Zainab Bawa’s Blog

In Foreign Land

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A Diary of My Travels to Amsterdam

 

Travel is fun. It’s intelligent. And what’s most fun is encountering ‘foreigners’. I encounter them in my city, on my field sites. Foreigners are not white or black skinned people. They are strangers who exist in my imagination until I start conversations with the persons. It’s not that I am extremely good at this. There are times when I am sloppy, patronizing, prejudiced and biased.

 

This time, I encountered foreigners in a foreign land, in the city of Amsterdam. When I landed there on March 13 2005, Paul Keller tells me, “It’s a small city. But it’s so famed. Size does not correspond with the worldwide fame.” He is confused about the size and the fame equation. I don’t know how Paul imagines the city he works in. I wonder whether I will be able to step inside his mind. I also wonder whether I will be able to imagine Amsterdam in a way different from how I imagine Bombay? Does size matter?

 

 

13 ^th March 2005

 

Now I am at the Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj (CST) International Airport. There is a raging controversy about installing the statue of Shivaji in place of Queen Victoria’s on the CST aka Victoria Terminus (VT) Railway Station. Public is saying “improve the train services instead of changing statues”. I wonder what Shivaji thinks from beyond the seven skies, in heaven. I want to be an urban black magician!

 

Now I am at CST International Airport. Thoughts in my mind:

 

• Why do I need a passport?
• Why cannot I travel the world without having to go through the procedure of visas, customs, immigration and all?
• Yeh nationalism kya hai? Yeh nationalism?

 

I am looking precariously inside my handbag. I am checking if my passport is still with me. Thoughts in my mind:

 

• I am such a hypocrite.
• I am talking about nationalism.
• But I am tightly clinging to my passport.
• I am trying to ensure (read reassure) that I will come back from Amsterdam.
• I am trying to ensure (this time ensure) that I will not face a fate like Tom Hanks’ aka “Terminal” – my eternal paranoia.
• I am such a hypocrite!

 

 

zainab xanga

One Sunday in One City

6th March 2005

This morning …

Today is a Sunday. And there is a public meeting today. The public meeting is about the Supreme Court Judgment on the hawkers, the hearing of which is likely to take place in April. CitiSpace has organized the meeting and the ‘public’ has been invited to attend.

At the meeting, we are being thanked for sacrificing our Sunday and for coming to the meeting. The ‘public’ consists of people holding residences in the Western Suburbs and who are completely fed up with the hawkers. We are each being educated about our rights as ‘citizens’. And while there is a lot of talk about rights and awareness, I think about the rights of hawkers and whether they are citizens at all. How did citizenship first emerge? Who are considered citizens and who are not citizens? Why are citizens call citizens and not nationzens of statezens?

Ms. Punj, one of the convenors of CitiSpace addresses the issue of hawkers. “They threaten us. They encroach on our compound walls and a wall is private property. They are a nuisance.” The term nuisance is a prominent term in urban talk. Everybody complains of the nuisance that hakwers are, squatters are, beggars are, street children are – N for Nuisance! We are told of how public space is being encroached by hawkers and how we must protect our public spaces.

While the meeting is proceeding and Frequently Asked Questions about rights, hawkers and property are being addressed for the benefit of all, I start to look around and analyze the virtuous public that has sacrificed its Sunday and come to this meeting. Around me are some familiar faces and some unknown. While the organizers are spreading awareness and talking about rights, men and women in the crowds are socializing with each other. This appears to be an upper middle class crowd. As I watch people mingle and exchange “Oh hello’s” and “Hey, hi’s”, I think that Page 3 is not a phenomenon of just the rich, famous and glamorous. It pervades practically all of the middle class. Page 3, to me, is ’socializing’, ‘networking’, and ‘making contacts’, with economic and political connotations. Being an ‘active citizen’ is a part of the package of Page 3 – the aware citizen and the citizen who participates in the politics of the locality and cleans it up.

