068 - A Babel in a Veritable Hell
Barbaric city sick with slums, Deprived of seasons, blessed with rains, Its hawkers, beggars, iron-lunged, Processions led by frantic drums, A million purgatorial lanes, And child-like masses, many-tongued, Whose wages are in words and crumbs. Excerpt from A Morning Walk, Nissim Ezekiel
When OU Krishnan wrote of a hundred thousand faces, a hundred thousand tongues and a hundred thousand passions, he might have easily described the web today as opposed to the street scene in unfolding in Grant Road in 1920’s Bombay. ‘A babel in a veritable hell’, he finishes the sentence, confirming the state of modern living a hundred years later, without having imagined or anticipated its existence.
‘… a third way of relating to the city has emerged in my work in recent years: the city as seen from the window of one’s home (Inside, 2009). One gazes from the safety of one’s own space. The fragment is now held in steady view within the frame of the window. The intimacy of a private space is brought into relation with the outside. A play of inside and outside, a game of inclusion and exclusion is set up.’
— writes Sudhir Patwardhan on his changing perspective within a changing Bombay. Devoid of this context, however, these words might also render the subject of life on the internet as opposed to living in a city one has fallen out of love with. ‘One has to live with the un- certain and shifting nature of this coming together of private and public spaces. Withdrawal from and longing for the outside are inseparably confused,’ he continues, confirming the dichotomy of modern communication without an intention to.
The public space is now a congregation of private spaces with memberships paid for with propriety, with both public and space slowly diminishing. Devoid of a common language and passions, and in a state of stupor induced by the confused withdrawal and longing for the outside, cyber or otherwise, a sense of alienation creeps in, an un-belonging, a peering and slowly one unplugs, disappears …unless one hawks; the belonging a transaction offered in words and crumbs.
Time Well Spent
In search of a forgotten chronicler of Bombay - Ajay Kamalakaran on the unknown OU Krishnan.
Retreat from the streets - Sudhir Patwardhan on the changing city
All that it would take to make walking in Mumbai a world-class experience - Rishi Agarwal and Vedant Mhatre of the Walking Project on walking in the city.
Kabooliwalla
The only option was to blunder on through hoping. For that reason, Becky would keep telling Jude that it was good to make eye contact, to engage in conversation, to talk about his feelings, to make connections with the world.
On the street where you live, Yiyun Li
Ways of Seeing
Godfather 2 ends, at the risk of spoiling it for those who don’t know, as a portrait of Michael’s loneliness. The last scene though dispels the idea of a crime lord ending up alone as a consequence of his actions. No matter the circumstance, it confirms what was always foreshadowed, Michael was always alone.