Difference between revisions of "Imagining the wiki city"

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राह चलती सड़क एक ऊँचे आर्च से फिसल कर गायब हो जाती है, तो समझो शहर यहाँ पर ख़तम होता है. "या शुरू", और  जैसे अपनी बात को सच बताने के लिए, तुम यह कहते कहते कहते  तेज़ कदम पर उस गेट के पार, के आखरी टुकड़े पर जा खड़े होते हो, गेट को देखते हुए. मैं जब वहाँ पहुँचता हूँ, तुम्हें मौन पाता हूँ. तुम कुछ देर गेट ताकते रहते हो, और फिर मेरी तरफ मुड़ कर देखते हो, बच्चे की सी मुक्स्कान होंठों पर लिए हुए. फिर सर घुमा कर उस गेट को देखते हो, फिर मुझे.. चहरे पर लिखा है, तुम्हारा मन उन आँखों की चमकतीनाँव पर चढ़कर मछ्लीद्वार की उन बड़ी मच्चलियों के बीच भ्रमण करने लगा है, बुर्क़े की टोप से बाल लिए शेरो से आँख मिला रहा है, नाँव से झुककर,पत्थर के गजों की पीठ सहला रहा है.  
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राह चलती सड़क एक ऊँचे आर्च से फिसल कर गायब हो जाती है, तो समझो शहर यहाँ पर ख़तम होता है. "या शुरू", और  जैसे अपनी बात को सच बताने के लिए, तुम यह कहते कहते कहते  तेज़ कदम पर उस गेट के पार, सड़क के आखरी टुकड़े पर जा खड़े होते हो, गेट को देखते हुए. मैं जब वहाँ पहुँचता हूँ, तुम्हें मौन पाता हूँ. तुम कुछ देर गेट ताकते रहते हो, और फिर मेरी तरफ मुड़ कर देखते हो, बच्चे की सी मुस्कान होंठों पर लिए हुए. फिर सर घुमा कर उस गेट को देखते हो, फिर मुझे.. चहरे पर लिखा है, तुम्हारा मन आँखों की चमकती नाव पर चढ़कर मछ्लीद्वार की बड़ी मछ्लियोन के बीच है, बुर्क़े सी टोप डाले शेरो से आँख मिला रहा है, नाव से झुककर,पत्थर के गजों की पीठ सहला रहा है.  
  
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The gates are almost forgotten structures at the end of the inner city, waiting for some restoration drive to take fancy to them, drive away the many settlers that have made homes on these margins, around them, and re gild their forms. Lions in bonnets, fish like wet eyes, and a quiet line of elephants that will not easily be metaphorised.. we both loved the animal gates we had seen.
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[[ऊडन तश्तरी ]]
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But we had come to look at other gates, in another city, where we had come to do some work to be able to earn, it was called research, but i have seen the tomes written by researchers.. the lines of books scanned by their little torchlights, i would feel shy to call the small work we managed to do, research.
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तश्तरी उड़ती है, पंख, मुहम्मद का घोड़ा मायरब्रिज के घोड़े से पहले उड़ी थी. अल बुराक- जहाँ तक उसकी नज़र दौड़ती थी, वहीं तक एक कदम. कालीन की धुन्ध से बादल निकालने को लगी हुई हैं उंगलियाँ.  
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yet. what we had was work, and work said we had to make our way into the city, through these gates, and see which living road, led to what.. which goldsmith, took us to the tannery, which ayurvedic doctor went to church, which snake led to homeopathy.  
 
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Meaning things that stood apart will yet connected often times, our neat categorisation is what had seperated them. So we started the the seperations, and then criss crossed lanes to walk from here to there, led by this or that person, and soon we were in the middest of the city.  
 
  
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the above is my partner,companion, co traveller's rather fancy way of looking at what lies before us. Honestly- at any of these gates, what lies before us? just outside, a largely undifferentiated mass( es) of live of the marginal, making a geography around these gates. shanties, labourer huts, mud, thatch, corrugated sheets, cement bricks, a lot of lurid paint from time to time, breaking the drearier silences. Inevitably, a large, choked drain across the geography. You can be at the gate of the puranas, or the gate of the lions, it comes to the same thing. Then the gate, and by the gate, inside the city, a comparitive order- the long arm of the law reaches till here, and protects property rights. the small jewellery maker can keep his shop , as can the oil seller. Small self forgotten men they look like. Small faces, small builds and a severly limited range of expressions, most of those on the more severe side. I spent some time imagining what that face might look like, smiling, as we sat outside the shop.
 
