[Reader-list] [Urbanstudy] Conflict versus Violence

[anant m]

Perhaps it will be useful to reflect for a moment what
reading sometimes does ? 
I read Zainab's post, and froze.... my mind refusing
to translate into words the pulsation in my head. How
does one translate into words an urge to do something
about the crouched cow ?, the desire for space that is
amenable to adjust maadi ? the need for a secure place
to which you belong, even if it is only a seat on the
bus ?   
I left the computer, spent an hour aimlessly grooming
my cats, took the bus to dinkytown -the image of which
brought me to this cold country six years ago. It was
here in a bar that Bob Dylan started his career many
decades ago. All things being equal, the only way I
could decide on which university to go to was settled
by the possibility of hanging out at DinkyTown. The
home I left behind dissolved into a powerful potion of
words, images, metaphors ...the materiality of which
was so unbearable and incomprehensible...the scent of
blood and sweat in the city that grew so overpowering
in just a matter of five years from 1995 and finally
made me retreat...it was now avaiable to me only in
words. 

My first encounter with the absurdity of it all was
during the 2000 elections when I asked a colleague
what were the common techniques of election rigging in
the US. The woman was shocked beyond words. What ?
Rigging ? America is a democracy! As news started
trickling in from Florida, I sort of felt embarrassed
at the prospect of running into her in the corridors.
Five years later, she sent me the transcript of a
recent talk by Jimmy Carter, ex president who promotes
democracy world over where he categorically said that
the Carter Center does not monitor elections in the US
because theoretically the US just cannot have free and
fair elections! Theoretically the US cannot have free
and fair elections! yet the Democracy Center carves up
the world into neat little pieces and ranks them in
democracy scores...the US always being 100 per cent
and the rest having to measure up to it and the
American that is not offended by the suggestion that
their elections could be rigged is a rarity. 

As I walked through Dinky Town strip malls after
reading Zainab's email... I remembered my early
struggles with textuality and with theory. I presented
a compilation of articles on agrarian violence in
Andhra Pradesh written by Balagopal to a young
professor. He avoided eye contact with me for a few
weeks and when I finally caught up with him, he said:
I am stunned. How can we theorize this ? How can we
represent such corporal violence in words and images ?
There is something of the materiality that always
remains in excess of what words can represent...that
demands other responses. What do we do with that
excess ?  
Five years on, that question now brings Alice's words
to mind: What if I should fall right through the
center of the earth... oh, and come out the other
side, where people walk upside down. 
Writing and theory I think some times happen because
there is always something in excess of the materiality
of the world. It happens because there is no space for
adjust maadi and we want to know why. We write and
theorize because, we are unable to make room for a
secure belonging for that child selling ear buds.
because we see something of ourselves in the cow's
struggle to stand up with dignity. because through
writing, we seek to stand up with dignity, make room
for ourselves, create  belongings in solidarity. the
funny thing though is that success in that venture is
never a lasting one. when i read zainab's email the
first time, I felt as if there was nothing more to be
said. that was why my mind refused to translate into
words the pulsation in my head. but this morning, i
knew i had something to put into words.
anant
--- zainab
--- zainab at xtdnet.nl wrote:

