City doesn’t change in one shot. There are layers of development/ degradation. Say, the roads never change or are lightly modulated. Then the religious structures which rarely change, the civic buildings/ public structures, then the single buildings, houses, street lanterns and benches.
All these elements which constitute the city are set into a certain hierarchy. Growing in the countryside small town of Panvel, which slowly turned into a suburb and then the part of the newly formed city of Navi Mumbai and now almost a gateway, it has been an interesting transition of which I was lucky to be a part of. Things were slowly eradicated, modulated, transformed and induced. Panvel changed a lot in a couple of decades.
I remember the Rotary Circle and Shivaji statue changing over the time, appraised or neglected depending upon political issues and powers. I remember the place getting converted from a street bazaar to a full fledged market and then the market getting eradicated, the large villa across the street converted into a multi-use building with the best showrooms in town. Still the roads are the same, the temples, the post office, government offices, health facilities and the railway stations (of course with the new horrendous inverted pyramidal roof extension) have more or less remained the same. I really cant imagine how much my place will change by the time I finally return.
The only thing I can bet upon is the character of the city, which has transformed but has its roots which mark their presence. The settlements without zoning, the industrial area still out of the city on the other side of the national highway, the relation to the lakes, the placement of the crematories, the framing of the mountains and the ‘main-street’ – Shivaji Road, as in most cities in the Marathi speaking state have all had a long process in establishment. We’ve lost the amrais but still I can sense them as I walk past the buildings built over. The trails we used to run over as kids playing hide and seek are now paved alleys between the cluster of buildings. I see them transform.
Its an irony though that I sit here writing this in a country which is young, ordered and already old. America is like ‘Auro” in “PAA’ – It has grown too old too quick. It skipped the culture, the process, the reason behind the sprawling character it is known for today. A European friend of mine made a bizarre comment on this country comparing it with ‘yogurt’- According to him, if yogurt is kept unattended by outside world without any interference for 200 years, the yogurt develops its own culture!
The reason behind writing this was not bitching about America as it turns out to be. It was an attempt to recall the image of the streets I grew upon, the alleys I played in and the ever-changing house I dwelt in. It is necessary to move out of the box, way far from it to look at it from a different perspective. I’m lucky to get this chance to do it early enough in my life.
Places are toxic!
