On urban isolation
When one writes about something, one must acknowledge the ongoing threads of discussions on it. However, global as we would like it to be, it is still a national-level discussion, basically intentionally so, as currently everything must be discussed in an Indian context.
Though we are being told these days that we have come from a rural background and are trying to adjust with the city life, I believe in India, as of now, there could be many of us, who have grown up in a city -- how-much-ever in touch with its rural roots, but distinctly growing into an entity of its own. And so, yes we do have rural roots (all humans would have, if agriculture is your idea of roots). But we have started living in cities for periods that could be termed substantial enough to be able to understand and deal with issues of the city.
Urban isolation is one such issue that catches the eye of most who have their basic needs taken care of. I believe we as individuals in the city are forced into an isolation that may be real or completely imposed by us upon us as the people you meet in the city are not trustworthy and are terribly involved in politics.
Let us train our eyes to Europe and think of urban isolation in that context to understand how it differs. Let us say the idea of a city was built around the professions of people changing -- giving up agriculture to want to live in areas that allow a different kind of lifestyle. These people and their governments work towards building cities. In the Indian context more often than not cities are made of people who are there not out of choice but because they cannot be where they want to live. In such a scenario, the urban isolation syndrome become quite severe. So in the European context urban isolation is a time of life where an individual cannot communicate to any individual as at that time you are searching for your self. In the Indian context this seems to be a tall task as all the while you are in isolation, you are chased by worries, troubles, pesky little issues of health, leaving you very little time to search for your self.
And hence, the dilemma lies here. That cities are spaces where you may be pushed too close to yourself, but they can in that sense allow you to keep a check on how you are as a human being. But in India, they are not being allowed to flourish in that manner as of now. India may have had cities in the old times, but too much happened in between that time and now for us to expect anyone with the memory of those times to be alive. So let us say we were colonised for 100 years?
At this point I must mention that the situation looks particularly more pronounced than it is as currently there is a government that is just not helping. I also feel that this government could have been the need of the hour then as we have been going haywire for a while now.
For Indian cities to flourish, it is important that we trust our roots for a bit to be fine without us, while we do our jobs well.
Now while doing that, you cannot afford to ignore signs of illness in the roots too. Because any kind of barrier will not prevent those who want to/have to get to a city from getting there. Even as learned beings who are able to speak in several languages and themes, we are unable to face some harsh truths.
Giving the rural a varnish of the rustic and clinging on to it to contribute to its illness is a peace crime. We are all guilty of that, which is why we must understand that migration is a thing species do. In India, we have tried various approaches to migration, the principle one among them being -- we need people to do our dirty jobs anyway so let them be driven out of their homes to live in shanties close to the apartments they will need to work in. This could be called the Mumbai model or even the Delhi model. The Bengaluru model uses another approach. From the very beginning of slums, Bengaluru chose to keep them out of sight. So nobody has seen the ugliness of the city. On top of that as a city it started devouring the outskirts with an appetite that can only be termed hoary. Push them out. In the Mumbai model at least there would be a scope for a give and take and maybe assimalation at some point in time. But the Bengaluru model never chose assimilation as a goal, even accidentally so. It was completely pre-planned I would like to belive, as it is a relatively new city and should have had the time to come up with a plan, based on learnings from other cities.
In a city built on the foundation of separation, how does one fight the isolation?
Though we are being told these days that we have come from a rural background and are trying to adjust with the city life, I believe in India, as of now, there could be many of us, who have grown up in a city -- how-much-ever in touch with its rural roots, but distinctly growing into an entity of its own. And so, yes we do have rural roots (all humans would have, if agriculture is your idea of roots). But we have started living in cities for periods that could be termed substantial enough to be able to understand and deal with issues of the city.
Urban isolation is one such issue that catches the eye of most who have their basic needs taken care of. I believe we as individuals in the city are forced into an isolation that may be real or completely imposed by us upon us as the people you meet in the city are not trustworthy and are terribly involved in politics.
Let us train our eyes to Europe and think of urban isolation in that context to understand how it differs. Let us say the idea of a city was built around the professions of people changing -- giving up agriculture to want to live in areas that allow a different kind of lifestyle. These people and their governments work towards building cities. In the Indian context more often than not cities are made of people who are there not out of choice but because they cannot be where they want to live. In such a scenario, the urban isolation syndrome become quite severe. So in the European context urban isolation is a time of life where an individual cannot communicate to any individual as at that time you are searching for your self. In the Indian context this seems to be a tall task as all the while you are in isolation, you are chased by worries, troubles, pesky little issues of health, leaving you very little time to search for your self.
And hence, the dilemma lies here. That cities are spaces where you may be pushed too close to yourself, but they can in that sense allow you to keep a check on how you are as a human being. But in India, they are not being allowed to flourish in that manner as of now. India may have had cities in the old times, but too much happened in between that time and now for us to expect anyone with the memory of those times to be alive. So let us say we were colonised for 100 years?
At this point I must mention that the situation looks particularly more pronounced than it is as currently there is a government that is just not helping. I also feel that this government could have been the need of the hour then as we have been going haywire for a while now.
For Indian cities to flourish, it is important that we trust our roots for a bit to be fine without us, while we do our jobs well.
Now while doing that, you cannot afford to ignore signs of illness in the roots too. Because any kind of barrier will not prevent those who want to/have to get to a city from getting there. Even as learned beings who are able to speak in several languages and themes, we are unable to face some harsh truths.
Giving the rural a varnish of the rustic and clinging on to it to contribute to its illness is a peace crime. We are all guilty of that, which is why we must understand that migration is a thing species do. In India, we have tried various approaches to migration, the principle one among them being -- we need people to do our dirty jobs anyway so let them be driven out of their homes to live in shanties close to the apartments they will need to work in. This could be called the Mumbai model or even the Delhi model. The Bengaluru model uses another approach. From the very beginning of slums, Bengaluru chose to keep them out of sight. So nobody has seen the ugliness of the city. On top of that as a city it started devouring the outskirts with an appetite that can only be termed hoary. Push them out. In the Mumbai model at least there would be a scope for a give and take and maybe assimalation at some point in time. But the Bengaluru model never chose assimilation as a goal, even accidentally so. It was completely pre-planned I would like to belive, as it is a relatively new city and should have had the time to come up with a plan, based on learnings from other cities.
In a city built on the foundation of separation, how does one fight the isolation?
posted by seena at 12:03 AM
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