There goes the neighborhood. Or not.

I’m moving out of New Delhi this Saturday. And though I switched rooms once, I’ve been in the same building since I arrived here last July. So this is my last opportunity to show you pictures of the abandoned car that has been sitting on my block since I arrived.

I really regret not taking a photo of it when I arrived, so I could give you some sense of the rate of decay. But last July this tan Ford Falcon was clearly abandoned, old, and beaten up, but it was largely intact. Since then, the glass has been broken, some of the seats have been torn up, and paint was dumped on the car at some point. The car has also been used as a trash can, including one person who got rid of a small oil lamp – of the kind used for festivals and temple – by sticking it in the back window. Odd. But, and this amazes me, the car hasn’t yet been hauled away or completely stripped for scrap metal. Part of the engine block is definitely still in the hood, so you’d think there’d be something there a junkyard would buy.

This car is a good illustration of what I think it means to live in a “fancy” neighborhood in New Delhi. Because, on the one hand, no one in the neighborhood is sufficiently strapped for cash to haul the car away for scrap. And/or the private security guards at the adjoining houses scare-off any attempts to blatantly appropriate the car. But, on the other hand, there is no “not-in-my-backyard” outrage at having this mini-junk yard midst these very expensive homes. There are block associations in Defence Colony, but they don’t seem to have made this car a priority.

I’m definitely going to try to come back to Defence Colony one more time before I leave, so that I can see if anything new has happened to the car. But I don’t have any idea what would finally spur someone to take charge of getting rid of the car.

About 10 minutes on Wikipedia has led me to conclude that Ford Falcons do not biodegrade. So, I guess this patch of Delhi’s sidewalk is scheduled to for clearing circa 7.5 years from now when it will be incinerated along with the rest of the planet due to the expansion of the sun. Unfortunately, on balance, I think that’s going to be tough on neighborhood property values.