Deserted Ramlila Ground still attracts curious glances

An eerie silence has descended upon Ramlila Ground after hectic activity for 10 days. Barely a day before, the ground was teeming with people — Anna supporters, cops, mediapersons and hawkers.....

An eerie silence has descended upon Ramlila Ground after hectic activity for 10 days.

Barely a day before, the ground was teeming with people — Hazare supporters, policemen, mediapersons and hawkers — trying to catch a glimpse of 74-year-old anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare.

But on Monday there were only remains of a movement that had taken the nation by storm — dirty green and blue carpets, semi-dismantled shamianas and torn newspapers now gathering dust.

A huge pile of garbage and some dismantled tables stood where just a day before never-ending queues for food served for free was a common sight. In the scorching heat, a group of 20-odd men were busy removing the bamboo poles - the dismantling of the tents that had been erected for the protesters is still underway.

The stage too, which was a platform to Anna and others to address the gathering for 10 days, was occupied by a group of youngsters engaged in a friendly banter. Three trucks were stationed inside the ground for transporting the poles and the carpets.

"We have been working here since Sunday afternoon, trying to remove the tents and the carpets. Since the area covered is quite vast, it will still take us another two days to bring down the entire structure. Now that it is over, we will be going back to Jammu," said Raj Saroj, one of the workers who was dismantling the shamiana at Ramlila Maidan in central Delhi.

Though the place is near empty, a number of passersby were seen peering over the railings of the boundary wall of Ramlila Maidan to catch a glimpse. Police barricades, dustbins placed by the municipal corporation, meanwhile, lay askew all over the ground.

Throughout the 10 days of the agitation the goings-on within the ground reverberated through the areas thanks to the loudspeakers installed at various points of the ground.

"We used to watch from our roof-tops the entire happenings inside the Ramlila Ground. It had become a routine," said Ashfaq Ahmad, a resident of Old Delhi.