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Yes, of course, he had heard of Phalke, there was a clock tower, a main road and various suchlikes names after him. A medical college, too, for some reason ( that he had embodied the body, on screen? ha! and so knew some of the body's secrets.. he had captured the body on glass plates and fixed it? watched it move, frame by frame, noted its reflexes and then, tried to create a symphony out of them that linked in with a story)
 
  
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Yes, there is a planned city in here somewhere, but like every planned city of yore, it is somewhere deep ahead, in the centre, a city arranged by a man's life, by all accounts a pioneer in this country's film industry ( this being one of the most powerful industries in the world, that should count for a lot: of course the poor blighter died a pauper). Below are descriptions, they should be honest, physical descriptions, because that is all the gates look like. No kite shops by the gate of flight and if there are, then they will be there at the gate of ageing also.
 
  
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M
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बादल उड़ जाते हैं, उंगलियाँ काम में लगी रहती हैं
  
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[[The gate of flight]]
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[[the gates]]
  
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[[The gate to the puranic story]]
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M:
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The gates are almost forgotten structures at the end of the inner city, waiting for some restoration drive to take  a fancy to them. Lions in broken plaster bonnets, fish like wet eyes, and a quiet line of elephants that will not easily be metaphorised.. we both  love the animal gates we have seen in cities in this land. But this time we have made a work out of it.. i am loth to call myself a researcher, i have seen those animals, they live in libraries, permanantly  bent over tables, wielding a pen sized scanner shining a light, .. and with it, they capture old parchments, page by crumbling page.
  
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[[The mechanised being, his gate]]
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We will visit the city library, of course, but that will be just one piece of our day.
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We are- not quite travel journalists, but not researchers either.  just a couple, still happy to be together, to love and write in cities we had only read of before.
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We are lucky this time, to have got paid to travel, we are collaborators at work this time.
  
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[[the gate of ages and ageing]]
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The gates look Verdant with design, full, overblown quite..enough intricate details to catch you by the leg down some stairwell of the mind where one thing transforms into another. As E M forster had imperatived- connect! connect.. this under your feet is a living road, move with it, to where a goldsmith might lead you to a tannery,
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an ayurvedic doctor to church, a [[snake]] to homeopathy.
  
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[[The gate of alchemy]]
 
  
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[[the gate to the botanical garden]]
 
  
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[[the gate of those dreamers who trace, translate, repeat]]
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N:
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..outside the city gate, around us, is only what we see everywhere,
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squatter settlement walls that have become one with dry ground, the all manner of salvage to make homes, broken with bright colour from time to time.
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a large drain shared between this side of the gate and that-
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inside the gates, small men with small claims in  little shops that their family might have kept over generations, they are faded by seeing the sun from the same spot every day, all their lives. 
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I spent some time this afternoon imagining what the face of the shopkeeper might look like smiling, as we sat outside the shop... half an hour, making enquiries, asking questions, waiting while his boy ran to fetch us some tea.
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Yes, of course, he had heard of Phalke, there is a clock tower, a main road and various suchlikes named after him. A medical college. Dadasaheb Phalke medical college? Really?
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the man could not see the humour of it, of course. I wonder what the old man would have made of that. Might have simply taken it in his Konkanastha Kashyap Brahman stride. Talking of which, we met a Mr. Kashyap today. 
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M:
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The man who took us around the Vimana Shastra kendra. .  Mr. [[Kashyap]], who was sent by [[the officer]] in the fancy Vimana Shastra building, to see the glories of the glass and chrome. Bright eyed  balding, shoulders bent. His name, he told me, means turtle, after a great sage. I nodded, though I had knew this much already. I did not see a turtle, I saw an ageing, but still graceful bird.
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[[day 4]]
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[[day 5]]
  
 
footnote: [[a letter to italo ]]
 
footnote: [[a letter to italo ]]
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make it like the skanda purana, in tamil also called the scrap purana- written over hundreds of years, stories added and added and added to it, small ref to skanda purana here, for this [http://www.nasikchitpavan.org/history-of-chitpavans.php http://www.nasikchitpavan.org/history-of-chitpavans.php]