The meeting ends after a while. We have been asked to photograph hawkers near our homes. Photographs are strong proofs which shall be presented in the courts in favour of eviction of hawkers.

As I walk out of the meeting, I think about ‘democracy’, the problematic notions of ‘public space’ and ‘representation’. CitiSpace is soon becoming a ‘representative’ of the publics, a protector of ‘public spaces’. What are the criteria to be representative of publics? Can a representative represent all of the diverse publics?

 

This evening …

This evening, just like yesterday, I am writing down the people who I see at Nariman Point.

Two security guards

One boy trying hard to kiss his girl

One guy trying hard to photograph his girl

Two girl friends

Three men – dressed in Western casuals

Two men in Maharashtrian casuals

One womanish girl with a manly man

One simple-ly dressed boy with rubber chappals

Three ‘gujju’ chokras (Gujrati boys)

One chana jor garam seller

One regular tea-coffee seller

One huge crane lifting rocks and stones and throwing them in the sea

One man, looking lost, walking slowly and lazily

One couple – man pensive, woman contented

One man

Two men

Two men

One elderly man

One elderly couple, walking at a distance from each other and the coming together

One youngish mother with her son

One old man in shorts, walking

One man with a large blue plastic bag

Two heavy busted and hipped women

A flurry of ‘worker-like’ men

One man with his two children by his side and his wife, sindoor-clad, walking behind

One burkha clad woman with her man

One Oriental looking man walking

There are seven-eight pages of records of people I saw at the promenade today. But an interesting thing that happened while I was making these notes was that a young boy and young girl were walking around the promenade. The boy had a camera in hand and he would approach people, say something to them, ask to stand against the sun and then the girl would ask some questions. I thought they were video-shooting for something, maybe a student film or some such thing. They approached me and asked if I would talk with them. I asked, “Who are you? What are you doing?” “We are researching here,” the boy said to me, adding, “We are doing a survey for the State Bank of India and asking people about their views on the bank.” I asked again, “Why here?” He responded, “Because you get all kinds of people here – a cross section.” He then went on to interview and ask me about the bank.

As he finished, I started to ask myself does a public space have a single homogenous use? Does public who must use the space be defined? What kind of a public space is Nariman Point?

As I walked ahead, the Sunday crowd was all over. They come from all parts of the city and also all parts of the country. I walked backwards, from where I had started. The duo were still doing their filming. They sat down after a while I spoke with them and told them how I was researching Nariman Point. The boy said to me, “This place gives me serenity. I feel calm here. Come here once in a month or so.” What does the promenade mean to him?

Limmerick of the Day

The day was long and went on and on. Ultimately, along with some friends, I sat down at the Chowpatty beach. A hawker was selling paan. He talked a lot and we asked him where he came from and how he feels at the beach. “I am from Madhya Pradesh,” he replied, adding, ” hafta kills. Everybody must be paid hafta .” And then he went on to say his limmerick which is:

Pheri ka dhanda hai

Phansi ka fanda hai

Har jagah dekho

Sab taraf hafta hi hafta hai!

i.e. Business of hawking,

Like a noose in the neck

Look around everywhere,

Its all about bribery!

zainab xanga

5 ^th March 2005

 

This morning, I started ‘rounding’ (as in walking and roaming around) VT Railway Station. I stood at the Bhatia Baug bus stop for a while to watch the morning sales on the roads. Soon, I felt restless and decided to walk. As I walked ahead, I thought of Arjun bhai. Just as I was articulating him in my head, he appeared before me. He was wearing a saffron tika on his head, suggesting that he had just arrived from morning prayers. He looked at me and shook hands with me. He seemed in a hurry. “Where are you going?” I asked him. “To the godown, to get the maal for the day and set up dhanda, ” he replied. “Can I come with you?” I asked him excitedly. “No, no,” he said firmly, “you cannot come there,” suggesting that it is not the place for girls to go to. “But we will meet tomorrow, at our usual time, 9 AM?” he queried excitedly. I told him that I would fix the meeting with him later.

