[Reader-list] "city smelt" ( shahar ki ghrana nirmiti) and "city touched" (Shahar ki sparsh nirmiti)

[Vijender chauhan]

Last  week I thought of experimenting a bit. I wasn't very sure of its
success (I wasn't and still I am not, of the whole exercise either)
simply because in this part I didn't have any concrete idea or
hypothesis or anything except that city must be expressing itself in
other ways then mere audio-visual. So  I thought of finding out the
"city smelt" ( shahar ki ghrana nirmiti) and "city touched" (Shahar ki
sparsh nirmiti) I did quite some not so sensible things like assuming
city is what roads are hence there texture is of coarse, coarse, I
touched it with my palm all spread over it. Similarly feeling over
filled sanitary landfill at Azadpur bypass isn't pleasant by any mean.
Shahar ki Ghran nirmiti:  
Shahr ki koi ek gandh hoti hai ise sahsa sweekar karna kathin hai, yeh
isliye bhi hai ki shahar kisi bhi sandarbh mein ek (monolithic)
saranchna nahin hai atah uski ek gandh (ya awaz, ya drishya...) ki
apeksha karana sarthak nahin hai. Tathapi zid hi sahi par mujhe lagta
hai ki shahar ki koi gandh to hai jo isi shahr ki hai. yadi sahityik
sandarbh se khojein to apni dilli ke sath apni pehchan jodne wale
lekhakon mein se ek "krisna baldev vaid" apne charchit aur vivadit
upanyas "vimal urf jaen to jaen kahan" mein jis gandh ko is shahr ki
gandh kehtein hai vah hai (vi) mal ki gandh. bypass ke kachrein ki
gandh shahr bhar ke kachrei ki gandh ka nichor hai par mein sweekar
nahin kar paya ki shahar kewal yeh kachra hai ya phir pushpa, itra
vagaraih.... Apne pryaog mein maine bypass ke alava GTK Industrial
area, now relandscaped Jawahar Gulab Vatika at DU, Idgah Road (Please
note slaughter house is located here..) ko ab tak liya hai. swabhavik
hai ki itne sthal prayapta nahin hai par hum sabi ki seenmaen hai. Tay
yah bhi kiya hai ki inke varnan ke liye kuchh aur karna sambhav nahin
hai atah pathya yani text ke madhyam se hi varnan kiya jayega.
Shahr ki Sparsh Nirmiti:
What I thought in this context is simple. Spread my palm on the
structure I am calling cityscape landmarks. so I did it with roads,
buildings, railings along road and also along one bridge. Touching
city is slightly different then expected. I thought touch will
primarily be touch of the structure and imagination will have to work
hard to reach the touch of the city, that was not the case! yes
imagination did work but not that hard. Believe me! city does vibrate
(actually my word is 'spandan' (beats)) and this spandan says a lot
about the buzzing city. Still working to decipher what it is.

I did get quite a few replies through list as well directly to my mail
box. Thanks a lot to all of you. Could not reply some of these
individually, especially I will mention sadan. I could not answer
because I am still working to sort out the issues Sadan raised.
Thanks you all.
Vijender