[Reader-list] Beeti Vibhavri Jaag Ri

[jha sadan]

Dear Vijender,
I liked your piece on cityscapes and think that your project is quite 
interesting. To me what is more interesting in your two postings on 'Beeti 
Vibhavri Jaag Ri' is your anxiety on how to represent these cityscapes. It 
is precisely on this issue i would like reflect my own impressions here.
You have been working with abstract concepts, categories and figures in your 
postings and you enter into poetic. I fine it both as the strength of your 
reflections as it allows me, as a reader to travell into spaces which are 
not merely confined into the fields of play of the cityscapes that you are 
attamepting to narrate here. Hence figures like Brahmrakshas and Hori 
provoke a reader to move out of the context and enter into the realm of 
literary and mythical while engaging with the city. In fact, one can argue 
that the engagement with the subject, in this case, with cityscapes is just 
an excuse to open up the field of cultural stereotypes which influence our 
ways of dealing with images of city and which actually triggers our 
imaginations of the city (scapes).But, Let me also complicate this enagement 
with abstarct categories and forms.
Abstarct words, terms as used by you to open up the field are devoid of 
details. In this sense, abstarct sentences are also empty lines and appear 
as leading to nowhere. They cannot lead one anywhere. let me take one 
example from your posting. you write,
"High Mast Lights at JANPATH:  City as sea of lights-
infinite...endless...sea. In fact you 'see' darkness only because
there are High Mast light houses to show you. In fact it can be safely
said that metropolitan darkness is where artificial light is absent".
If I replace, Janpath with any otehr place, the sentence will remain the 
same. In this case, we hardly get the character of the place. In fact, the 
richness of the place is lost in the narratives of space. You are dealing 
with places which are physically rooted spaces. The challenge is how to 
preserve the thickness of and the particularities of places. How not to be 
consumed by the spaces.
In my opinion, this tension between space and place is quite central in your 
project. In the writings on landscape aesthetics, scholars have written a 
lot on the relationship between space and place. I strongly suggest you to 
have a look at some of these writings.
I must again confess that i am not suggesting you to abandon the form that 
you have adopted to represent your subject and start using thick 
description, a well recognised way of representing the subject in 
anthropological discourses especially after Geertz.
This is actually where I believe that wild jumps and use of poetic language 
can be helpfull and will provide new ways of dealing with images of the 
city. The question however remains,  is it possible to bring thick 
description ( that can allow the particularities of place to emerge before a 
reader) and the poetic ( that can open the text in different direction, 
giving rise to new imaginary fields).
Finally, I would also request you to try and avoid binaries. In your 
description it seems that binaries are actually freezing the flow of images 
that you intend to generate through the use metaphors.
let me add few more provocations: can we look at traffic signals as city 
scapes?

"Dilli ke na the kooche, auraak e musabbar the
jo shakl nazar aayi, tasvir nazar aayi ( Mir Taqi Mir)".

wishes,
sadan.






>From: Vijender chauhan <chauhan.vijender at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Vijender chauhan <chauhan.vijender at gmail.com>
>To: reader-list at sarai.net
>Subject: [Reader-list] Beeti Vibhavri Jaag Ri
>Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 23:39:10 +0530
>
>Namaskar,
>
>In past month or so I alongwith the some very helpful friends have
>made pre dawn visits to some of the well known (and some lesser known)
>spaces of the city. Text has limitation I plan to post some images at
>some blog, as soon as I am able to do it I'll provide link. For now I
>am suggesting how me and some of my creative friends have read the
>turns, silence, chirping of the city. I am mentioning name of the
>space and how it was viewed:
>High Mast Lights at JANPATH:  City as sea of lights-
>infinite...endless...sea. In fact you 'see' darkness only because
>there are High Mast light houses to show you. In fact it can be safely
>said that metropolitan darkness is where artificial light is absent.
>
>Chhatra Marg (DU Campus) :  a long tunnel to eternity . Yellow line on
>the road tries not so succesfully to create symmetry which do not
>exit. (This road in any case devides a lot, ...Arts faculty from the
>Sciences, Nirulas from the Vivekananda, Miranda House Hostel from the
>PG Woman Hostel)
>I also felt that this really sleepy road should take us to The bavri
>(well with stairs) where that Brahmrakshas is washing his sin (sorry
>you all profs at university) here i hops to some other visit i made a
>few weeks eariler same time (pre dawn) to Bab Kharak Singh Marg (Idea)
>was to sense the coffee house building at Mohan Singh palace, but I
>ended up staring down at stairs to the subway opposite coffee home. I
>have got the image, I tell you its a Bavri as well, quite literally.
>It was lined with people sleeping or may be making themselves beleive
>that they took their share of dreams. Who is the Brahamrakshas there,
>we? I am too scared to answer it.
>Under a High tension Wire at Laxmi Nagar :  I studied Electrical
>Engineering at Polytechnic and beleive me I wasn't a bad student so I
>can figure out that High tension AC transmission will certainly make
>sound. So whats the point in mentioning that HT wires at Laxmi Nagar
>makes loud humming sound.  But I still insist that it is worth
>listening. It is the music that city night produces. It is mysterious
>because during daytime it is lost in noise. I am upset that my
>cassette recorder predictable failed to record the sound.
>Then there is Bhola Yadav. Watchman at Janpath. Bhola is around 40-45
>years of age and going by latest row in BJP/RSS he is younger then
>'young' alternatives of Advani /Vajpayee but first few pages of Godaan
>describes how age is not so natural. It is constructed, Hori can't be
>young at 40 nor can be Bhola Yadav. Bhola spends his night guarding a
>showroom. He views this city as rozi-roti. He is not nostalgic about
>Ghemar his village in eastern UP. Now I know him a little better. My
>meeting with him this sunday (pre) dawn was sixth one. I interviewed
>him now a days I am working on this interview itself.
>
>I request once again to you all to suggest writings, drawings,
>paintings, music, films, photographs, graffiti, kahavats, galis...
>whatever that you believe is expression of Delhi's time in space or
>Delhi's space in time. But to limit my work whatever you suggest
>should have occurred, capture or describe pre dawn Delhi (3-4 AM).
>
>Thanx
>Vijender
>_________________________________________
>reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
>Critiques & Collaborations
>To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe 
>in the subject header.
>List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>

_________________________________________________________________
Click, Upload, Print http://www.kodakexpress.co.in?soe=4956 Deliver in India