 

I walked ahead, towards the polyester glass dome which marks the entry of the VT station subway. Just outside the station, a bunch of boys were playing with coins, perhaps gambling. These boys are what we image in the city as truant children, run-away boys, druggies, raggedly dressed. I stood at a distance watching them. This morning, watching them was important for me because I have been trying to understand the relationship between these children and the railway station and what these children mean to the city. (I have now started asking commuters of how they perceive the children during interviews.) As I stood watching, the boys indulged in their play. To call them kids would be patronizing. These boys appeared quite capable of negotiating and dealing with the world. I believe that their childhood is not lost; it is very much there. It is there in their play and in their lifestyles. One of the boys saw me watching his friends at play. He watched me carefully just as I was watching them. Perhaps he was noting me, marking me. Gradually, he started moving towards me. In the meanwhile, another boy emerged from somewhere and stood before me, asking for money. This boy seemed older than his age. “Will eat vada-pav , please give money,” he kept repeating to me. I asked him, “Where have you come from? How long have you been in the city?” He said he was from Shirdi and has been in the city since three days. I gauged that he was in the city from a long time but he kept repeating that he has been in the city since three days. I asked him if he would want to go back home. But he repeated, “Will eat vada-pav , please give money.” The other boy who was watching me had also arrived and was asking for money. I gave money to both of them. The latter was watching me converse with the former boy. He said to me, “I tell you, you just take this boy to Sandhurst Road and drop him there.” I could not understand why he said this to me.

 

During all this happening, a few people had gathered around me, wondering what was happening between me and the boy. I kept asking the boy, “Since how long have you been in the city?” He kept asking me for money. Finally, a burkha clad woman, who was standing for sometime watching us, said to me, “What happened? Did this boy steal something from you? What is the matter?” I told her that there was no problem and that I was just talking to the boy. She said to me, “These boys are thieves. They steal. Just the other day I picked up one child and put him in a rehabilitation center here. I am a social worker.” I asked her if her social work involved working with children at railway stations. “No,” she said to me. I told her that there was no problem. She then proceeded inside the station. I decided to back off from the situation and go away. The Shirdi story boy followed me to the entrance of the subway and kept asking me for more money. I refused to relent. He kept hailing me, “Didi, didi,” but I decided to not listen.

 

I wonder what ‘intervention’ means. I am also thinking about ‘social work’ and about ‘social work’ as ‘intervention’. Do we end up doing violence by our ‘interventions’?

 

 

 

zainab xanga

Postscript to Indian Idol and Mumbai’s Urban Talk ‘A, B, C, D’ …

 

It was just last Friday, last Friday, when Abhijeet Sawant became the first Indian Idol. And the questions that have been lingering on my mind since the week that has passed are about democracy.

 

On Sunday, 6 ^th March, I was traveling in the local train from Byculla to Kurla, in the ladies compartment. At Dadar station, a woman with two children entered the compartment and sat on the seat opposite to mine. Sitting next to me, at the window seat, was a woman and sitting opposite her, on the window seat was another woman. The two children (boys), aged around seven years, began singing Hindi film songs in chorus as soon as they became comfortable in their seats. I was very amused at this sight. The two boys were singing very melodiously and somehow, the scene was very surreal. It was performance, a pretty and perfect performance. I could not help smiling broadly and was enjoying myself. The lady sitting next to me, and the one sitting opposite her began smiling as well. The lady sitting next to me mistook my smile to mean ‘look at these kids, how they can rattle Hindi film songs instead of knowing their school lessons’. The children, in the meanwhile, felt shy and stopped singing. The lady next to me asked them their ages. Then she turned towards me and said, “This is all the impact of television. Look at these children. It is all the doing of Indian Idol!!!”

 

So I think Indian Idol has settled into urban talk lingo of Mumbai and will now be evoked either as ‘the other’ or as a metaphor for the effects of television on the public or both.

