantic, I can choose my partner. I would surely like to but I am not sure if my mother would agree to my being with someone from another nationality. When I went to a Christian school, she was really scared and made doubly sure that I knew my own religion closely.” In Dehradun, Phurbu shares, there are hostels run by NGOs especially for children from Nepal, Tibet and India, funded by people in the UK.

She does not shy away from direct political participation though she says she stays away from college elections because of the fights and vandalism involved. She participates in protests for Tibet though as a Dalai Lama follower, she sticks to the stand of demanding autonomy for her country, rather than a complete break from China. Another youth, Tsering Wangmo, a Delhi University graduate, speaks similarly, “I go for gatherings that do not trigger anger against the Chinese because that can antagonise them further and harm the Tibetans living with them. I prefer peace marches.”

Phurbu happily recalls, “On 10 March, the Tibetan Uprising Day, we went around with banners to the university and to Madhuban Chowk and spoke to people, informed them about our struggle. They gave us our full support. Indians have suffered under the British rule; they can empathise with us.”

............

When seen together with the experiences of Africans living in Delhi and a spate of attacks on them, the accounts of Tibetans tell of relatively smoother adjustment stories. They might not be targeted because of their colour, but they are still easily segregated based on their looks. Lack of knowledge about Tibet-from its geographical location to its political status-are still common challenges they have to face. But at least till the Tibet-China tensions are resolved, the Tibteans in Delhi seem to have accepted it as their home for a brief period in time and made their peace with it.

First published in The Equator Line, Jul-Sep, 2017.

The Heart of Light

Several meetings were held with the police officials of the area for the prevention of Nigerians and transgenders. An account of the wrongful activities going on here was given to them. As a result, the SHO closed down the places for vending liquor and other nefarious activities in the neighbourhood. All landlords are requested not to let their properties to Nigerians or other such disruptive elements.

This is the translation of a paragraph in a pamphlet issued by the Khirki Residents' Welfare Association earlier this year after a raid was conducted by Somnath Bharti, law minister in the Aam Aadmi Party government. Members of the African community were accused of being part of a drug and sex racket, searched, and publicly manhandled. The premise of this attack was not the due process of law. It derived its confidence of legitimacy from the complaints of many of the 'aggrieved' residents. These grievances emerged from a prevalent set of stereotypes that can get thus proliferated only in gullies that rub against and merge into each other, as in Khirki. The murmurs collude in insisting that Africans, especially Nigerians, are here for drug dealing and prostitution. When Joanna (name changed), an African student from Malawi says that she gets a three-year visa in one go while her Nigerian friends have to get it renewed every year, sometimes every six months, it becomes clear that one is dealing not just with mohalla rumours here but set perceptions at a much more deep-rooted level. The comfortable gullibility with which accusations become trusted facts stands out in sharp relief against the city's famed hospitality, its readiness to accommodate and fete guests. Would the prejudices in the Khirki lanes be so pronounced, authorities so casual, had the accused been from the other side of the Mediterranean? It is difficult to imagine the RWAs subjecting European visitors to such obloquy, though they have their own challenges to deal with.

Ola Jason, an erstwhile resident of Khirki who moved out to Chhatarpur some time after the incident, says, 'When you have pain, you have a story.' It is to trace this story that I traversed the streets of Khirki, to learn about the lives and aspirations of the African dwellers there beyond their status as victims. When I had moved to Malviya Nagar, the first piece of information I had received about Khirki was, 'You can get places at low rents there. But because the buildings stand so close together facing each other, not enough light comes through.' My visit to the place happened once or twice only to go to some Internet cafe for a print-out or to go to the ATM. I remember feeling, on these couple of occasions, more conscious of what I was wearing as the narrow lanes made you feel that not just the buildings but also the people were standing too close to you. Then a few months back I signed up for a dance workshop in Gati studio there, a privileged space, a protected corner in Delhi where you could feel completely free learning about how much exalting movement and expression your body is capable of, instead of just being something you're always trying to protect.

Gati Studio/Photograph courtesy: Soumik Mukherjee

As I stepped out of the studio each day after my class, my perception also changed. Far from being intrusive, the alleys seemed to contain an open community space, a common courtyard where people weren't just locked up inside their homes but were out there, interacting with each other, bargaining, selling, living the ease-and not the paranoia-of being the part of a crowd. The lanes came alive with the chatter, robust humour, bustle . . . the sheer assertion of being there. Those days I would take my own time getting back home, leisurely walking to take in the surroundings, buying vegetables, getting a recharge for my phone.