Latest revision as of 11:55, 17 April 2019

राह चलती सड़क एक ऊँचे आर्च से फिसल कर गायब हो जाती है, तो समझो शहर यहाँ पर ख़तम होता है. "या शुरू", और जैसे अपनी बात को सच बताने के लिए, तुम यह कहते कहते कहते तेज़ कदम पर उस गेट के पार, सड़क के आखरी टुकड़े पर जा खड़े होते हो, गेट को देखते हुए. मैं जब वहाँ पहुँचता हूँ, तुम्हें मौन पाता हूँ. तुम कुछ देर गेट ताकते रहते हो, और फिर मेरी तरफ मुड़ कर देखते हो, बच्चे की सी मुस्कान होंठों पर लिए हुए. फिर सर घुमा कर उस गेट को देखते हो, फिर मुझे.. चहरे पर लिखा है, तुम्हारा मन आँखों की चमकती नाव पर चढ़कर मछ्लीद्वार की बड़ी मछ्लियोन के बीच है, बुर्क़े सी टोप डाले शेरो से आँख मिला रहा है, नाव से झुककर,पत्थर के गजों की पीठ सहला रहा है.

ऊडन तश्तरी तश्तरी उड़ती है, पंख, मुहम्मद का घोड़ा मायरब्रिज के घोड़े से पहले उड़ी थी. अल बुराक- जहाँ तक उसकी नज़र दौड़ती थी, वहीं तक एक कदम. कालीन की धुन्ध से बादल निकालने को लगी हुई हैं उंगलियाँ.


M बादल उड़ जाते हैं, उंगलियाँ काम में लगी रहती हैं

the gates

M: The gates are almost forgotten structures at the end of the inner city, waiting for some restoration drive to take a fancy to them. Lions in broken plaster bonnets, fish like wet eyes, and a quiet line of elephants that will not easily be metaphorised.. we both love the animal gates we have seen in cities in this land. But this time we have made a work out of it.. i am loth to call myself a researcher, i have seen those animals, they live in libraries, permanantly bent over tables, wielding a pen sized scanner shining a light, .. and with it, they capture old parchments, page by crumbling page.

We will visit the city library, of course, but that will be just one piece of our day. We are- not quite travel journalists, but not researchers either. just a couple, still happy to be together, to love and write in cities we had only read of before. We are lucky this time, to have got paid to travel, we are collaborators at work this time.

The gates look Verdant with design, full, overblown quite..enough intricate details to catch you by the leg down some stairwell of the mind where one thing transforms into another. As E M forster had imperatived- connect! connect.. this under your feet is a living road, move with it, to where a goldsmith might lead you to a tannery, an ayurvedic doctor to church, a snake to homeopathy.


N: ..outside the city gate, around us, is only what we see everywhere, squatter settlement walls that have become one with dry ground, the all manner of salvage to make homes, broken with bright colour from time to time. a large drain shared between this side of the gate and that- inside the gates, small men with small claims in little shops that their family might have kept over generations, they are faded by seeing the sun from the same spot every day, all their lives. I spent some time this afternoon imagining what the face of the shopkeeper might look like smiling, as we sat outside the shop... half an hour, making enquiries, asking questions, waiting while his boy ran to fetch us some tea. Yes, of course, he had heard of Phalke, there is a clock tower, a main road and various suchlikes named after him. A medical college. Dadasaheb Phalke medical college? Really? the man could not see the humour of it, of course. I wonder what the old man would have made of that. Might have simply taken it in his Konkanastha Kashyap Brahman stride. Talking of which, we met a Mr. Kashyap today.

M: The man who took us around the Vimana Shastra kendra. . Mr. Kashyap, who was sent by the officer in the fancy Vimana Shastra building, to see the glories of the glass and chrome. Bright eyed balding, shoulders bent. His name, he told me, means turtle, after a great sage. I nodded, though I had knew this much already. I did not see a turtle, I saw an ageing, but still graceful bird. day 4

day 5

footnote: a letter to italo

make it like the skanda purana, in tamil also called the scrap purana- written over hundreds of years, stories added and added and added to it, small ref to skanda purana here, for this http://www.nasikchitpavan.org/history-of-chitpavans.php