 

Just yesterday, I was in the Municipal Corporation building and a colourful poster of Abhijeet Sawant was on the walls near the lifts. The poster read, “Our son has won. And this is all due to the lakhs of votes which the BMC workers polled for our boy. He has won because of you.”

 

Today, as I am writing this posting, the city is at ransom again. The BEST public bus service is on strike for an indefinite period. I am told that there is tremendous traffic on the streets and trains are jam-packed. As I listen to this news, I tell my mother, “There is just one person who can rescue us from this strike. It is Abhijeet Sawant!” Hail democrazy!

 

The questions on my mind: what is democracy? Is the notion of democracy changing with the emerging urbanism? Is democracy unworkable beyond a certain scale? Is there a link between public spaces and democracy?

 

 

Now, for a little peek into Mumbai’s urban talk. Following six months of fieldwork, I have compiled a basic A, B, C, D (with some missing alphabets) of Mumbai’s lingo, gathered from different encounters and groups. Please feel free to modify and transform the content. Let’s go:

 

A – apnawala , literally meaning ‘our man’, allegorically meaning ‘aligned with us’. Like Zubair, the Ticket Examiner I have been talking to, is hailed as apnawala by Muslim commuters or Abhijeet Sawant is hailed as ‘our boy’ by the BMC union

 

B – both bhidoo (as in buddy) and bhenchod (abusive, literally meaning sister fucker) and bhidoo can also be lovingly and affectionately addressed as bhenchod

 

B – also stands for baap meaning influential person, a person in power. Usually, the Mumbai police is referred to as baap . Also used as a common slang term as in kya baap? (what man?)

 

C­ – chutiya , allegorically meaning to make a fool of oneself or to be fooled – as in when Manoj Kumar used to tell me, “Shah Rukh keeps going to the area where the BMC van is parked and does dhanda there and gets caught, making chutiya of himself!”

 

D – well, you guessed it right. D stands for dhanda i.e. business, the lifeline of this city. Perhaps Mumbai actually derives its character and its ethos from the practices of dhanda at various levels

 

E – stands for ‘English’ not meaning British but a girl who is dressed ‘modernly’ aka television and Bollywood style and can speak fluent English language. Was first used by my Driving Master who would tell me to drive cautiously if an ‘ English ’ was walking in front of the car. “Make sure you don’t touch her with the car because she is English and will then abuse in English and I will not be able to respond to her!”, he would warn me.

 

F – stands for faltoo and is directly linked with L which stands for lukha and lafanga – faltoo and lukha both denote, at various points in time and persons, unemployed, useless, worthless, and the unemployed is often hailed as lafanga though lafanga is used to ‘mark’ an individual who is a miscreant, usually an eve-teaser

 

G – stands for the abbreviation ‘GPL’ i.e. gaand pe lath (kick his arse) which means drive him/her off because she/he is faltoo and is wasting our precious (economic) time. As shop owners will tell their salesman, “GPL the customer” because she/he is faltoo, wasting time and is not genuinely interested in buying

 

G – also stands for gaadi meaning Municipal and Police Van which land up suddenly to raid on hawkers

 

H – hawker, the prominent ‘other’ in the city who is an encroacher on property and is a dirty sore on the city, the only obstacle which prevents Mumbai from becoming a Shanghai, a clean and green city

 

I – obviously, Indian Idol now!

 

M – maal directly linked with D for dhanda. Maal suggests goods, commodities and is the engine driving dhanda . But maal can also be used metaphorically as a term for a sexy/voluptuous girl (as in kya maal hai baap! ) or maal can also mean narcotic drugs. Thus, maal is a term both, for the legal and the illegal

 

M – also stands for madarchod (abusive, meaning mother-fucker). Very common abusive term, though used more often in anger

 

M – also stands for Madam , used by persons non-conversant in English to refer to a lady who can speak English fluently

 

P – stands for Party. Now, ‘party’ is a term used by people of all classes in the city. In common lingo, ‘party’ suggests a ‘business party’, a potential customer as in maaldaar party hai, or zordaar party hai . Basically used to denote ‘the other side in the dealing’. Party also stands for Page 3 Party, used in the Bandra lingo as in “Where’s the party tonight?”