Now, when I notice the remarkable number of CCTV cameras perched over the streets like birds of prey waiting for their death feast in silent alertness, asking everyone to remember they are under the gaze, I wonder if, like me, for other residents of Khirki too their own mental state determines what they find in their surroundings. Are the lenses a source of reassurance or an infringement for them? Do they feel more secure or violated? Do the machines instil confidence or lend insecurities to their daily milieu? I try to think about what may have happened for them to project their fear upon what has otherwise been a safe space. What was their reason for having unleashed this vigilantism upon their African neighbours?

A CCTV camera notice in Khirki

Khirki's own landscape defies definitions. A road going uphill will suddenly plunge into a godown of watermelons. You enter one end not knowing what you will find at the other. The lanes which house Khoj, an artists' association, and the NGO Swechha, along with Gati, best illustrate the tone and temperament of the place. Looking around the labyrinth of lanes you can quickly make out why members of other nationalities feel more at ease there. The street is abuzz with people, shops and vendors so that the walking area is reduced to a narrow strip. One 'apartment gate' could lead to basement parking, another could be an opening to an entirely distinct lane of houses, and yet another could be the entry to a salon with 'Namaste' graffiti stamps on one wall and bold, colourful, 'India Beyond' on the other. A closet-like tailoring shop rubs shoulders with a pakora shop, and the entire scene is duly punctuated with vegetable vendors. The mix of voices tells you that you are amidst people from many places-India and beyond.

Basement salon

I look at the African residents purposefully going out for their planned evenings and question the ethics of accosting them to ask my questions. On the first day I decide not to, until I have got appointments through friends. After a few days have passed with no leads and I have grown more desperate, I visit again and finally decide to ask a girl who has been walking in the area for some time and therefore, I try to tell myself, may be relatively free. I approach her and tell her about the idea behind this story and she agrees to speak to me some day soon, giving me her number of her own accord. I am surprised by and grateful for her trust. However, on the appointed day she does not turn up, either understandably upset about my not having been able to confirm an earlier appointment or having had apprehensions about the interview in retrospect.

It is not easy to establish contact with the Africans living in Khirki. Some of my mails to Indian artists and photographers well versed with the area-full of promises to respect my interviewees' privacy and to tread with sensitivity-go unanswered. These are people who in all likelihood are by now tired of people plaguing them with similar requests, having already complied with many. Other, closer friends do their best to help and succeed in putting me in touch with a couple of their African friends. My friends warn me that it was months before they could win the trust of their neighbours from another continent and, as it turns out, even with a reference many choose not to talk to me. After the raid and the subsequent controversy, and the tension gripping the area, there has been a certain amount of mistrust around Indians. There could also be the threat of being singled out because of their statements. Talking to African students studying in the universities here, whom I also met to get their perspective, was a little easier. As Jason tells me, like him, many Africans also decided to leave Khirki after the raid and are now settled in different areas from Chhatarpur to Janakpuri.

Srishti Lakhera, a filmmaker living in the colony, says that while Indian men gawking at or harassing women in the city is a common enough experience, she never faced any trouble from anyone of African nationality. In fact she has some good friends in the community. While I and my friend wait outside an apartment to meet an African contact for this piece, we find ourselves being looked at by many men. Some are also of African origin, though considering my several visits to Khirki the latter could be called an exception. In spite of knowing that generalization is a dangerous tendency in the social paradigm, we still let stereotypes target a community, more so if it is small and vulnerable. The media makes us feel so outraged every time there is news about Indians insensitively frisked at airports. We are incensed over 'our' people being subjected to discrimination in high-profile areas of corporate affairs, sports and diplomacy. Have we still learnt nothing about the injustice we commit and the intolerance we encourage by 'othering' communities? If Marie Curie is to be believed, 'Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.' But we tend to feel fear, not healthy curiosity, wherever we find difference. We discriminate not just on the basis of countries but states, regions, caste, sub-caste, language, dialect, class. In Khirki, Muslim landlords prefer African Muslims as tenants rather than Christians from the same place. Halilu Babaji, a Nigerian doctoral candidate in Delhi University, asks, 'How can you judge someone unless you know them personally?' There are drug dealers and prostitutes in India too, even if we do not get into a debate over their legal status here. Srishti says that such Indians have learned to be more discreet, and even know their way around authorities. On the other hand, Africans, used to a much more open culture, aren't used to such caution. They literally have to pay for being 'them' as the rents they are charged are higher than those paid by 'us', Indians.

