One of the one percent in 13 million.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Despite her advanced years and the physical frailties that come with them, Usha Singh daily ventures to explore the world outside her home. And what if the world she explores exists at the very threshold of her home, and not further?

On this cold January evening, the venerable lady is making turns in a tiny cramped corridor right on the landing of her sixth floor flat. In her mid-80s, she walks slowly. At times, she pauses. One arm presses down on her quadripod cane, while the other arm reaches out to the wall for support. She stands motionless in this posture for a few moments, head bending downwards. Finally, she stirs, and takes one more step.

The evening walk is the lady’s daily discipline.

On being approached, she slowly raises her white-haired head. She explains that she confines her evening walk to such a severely limited space because “there are too many cars downstairs.”

She lives in an apartment complex in zila Ghaziabad, with her son, and the son’s caring family. The gated compound consists of a few multi-storey blocks. Many residents undertake daily walks in a park outside the complex, while others make rounds of the circular driveway within the gates. To the sixth floor lady, however, the park is too far to go alone. As for the circular driveway within, it appears too risky to her, for the residents’ cars keep exiting and entering the apartment complex all day long.

That said, she doesn’t limit her walks only to the small landing outside her flat. Every morning, she gets up between four and five, even in the ongoing cold season. The family still asleep, she slowly-slowly dresses in a suit, a sweater and her super-warm red jacket. She then walks out of the house door, turns towards the elevator shaft, and goes down in the lift, stepping into the circular driveway. At this hour, it is totally empty. Cars in the parking are as still as statues. She makes two rounds of the driveway, in one and a half hours. “I invoke Shiv Bhagwan while walking.”

Until two decades ago, she would not bother to walk. She built the discipline after a leg injury, triggered by fears of being bedridden if she didn’t exert her legs to exercise. But the increased air pollution in Delhi region has made outdoors dangerous for everyone, especially for the elderly. Nevertheless, everyone has to go out daily, so does she.

The evening is getting icier. She walks to the last point of the landing, and turns. A boy is rushing down the stairs. “Namaste, aunty,” he says without stopping, the drone of his descending voice booming out of the staircase. She slowly lifts her gaze, and mutters affectionately, “Jeete raho beta.”

[This is the 622nd portrait of Mission Delhi project]