 

R – stands for raasta, as in raasta napo meaning get lost. Raasta literally meaning road.

 

S & T – are interlinked alphabets in Mumbai lingo. For instance, S for tsunami and T for tsunami. So also, S for station (i.e. railway station) and T for theshan (Marathi pronunciation of railway station). T, in the railway station lingo stands for TTE (ticket examiner), and the TTE indulges in S for Sounding i.e. levying fines. Then again, S in the dhanda lingo stands for Seth meaning boss and the hawker also addresses the customer as Seth during sales on the road indicating that customer is the man in charge, in control. T also stands for Time, often pronounced as tame – Time, the only thing we are always running short of in this city!

 

V – stands for Vaat meaning fire in the arse, as in vaat lag gayi , we are doomed, run!

 

Y – for yaar , used both as slang as well as to suggest ‘buddy’ – as in jaane de na yaar (please let go buddy!)

 

Z – zindagi as in life jiska koi bharosa nahi, life which is there today, gone tomorrow!

zainab xanga

Indian Flag, Indian Idol, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and Nationalism in One City

 

Walking around VT station is always a revealing experience. The Indo-Saracenic architectural style gives Bombay one shade of its multi-pli-city character. Surrounding VT railway station are the buildings of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Times of India, Capitol Cinema and old style residential and office buildings. Sooner or later, the area from VT to the High Court, all structures of the British Colonial Rule period, will be encased into a heritage precinct. I have heard that during the British rule, this area was walled off from the natives and was known as the walled city.

 

Today, as I was walking around the main road of VT, I noticed that visible on the VT Railway Station building was the flying national flag – jhanda ooncha rahe hamara (flying high be our flag). And as I shifted my gaze, I noticed the national flag was flying high on the BMC building as well. I don’t know exactly when this symbol i.e. national flag, come to adorn these buildings. What does the national flag do to these two buildings? Does it change the character of these two institutions/structures? Does it impact the identity of the city? Why does the flag have to be played out at a railway station and at an administrative building in a city? What is heritage? How does it relate to our individual identities?

 

Indian Idol

Now, Pushpa, our housemaid is one of my sources of understanding the city and its imaginations. She loves to talk. She talks about people in the other houses where she works and their lifestyles. She talks about mobile phones. She talks about slum dwellers. She talks about local trains. And she talks about television programmes. Off late, her daily pratter is about Indian Idol, a Sony Television programme, which has caught up on everybody. I am unaware about this programme except that I have been watching large hoardings at Dadar railway station which urge commuters and citizens to vote for their favourite contestant in the Indian Idol programme.

 

Before I proceed any further, let me tell you what Indian Idol is all about. Indian Idol is a singing competition programme on Sony Television. Participants are aspiring singers from all parts of the country. Since four months, they have been competing to win the Indian Idol trophy. The winner at the end of the four months of hard work will truly be the Indian Idol – the best singer of the country – a new symbol of national pride. What is unique about the programme is that while there are three judges who judge the technical competence of the participants, viewers are asked to vote for the participant who they think is worthy of becoming their Indian Idol.

 

Hoardings at Dadar Railway Station show the voting symbol where the black dot is replaced with a sticker of Indian Idol on the index finger. “Before you go shopping, vote for your Indian Idol” or “Before you put on your make-up, vote for your Indian Idol” are what the hoardings have to say.

 

Today, I entered the BMC building to complete some work. While waiting for the officer, I strolled along the corridor and saw a poster which said (in summary) ‘with your blessings, our son Abhijeet Sawant has entered the finals of Indian Idol. Now you must vote for him and make sure that he wins’. On finding out about this poster, I came to know that the Abhijeet Sawant, one of the two final competitors, is the son of a BMC worker. The BMC workers’ union is praying and voting hard for his victory. The poster was signed by none other than the infamously famous Sharad Rao, union leader of the BMC, who is known to hold the city at ransom through strikes of civic workers. These posters were put up everywhere in the BMC building.