Babaji with a memento received in a university conference

Women of African descent have to sometimes face the worst of it. Unlike most Indian women, African women can be seen carrying themselves unapologetically and easily. Probably for several Indian men this becomes, as other signs of independence in women, a cause for insecurity, or disturbs their religious sense of virtue that is seen as reposited with women, and they pass lewd comments on the women. Despite such attacks, I notice with great respect that the women retain their uninhibited body language and often dress in their traditional attire, instead of always trying to conform and escape undue attention. Babaji recalls an African friend who once went up to an Indian woman to ask something and she panicked and started screaming. He finds the African culture better in this regard for it allows men and women to have regular interactions and does not compel them to remain alien to each other. He adds that while behaving in such spaces men know the laws and the consequences of not respecting women, or of trying to impose themselves on women. If India too, he feels, would be less conservative about following a rigid code of separation between men and women, there would be far fewer instances of violence on women.

In Khirki there are Africans who have earlier lived in other cities like Hyderabad and Pune, and find them much better and open minded. Temidara, a student from Ekiti, Nigeria, who has lived in Chandigarh and Mohali, describes her overall experience there as 'pretty good'. A Master's student Yucee Okoronkwo, whose name doesn't seem so unfamiliar to his literature friends who have studied Achebe's Things Fall Apart in Delhi University, has recently finished his dissertation on the anti-terrorism laws of India and Nigeria and is an avid blogger on the legal-political issues of both the regions. I ask him if he would have liked to stay in a place other than Delhi. He replies that despite its discriminatory practices, Delhi would probably still be more adaptive to foreigners, being more used to them. He remembers a trip to Himachal, which for all its beauty had irked him when people there would go around clicking his pictures without permission. Once he leaves, he says, he would miss India's cultural variety, which he had best experienced living in DU's International Students House and while organizing the intercultural festivals there. In these festivals students from different countries would participate with their music, dance, food, dresses and crafts. Kelvin Obi Olisamuni from Lagos, Nigeria, who has passed out of Ramjas College and Jamia Millia Islamia and lives in Kalkaji, also appreciates this about Delhi and is glad to have met his French girlfriend here. He agrees finding friendships becomes easier if you are in the university, that too as an undergraduate when other students are also new, still trying to find their footing. Joanna feels the same. She met her best friend from Assam on her very first day in Miranda House as a political science student.

However, students cannot be on campus all the time, where they have understanding, camaraderie and much more respect for differences. Once out on the road, they too have to face stares and catcalls. Kelvin says, 'When I hear them calling me names like kalu and habshi, I really want to ask them to grow up. I am a black man and proud of it. But what's wrong with Indians who are so crazy about fairness creams? For me someone's fairness doesn't make a difference. You have to be smart to get my attention. That's why I like Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra better.' Joanna quips, 'Why am I always asked what I am doing in India? Do Indians feel that their country is not worth coming to? I would understand if they would ask me something more specific like what my special motivation was or about the particular things I like in this country.' Her response to hoots is to plug in her earphones and block the voices out, though she frets about her sister in Daulat Ram College who is much more vulnerable. Babaji feels that while racism exists in a country like the UK too, there people are careful not to let it show blatantly, 'I once boarded an auto here and the driver asked me to get off. After I did, I saw that a few metres ahead he picked up an Indian passenger. He describes another incident, 'I used to go to this shop where the shopkeeper would keep attending to other customers, ignoring me for a long time. Once a foreigner intervened on my behalf and called out the store owner.' In India other foreigners would often reach out to him, though he ultimately made Indian friends too and grew close to them.

