55. There was a king   who wanted to shift his capital

POLITICS  |  IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU  |  5-minute read |   03-05-2016

Damayanti Datta DAMAYANTI DATTA  @dattadamayanti

Once upon a time there was a king, who wanted to shift his capital. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with his plan: the new capital was equidistant from all corners of his kingdom, far away from routes of invasion and close to lucrative trade hubs.

So the king wanted his citizens to move with him for their own good (or face the full brunt of the law). To make the journey comfortable, he planted shade trees, proffered free food, water and transport, made good loss of property, lined up free housing.

And, then he moved thousands of people - rich and poor, men and women, young and old, infirm and sick - seriously inconvenienced at losing their settled way of life and property, hugely resentful of the diktat from above.

History doesn't record what exactly happened to them on the 40-day march, just that thousands perished. By the time the king woke up and smelt the coffee, the new capital had turned into a graveyard and the old, a deserted ghost town.

I wonder if there was anyone in that kingdom who woke up to a new day ever with the same sense of liberation I felt when the odd-even scheme on Delhi streets came to an end?

Why did I think of Muhammad bin Tughlaq and his distressed citizens, some 689 years ago, just as Delhi finished its odd-even phase two? No, Delhi did not seem deserted (hey, wasn't it supposed to be?) through the last 15 days of April.