 

Later, my friend informed me how the Shiv Sena was also campaigning for Abhijeet Sawant in the Western Suburbs with banners everywhere.

 

Finally, that evening, the finals took place – between Abhijeet Sawant of Mumbai and Amit Sanna of Kolkatta. Pushpa excitedly said that morning to my mother, “If Abhijeet wins, it will a matter of pride because after all, it is a Mumbai boy!” As audiences sat glued to television sets in their home, I was at an STD booth. Suddenly, crackers went up everywhere and there were loud shouts of victory. The STD booth owner asked me curiously, “Is there a cricket match going on?” He was surprised with the crackers and shouts. I said to him, “No, it’s Indian Idol. And I guess the Mumbai boy has won.”

 

Abhijeet Sawant had won. He is the Indian Idol.

 

What does media do to the city?

 

zainab xanga

4 ^th March 2005

 

Today I sat right opposite Pizzeria on the Nariman Point promenade. The marble signage right on the promenade calls this place ‘Kilachand Chowk’ I began to make a list of people who passed by. Here is the list:

 

·         1 fat jogger

·         1 tired and sweaty jogger

·         1 man wearing khadi kurta and denim jeans

·         1 ‘Nariman Point executive’ type

·         1 boy and 1 girl walking

·         2 lukhas

·         1 ………… common man

·         1 ………… common man

·         1 ………… common man

·         1 Arab man walking around and around with a girl wearing a scarf

·         1 foreigner

·         6 foreigners

·         1 girl

·         1 balding man with a girl

·         1 paunchy elderly man smiling

·         1 man looking ahead in the air and walking

·         1 woman with heena-dyed hair, perhaps in her middle ages, walking fast, fast

·         2 men walking at a distance from each other

·         1 white couple – the man is wearing a golf cap

·         1 girl – jogging, sweating, with a walkman, earphones plugged in her ears, perhaps listening to music

·         1 man, walking with two women and explaining something to them

·         1 man, with a bright red bag, walking

·         1 hawker, walking with a basket which he is wearing from around his neck, selling Bombay’s favorite pastime i.e. chana zor garam

·         1 man with a fat cloth band tied around his stomach sitting next to me. He is wearing jogging shoes and has perhaps come to sit down for relaxation. Maybe he is jogging for health and long life

·         1 Sardarji, walking in Sher-e-Punjab style, looking at me sharply and walking

·         1 dark skinned man, wearing white pyjamas (Maharshtrian style) looking around and walking

·         1 funky young man (image of yuppie), wearing an elbow band. T-Shirt and three-quarter jogging tracks, sweating and walking casually and loosely around

·         2 men and a girl – one of the men and the girl are dressed in ethnic outfits. The other man is talking on his mobile phone passing instructions to someone on the other end of the phone of where they are (which the other man is giving to him)

·         1 security police guard

·         1 bearded man with a Muslim Namaazi cap

·         1 young man walking around here and there

·         1 man, tired and jaded, carrying a black bag and a roll of paper in his hands. He comes from across the road and sits down on the promenade wall

·         1 couple, dressed in ethnic garment, smiling. The man is saying something to woman who is holding a jute tiffin bag in her hand

·         1 Oriental girl wearing a bag on her back, walking, looking down on the ground

·         1 girl with a Pepsi bottle in her hand and a black ladies purse, walking coolly and talking on her cell phone

·         4 young boys, rural-looking, walking together

·         4 people crossing the road from across. All 4 came to the promenade and then dispersed

·         1 hunched back man, looking to the ground and walking

·         1 elderly man, mumbling something to himself, holding a folded bag in his hand and walking with a limp

·         3 young men coming from office, walking on the fringes, waiting to cross the road

·         1 elderly man, looking towards the buildings and walking

·         1 elderly woman, looking to the sea and then towards the road and walking

