[Reader-list] 6th posting: urban entertainment in kolkata

Tue Jul 26 21:13:05 IST 2005

Dear All,

This is my 6th posting and hope you will enjoy it.

Regards 

Sovan

A philosopher in a doorway insists

That there are no images

He whispers in stead: Possible worlds

 Michael Palmer (Autobiography 2)

I would like to draw your attention to an essay by Toni Negri where he writes: 

Metropolis expresses and individualizes the consolidation of global hierarchies, in its most articulated points, in a complex of forms and exercise of command. Class differences and the general planning of the division of labour are no longer made between nations, but rather between center and periphery in the metropolis. Sassen observes skyscrapers in order to draw implacable lessons. Who commands is at the top, who obeys is below; in the isolation of those who are highest lies the link with the world, whilst in the communication of those who are lowest one finds mobile points, life styles and renewed functions of metropolitan recomposition. Therefore, we must traverse the possible spaces of the metropolis if we want to knot together the threads of struggle, to discover the channels and forms of connection and the ways in which subjects live together. 
Sassen suggests looking at skyscrapers as the structure of imperial unification. At the same time she hints to the subtle provocative proposal of imagining the skyscraper as an above and below rather than as a whole. Between the above and below runs the relation of command, of exploitation and therefore the possibility of revolt.

Interestingly Negri and Sassen deal with the issue of vertical living, which in           present day Kolkata has surfaced as a seemingly irreversible aspect of developmentality. Vertical structures are presently believed to have the answer for the two main problems associated with the menace of growing population in the urban space, namely housing problem and the traffic riddle. In short, the latest surge of developmental activity in the city has zeroed in on verticality as the only possible and plausible solution of the perils ranging from, as stated above, urban housing to urban transport. 

The pundits in administration have, since last few years, been humming the tune of vertical development in the urban space. As a result, the recent boom in the real estate sector in and around Kolkata has seen a steady growth of tallish apartments with 5 or even more floors, the tallest one claiming to be a whooping 32-stroreyed building.

This upward movement in living, significantly co-insides with the current fly-over culture in the city. The recently enthroned Left front board in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation has pledged to build the hitherto longest and costliest fly-over, thereby adding another one to the list of vertical fly-path in the city. 

Along with this, the transport minister in the State Mr. Subhas Chakraborty has floated the idea of a monorail, scheduled to cover the length and breadth of the city, however, a few feet above the ground. 

Now, as Id like to point out, verticality has begun to be seen as emblematic of urban space. And, on the other hand, horizontality is taken, now more than ever, as something that signifies the rural space. As everyone knows, verticality in urban area is a human construct (thing of culture), while the horizontal topography of the rural space is quintessentially a thing of nature. The new urban space, however, seeks to subsume the rural only to flaunt it as its unique selling point. 

That the rural i.e. thing of nature is simulated in the urban entertainment sector has already been noted in my previous postings. Be it the sprawling lake NALBAN, or farm houses with rural flavor, or the artificial sea-waves and sea coast at the water park AQUATICA, the promise is one of transporting the fatigued city dweller to the unblemished wealth of nature, far from the polluted environ of the city.

The urban housing sector, too, seems to have lapped up this idea of subsuming the rural. Both South City, the south Kolkata housing earmarked for the HIG customer and Fortune City, a huge LIG and MIG housing project a few kilometers away from the city proper have at least one thing in common. An explicit accent on the things of nature. I other words, an accent on the horizontality. 

Thus, having subsumed the rural, the urban goes on to hegemonize the space of development with its typical vertical image and imagination. However, as far as the intended city in the space of Kolkata is concerned, the horizontality lurks in several underdeveloped pockets right at the sites of the developmental activities. Under the fly-over, under the approach pathways to the second Hooghly bridge (or Vidyasagar Setu, as its called officially), in the teeming slum area around the huge housing projects or posh locality in the south and east Kolkata, there are spaces wherein, notwithstanding the spell of urbanity, lies the unmistakable marks of horizontal living. 

Sassens observation of multi-tier living is significant here, albeit in another context, since, as of now, the singular emphasis on skyscrapers is not pertinent as far as Kolkata is concerned. But, yes, the city is fast moving into the multi-tier living. So, in a sense what Sassen tells is true about Kolkata also: 

(w)ho commands is at the top, who obeys is below; in the isolation of those who are highest lies the link with the world, whilst in the communication of those who are lowest one finds mobile points, life styles and renewed functions of metropolitan recomposition.

So, the city is best envisaged, again as Sassen suggests, as an above and below rather than as a whole. The lower depths, mostly spread horizontally, give birth to metropolitan recomposition in the sense that they continually try to build up the rural, which for most of them, turn out to be spaces of nostalgia, while in the city-space these pockets bring back the specter of the rural. The urban, however, celebrates this ruralness by having several marks, which it loves to call ethnic, and especially by re-creating the rural, with all the verisimilitudes as much as possible, during the famous Durga puja festival in the city.

But, as Sassen suggests, is there any possibility of revolt in the relation between the high and the low? The question seems more pertinent since the ruling leftist coalition in West Bengal, at least in paper, is supposed to be a strong believer in peoples power to revolutionize the present situation, thereby bringing a paradigmatic shift in the world. 

Still, in this case, the left front government would loathe to have a revolution in the state. Constitutionally what they are supposed to do (i.e. to protect the law and order) seems to have undermined ideologically what they are supposed to believe (i.e. to change the world as it exists). So, the pundits in the left camp in the state are busy chalking out the pattern of development that, quite significantly, reminds one of the famous Infiltration theory as far as the education policy of the British government in India is concerned. Here, the main thrust of the development are dedicated basically to the upper tier of the population, residing in the urban space (even more than that, to the benefit of the affluent section of the urban space), while the rural is mostly left to stink in abject poverty.

Still, the fear looms large. Along with the processes of urbanizing more and more spaces, of spreading the fruits of developments thereby, there has been a parallel growth of what Sharon Zukin says a democratic discourse of aestheticizing both cities and fear. The upcoming housing projects in Kolkata are virtually fortresses, enabled to keep all kinds of trespassing at bay. At best, each of them is a microcosm of the city. At worst, each is an island cut off from the world outside, the only link being things of technology, which too basically serve to individualize, even to atomize people. This terrible isolation has a fear of being invaded, and people, up above the world so high, keep on having troubled sleep. To combat the fear, they try to aestheticize it, by having terrifying computer games, horror movies, or realistic footages of natural disaster right at their drawing rooms.

The thumb rule is clear. 

Darna Mana Hai!

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