Delhi habits?

New Delhi, Jan. 14: This isn’t one of Delhi’s state secrets. A survey says the city abounds with litterbugs, spitting is as rampant as abuses, and invading public space is the most common way of showing that might is right.

In Meher Chand market, near the plush Lodhi Road in the city’s south, 19 people, including 18 men and a woman, were found giving the streets a mouthful — all in 40 minutes. In Chandni Chowk, not far from where the Tricolour is raised each Independence Day, people appeared to be making the most of their freedom — 49 people, including 48 men and a woman, couldn’t resist the urge.

The 2006 survey, the third on “human behaviour in public places”, was conducted by students of Delhi University’s anthropology department. Previous findings in 2004 and 2005 haven’t been radically different.

The students fanned out in 60 Delhi areas to gauge just how much hasn’t changed in a city supposed to have taken giant strides in transforming the way it lives.

Dustbin makers, beware. You might soon go out of business if the rest of the country follows the Delhiite. In Meher Chand market, the surveyors saw 16 people, including nine middle-aged people, tossing away fruit peels, paper, plastic packets and wrappers, all within an hour. Chandni Chowk did a faster job of messing things up — 131 people were seen littering in 30 minutes.

P.C. Joshi, the professor who guided the survey, points out that there aren’t enough dustbins around Chandni Chowk, but says the habit hasn’t been dumped, either.

Expletives rule. Other cities are no exceptions to their use, but in Delhi, they are embellishments to the spoken word.

Women are soft targets. The survey found 88 men in Chandni Chowk doing or saying something offensive in 30 minutes. Lewd comments, whistling and vulgar gestures are the common signs of misbehaviour, Joshi said.

“We have been surveying human behaviour in public places for the past three years, but we don’t find a remarkable change in attitude,” says Joshi, adding only 20 localities had been picked in the first survey in 2004.

The problems aren’t all in the mind. So, as malls scale new heights, Delhi is grappling with another towering problem — encroachments.

“We did not find any market free from encroachment. People extend houses and shops into public space,” says Joshi. Countless swank houses and outlets demolished are proof of this.