·         2 Tops Security Guards

·         1 stylish girl walking with a young man

·         1 man, bearded slightly, walking slowly, trying to count coins and put them in his purse as he walks

·         1 old man, dressed in white clothes and white jogging shoes, walking from the edges of the promenade towards the wall

·         1 simple man, walking with a heavy briefcase

·         2 young girls walking

·         2 young boys walking big dogs. Both are walking together

·         1 boy walking a big dog

·         1 old man, wearing a sweater and big glasses, walking slowly and cautiously

·         2 men with plastic bags in hand, talking and walking and one looks at the sea from the edge

 

I saw lots and lots more people and some of the people listed above crossed over my sight twice and I recognized them. As I was making the list, I wondered whether I was indulging in marking people, just in order to describe them in words? How did I mark people by way of ‘common man’, ‘simple man’, ‘as a lukha or vagrant’, ‘hawker’, etc?

 

Finally, as I was about to depart, a Gujrati speaking, early 30s aged man came by my side, talking on his mobile phone. He was speaking to the other person on the phone about some visa to Italy and how he had helped him in sorting out the problem. From the conversation, I tried to deduce that this man is a travel agent or at least runs a travel agency. He was accompanied by an Oriental girl who was most probably a Nepali. The two came and sat very close to me. I wanted to move away because I felt that my space was being violated by the two who may want to get cosy after a while. I felt uncomfortable. But I decided to stick to my place and not shift. The discomfort stuck there for a while until I became immersed in the conversation that the two were having. The man switched to speaking Hindi with the Oriental girl who also had a fair command over Hindi. He put his arms around her and both began to smoke cigarettes. They bought some coffee from a hawker and began to drink it. The girl asked, “Is this city called Mumbai or Bombay?” He answered, with a sense of authority and command over local history, “Bombay was a British name. Now it is called Mumbai. But outsiders continue to call it Bombay.” Gradually, their conversation became inaudible to me except that the man began to talk to her about his first wedding. The relationship between them appeared to me like an extra-marital affair. But I could just be making judgments for all I know.

 

My questions for today therefore:

1. Marking seems help make sense in the city but doesn’t marking only help us to make sense of surfaces?
2. Is a public space an anonymous space?
3. How do publics get involved in a public space?
4. Looking at the way people were walking on Nariman Point today, I am wondering how people understand and negotiate spatiality as they walk on the promenade?

 

zainab xanga

 

3 ^rd March 2005

 

I landed in Mumbai, at about 12:05 AM. Back in the city, I wondered whether I had at all traveled to Bangalore. In Banaglore, I met my friend’s mother and told her about my potential trip to Amsterdam and how I wanted to go to London as well. She said to me, “Amsterdam is beautiful. London is just like Bangalore, though of course, more cleaner than Bangalore!” I listened to her carefully. And I again questioned myself about diversity and divercity. Are cities becoming monocultures? What is it about diversity and divercities that is critical for sustainability or for anything for that matter?

 

Back in Mumbai, late at night, I felt like jumping out of the taxi and running madly and wildly on the roads. I wanted to embrace the roads, as much as I could. I wanted to gather the entire city in my embrace, as much as I could. And then I realized that the city is what I imagine it to be. Himanshu had said to me, “The city is a monster. It is what you imagine in it your head!” Maybe what I imagine is that part of the city which I frequent more regularly – South Mumbai, Central Mumbai, Bandra! Maybe Borivali falls out of my imagination or for that matter, the interiors of Mahim! Maybe I just bypass Mahim without experiencing deeply – just the outsides!

 

As I re-enter the city, I begin to think of what my walking and talking about the city does to the city? How does the city see me? How do city people see me? Thus far, I guess I am looked at as an incomprehensible entity in terms of both, my religious and professional identity. I wonder whether I am a stranger among the people in the city. Who am I to the city? I raise this question more out of curiousity than out of a sense of lament for identity.

 

I guess that’s all for the day!

Cheers!

zainab xanga