Usually, people go to shrinks when they are sad or suffer from sustained low mood. But Keshav Gupta's case is different. He wants to go to a shrink because he is unnaturally happy. He hopes that the therapist will help him get rid of the vacuous smile that has appeared from nowhere and settled permanently on his face.
This happened the day they demolished the final block of buildings in Delhi's East Kidwai Nagar, a sprawling government colony built in the 1950s. EKN was a great example of modernist architecture that housed many government employees, including Keshav's father, who worked for the telecom ministry.
All around Keshav, the great and the good are falling. Familiar ways of living are disappearing, small businesses are vanishing, familiar hangout joints are being taken over by shiny, neo-lib franchises, well-known landmarks are receiving from view, as are customary gestures, forests and wildlife are depleting, big corporations are increasingly deciding the fate of people and individual privacy is being bought and sold. It has become harder and harder to remember how one felt 15 years back.
People have become like ballerinas, always on their toes. Always anxious that yet again another policy will be introduced and a whole chunk of their universe will disappear. Despite all this, Keshave cannot wipe the smirk off his face.
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