> Sometimes just a scene gets you to write.
> 
> I write 

> 
> This evening I was walking past the bus stop to get
> to home. On the
> outsides of Byculla market is a garbage dump. About
> four to five cows are
> always hovering around the dump, getting some grub
> (just as much as some
> urchins hover around the dump for their daily bread
> and possibly a bit of
> butter).
> 
> It was about 9 PM. I saw one of the cows upturned.
> She was on her back,
> her four feet crouched onto her stomach. I could not
> understand what was
> happening to her. I wondered whether she was
> suffering from a terrible
> stomachache. She rolled to the sides, then attempted
> to get up. As she got
> up, she tottered on her feet, clamoured, tottered,
> and then fell sideways.
> Another cow, brown in colour, standing by her
> started to move into the
> space left open by the small crowd, looking at the
> bystanders (many of who
> had collected by then out of curiosity and some
> waiting for their bus to
> arrive). The brown cow stared into the crowd, as if
> asking for help. A man
> on a cycle shouted out, ‘pour some water onto her.
> She is giddy’. He went
> on to say how the cows are not fed and made to do a
> lot of work which is
> why this one had gotten giddy. Meanwhile, the cow
> continued to get up,
> totter, and fall. The condition of this cow was
> pathetic. I am almost
> feeling helpless as I write because these futile
> words are just unable
> describe the visual I have witnessed.
> 
> Tottered, stood, wavered, tottered, fell.
> Tottered, stood, wavered, tottered, clamoured, fell.
> Tottered, stood, wavered, tottered, clamoured,
> stood, fell.
> 
> The man on the cycle continued, ‘everyone is
> standing, staring at her. No
> one is coming to her rescue. She may just go mad and
> hit out at the
> crowd.’ All the bystanders were feeling something –
> some felt pity, some
> expressed sympathy, but no one came forward. I got
> frightened. The word
> VIOLENCE rang into my head as I witnessed this all.
> I wondered when the
> cow would go mad and lash out at the crowd.
> Meanwhile, I almost felt as if
> the brown cow was advancing towards me. I quickly
> decided to move away and
> head back home.
> 
> (Frightened
> Vulnerable
> Ashamed
> Guilty)
> 
> 
> I feel indifferent these days. I walk around the
> city as if I were numb.
> There are times when I get aggressive. I wonder
> whether I will also feel
> giddy, totter, waver, stand and then fall ...
> 
> 
> CUT TO BANGALORE
> 
> The autorickshaw was standing at the signal of Forum
> Mall at Koramangala.
> A dark girl was selling cotton ear buds. I looked at
> her as she moved
> around. She was as beautiful as a doll. I felt a
> strong sense of affection
> towards her. I decided that if she were to come by
> me, I will buy the
> cotton buds. And she came by me.
> Ten rupees, she said.
> I brought out the coins from my purse and gave it to
> her.
> Ten rupees, she said.
> Ten rupees, I said, counting out the coins to her.
> Ten rupees, she said again.
> Ten rupees, what the hell, I said to myself, until I
> quickly realized that
> for her, ten rupees meant a ten rupee note. She
> could not count. She could
> not decipher. I fished for a ten rupee note and gave
> it to her. She smiled
> and handed out a packet of ear buds to me.
> I went back home that evening and narrated the story
> to Nick. He looked at
> the cotton buds and said to me,
> Careful, these are risky. The cotton can just come
> off and the plastic can
> hit your ear drum and cause damage.
> As I lay in the bed that night, I wondered how it
> would feel for the
> plastic to hit my ear drum and I go deaf. DEAF! How
> I wish I were deaf!
> Life would perhaps be easier then. I would not be
> able to listen.
> I would not be able to listen to the screams of
> apathy.
> I would not be able to listen to the screeching
> silences.
> I would not be able to listen to things not spoken,
> but definite.
> DEAF, I wish I were.
> 
> (Coward
> Vulnerable
> Fragile
> Guilty)
> 
> CUT TO BANGALORE PUBLIC TRANSPORT
> 
> Where else do you get the flavour of the city but
> for its public
> transport! I started to do a jaunt on the Bangalore
> buses. The lines of
> gender division are clear in here. The front portion
> of the bus is for the
> women, the rear for the men. On my first trip on the
> BMTC bus, I happened
> to get pushed to the rear side when a man, himself
> squashed, said to me in
> Kannada to move ahead because that’s the place for
> women.
> 
> The ladies section was crowded to the core. ‘Solpa
> solpa,’ ‘little,
> little’, they kept saying. Little to me implied
> space, just a little
> space, push a bit, shove a bit, twitch a bit, solpa,
> solpa, little,
> little.
> 
> I now equate solpa, solpa to mean space, a little
> space. And I think
> that’s where my city and Bangalore city are
> positioned today, positioned
> at solpa, solpa, a little space – inch, centimeter,
> millimeter, solpa,
> solpa. The city has been a space of conflict,
> everyone fighting for
> territory, space and economic holding. There will
> definitely be no
> situation where there is no conflict. I notice
> conflict in Bombay’s local
> trains and there will always be. Women fight for
> water at the standposts
> and there is conflict but violence happens when
> access is denied, when the
> space, solpa, solpa, becomes difficult to reach to.
> There is no question
> for adjust maadi then. And I guess this is what is
> happening in our cities
> today. The conflict seems to have escalated and is
> assuming proportions of
> violence. The space for ‘adjust maadi’ is getting
> scarce as we stand on
> the edges, the brinks of precarity where violence is
> absolutely imminent.
> A little spark and the next thing I know will be
> Tottering, standing, wavering, tottering, falling.
> 
> As I write the above words, the transition that I
> see from conflict to
> violence, it will seem like I am talking of a
> prophetic doom, as if
> violence were imminent and the futures of our cities
> have been already
> written. But I must reassert that our futures are
> not written so
> completely. Today I feel angry, apathetic, dejected,
> pessimistic, but at
> every moment, some spaces get carved out, some
> stories get enacted on the
> stage of the urban and the script just gets altered.
> The drama is
> upturned, four feet crouched on the stomach.
> 
> THE END.
> 
> Claimer: I hereby take responsibility for the above
> words which may appear
> patronizing, emerging out of a sense of guilt,
> disregarding
> 
=== message truncated ===



		
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