Jason's experience of being gazed at was slightly different. 'When I was in Khirki, I used to work out in the gym for an hour. Eventually I had to reduce it to fifteen minutes because people would be gaping at me all the time. When I would ask them why, they would compliment me on having a great body and ask for tips about what they should eat and drink to have a body like mine,' he blushes. He continues to have this experience on the Metro and on the road. Like Kelvin, he too has had modelling offers and even accepted some (though one couldn't help notice that Lee Cooper chose to dress up Kelvin as a Masai warrior and a white guy in jeans to show stages of evolution in human clothing styles). Jason elaborates, 'When people look at me, it makes me anxious about what they might be thinking. So I ask them why. And even if they had something else on their mind, I would prefer if they say that they were admiring something about me, though such stares too can be tiring.' He is often benign in his treatment of onlookers, 'When a man once asked me if I were a south Indian and asked to touch my hair, I let him. By doing so, I helped him accomplish a mission going on in his own mind or it would have kept troubling him.' In strangers he was able to find some of his closest friends. An old man befriended him on the Metro and later had his son pick Jason up and bring him home. It developed into a relationship with all the family members, joining them for lunches and dinners and learning to cook Indian food. When not too tired to opt for KFC or Domino's, Jason cooks Indian and African food and is aghast that I cannot make chapattis.

For Chike, another Nigerian, who owns a salon on the outer side of Khirki facing the Saket malls, the 'auto man' is his best friend who comes whenever Chike gives him a call and takes him wherever he needs to go. He has been in Delhi for a year and while the salon is doing well with several Indian men as part of its clientele, he could do better, Chike feels, if he could also open his cafe. He proudly recounts how all his meat pies got sold in the Antarrashtriya Khirkee Festival organized in March 2014 by a community of resident artists and others. But because of language issues he is unable to communicate with his landlord for a little more space for the cafe.

Chike in his salon

For Kelvin and Jason, Bollywood fans with a host of Indian friends, language isn't a similar barrier. Jason remembers how at home he would be doing dishes to the tune of 'Yeh duniya ek numberi, toh main das numberi' as a child. Even then he knew that he would be coming to India one day, though people at home often miss him and feel he should come home now. Talking of his reasons for leaving Khirki, Jason shares that he used to be an articulate, vocal member of the community. When the raid happened, national and international journalists were coming to speak to him. His name became familiar in the locality and he also got a call from Somnath Bharti's office about creating an Indo-African community. All this created suspicion around him in the community; some felt Jason was trying to sell them out. He felt that his landlord had started seeing him as a threat. His apartment was broken into, and money and valuables were stolen. He then decided it was time to move out and keep to himself for some time. In response to a question about what he does, his answer is, 'I can sing, I can cook, I can make someone look good, like in a salon, I can write, and I can make documentaries.' His current passion project is to start a magazine, which would serve as a space for African voices, 'Many people have faced many troubles but don't have the space to share. Reading about others will help them believe they too can do something.' Leaning against a portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr., he talks of how Gandhi and Mandela had to struggle so much, 'But ultimately it is their success that is celebrated.' He refers to a park in Malviya Nagar as his example, saying it won't have been named after Bhagat Singh had he not been a revolutionary, 'A strong leader has a clear vision and clears all the roadblocks in his path.' This is the sort of vision he now has for the magazine. His other dream is to have a storytelling place for children called 'Tales by Moonlight'. He wants that kids from different national backgrounds should get together to share their stories, play games and attend and participate in dance and musical performances. Through this, he hopes to make them culturally rich and tolerant from the very beginning.

Ola Jason

Possibly the Antarrashtriya Khirkee Festival organized in Khirki and Sheikh Sarai was a glimpse of the dreams Jason and others like him cherish. The 'friendship festival', through the participation of the numerous nationalities living in Khirki, had a photo exhibition, food stalls, video screenings, singing and drumming. It had Indian kids joining their African friends in hip hop performances and African youth rapping in Hindi. Another significant effort in bridging interracial differences was Gabriel Dattatreyan's film Cry Out Loud, which not only documents the community's experiences but also uses young local talent to put the film together. Baba Da Dhaba, an open air eatery run by Indians, is a place Africans come to for their north Indian fare. One hopes that through the contribution of both Indian and African communities more such spaces for mingling and dialogue grow, and that soon enough, along with Sai Mandir and Krishna Mandir, 'Tales by Moonlight' becomes a popular landmark in the area.

Baba Da Dhaba

Srishti Lakhera and Smita Rakesh participated in conducting some of the interviews. All photographs of people and their properties have been taken with permission.

First published in The Equator Line, Jul-Sep, 2014. Later published in the anthology The Best of TEL, May 2015.

Colour-Coordinated

I may have privileges you lack;

Yet, sister, I am not that different from you.

I too have been black,

And at times blue too.

Though different points on the atlas,

The same lines run through us.

First published in DeltaWomen Magazine, 29 August 2013.