Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman and New York, a well adjusted trans-sexual~ Angela Carter
Cities are malleable, ductile and very fuzzy entities. Just as metals are. When you speak of metals, you have the adjectives hard, tough, heavy, etc but at the same time you remember that they are alloys and not the pure forms, not the ores. Cities are ores. They have the ability to mould into phases, phrases, reduced to some words that can describe them. If they have sexes, they also exhibit the dynamism of being multiple and complex at the same time. Multitudes of greenhorns from Raban's Soft city scratch their elbows together and move in unison. They become one with the city, yet one in the city. Cities are the sites for individualism, each woman would have a different cheekbone blush. Each man, a different height, with a different posture. Raban mentions that only the non-organic elements like dresses, make up, hair-dos (in case of earlocks of the Jews in America) change for the amalgamation process in the cities but then I realized even the organic starts changing in the cities. The heads always held high, hair strands meticulously arranged to grow in the same way, toes and fingers long with lots of ideas sprinkling. What else would differentiate for individualism? You need at least the core that might differ. But we would buy the same brands, same swooshes and the same leopards.
I always had this fetish about villages, a rural synedoche, a part of me that signifies the village. Just as the Highgate Hill in London, where you have village pubs, village churches, people wearing country clothes.. these were the sites for me. I always wanted to sit by a brook and enjoy the idea of village, go to some village resort that has huts near the sea beaches and think that I am close to the countryside. I guess I have been the greenhorn, who still has that rural fascination and who would always live there. I remember my visits to Hariharpur, where I could run in the fields, knew Anil uncle's wife, knew their daughter who did not like mint leaves in the chutney, I still know Sampatiya's mother who would never let us get water through the handpump. I knew almost all of them. My one month's trip covered my absences of eleven months (Of course, not very legitimate argument). I knew who lived in which house, who steals mangoes from our gachchi. I knew it all. I knew the ways, though they were never perpendicular to the cul-de-sacs. More so, I knew where they ended, and who ended them. This knowing was not instant, this was through breeding familiarity (God knows why everyone thinks it breeds contempt). It was about me just being so used to it. Being used to your own being in the small place covered through your one attempt of eye balls on the terrace and one force of decibels. The only grinding mill's noise- tuk tuk tuk tuk.. and the firefly's chhik chhik chhik..
Born in Surat, I had inhaled the smell of a city. I walked in uniforms, even unofficially. I still do not remember how I also scratched the elbows with fellow passengers and dined on the same tables with strangers in a restaurant. I spent years with people, they are all in touch. I love how the word touch has lost its meaning. A city bred touches with mobile phones, emails and distant smiles. Baroda was another one. But then, Baroda had my village. A village where the only resident enjoying was 'I'. Or was that I? Sitting alone in Abhivyakti and staring closely at the Sursagar's huge Shiv statue, I was there.
Amherst, thankfully. Ah, there it comes. A small place. Certainly no one knew about me but then I knew people who knew about each other, quite closely. They had seen people growing up, jumping in their own porches. But again, I still longed like the greenhorn, where is my village? Why can't I see them who would just know about my toothache and ask me if I still liked sweet potatoes. Where is that Sonali who loved the fragrance of Jasmine and always made two plaits. I still didn't know a lot of people. The only people growing up you've seen are your own siblings, in my case, my brother. I know why he has that scar on his eyebrows, it's because he fell from the bed and an edge hurt him. No, no, he doesn't fight. He has to explain this to everyone he meets, his friends. Cities recognize through one scar, one word, zodiac signs, palmistry. That's why he has to explain so that people do not judge through one scar.
Cities make their inhabitants experts in judging. You folded your hands, you are not considering my opinion. You are looking the other way, you are not confident or you are lying. You just swiped your keypad, you are hiding something in your phone. Your every action is a metonymy. Your mind is being x-rayed.
What sign are you? Pisces? Dreamy, Imaginative, charming etc. Oh Gemini? You are friendly but then a two-faced person, no, Taurus? You are a bull, quite strong but adamant.
We get these small booklets to use whenever we get chances to judge people (usually, we get only one)
हर आदमी में होते हैं दस-बीस आदमी
जिसको भी देखना हो, कई बार देखना
~ (निदा फ़ाज़ली)
How will you meet someone regularly? This is a city, you cannot meet. And even if you will, you will only meet the parts of somebody. In cities, you do not see anyone who is a complete form. We have assembled forms. This was really good, so why not adapt. We adapt, like Le Corbusier's plan. We adapt with the transverse and the parallel lines. We move in union. I reiterate. We move in uniforms of same expressions, same tags that have been assigned by us, the city dwellers.
