“We sat, an easy generation, in houses held to be indestructible (Thus we built those tall boxes on the island of Manhattan and those thin aerials that amuse the Atlantic swell) / Of those cities will remain what passed through them, the wind,” says Bertolt Brecht in one of his poems about modern cities.

We see all around us mushrooming of new residential colonies which can be described as something eerily odd, something that is between city and non-city in the sense of it being neither inheriting the ethos of a city nor that of a town in the socio-cultural sense.

New housing societies with pompously funny sounding names are hastily-baked products of mutually profitable collusion between state officials and property sharks who happily exploit the burgeoning populations. Added factor is the migration of people in search of better life from countryside to urban and peri-urban areas. The land is bought cheap and after developing it, real estate developers make a quick buck by selling it at an exorbitant price.

Two distinct groups usually buy properties, one from the highly congested existing cities and other from rural areas. They seem to be polar opposites in their way of living and cultural habits but are compelled by the force of socio-economic conditions to live in new environments in unsettling close proximity. Both the groups carry deeply embedded values and social habits of their respective communities which are specific and sadly appear to contradict each other as they are outcome of different conditions. Both the groups when lumped together face an uncomfortable situation; they are at loss how to measure up each other. Thus they are clueless as how to interact with each other socially and culturally. The urban suave find the people from rural regions “paindu” which literally means people from the villages but carries a sense of superiority insinuating rough manners and low level cerebral activities of rural folks.

High decibels of villagers’ voices, for example, make them cringe inside. Their own voices rise several decibels when they lose patience with the noise made by their neighbours’ rustic servants that grates on their nerves. The servants freshly planted in an urban landscape naturally are given to talk loudly. The rural setting with its large open spaces perhaps makes such a habit natural. But in new urban dwelling it may sound as lack of culture as it’s believed that it adds to the already existing high level noise pollution that weighs down heavily on urban mind. New settlers from rural areas have equally grave misgivings about living with ‘shehri babus’ (urban men working in offices) who appear to them as cold, indifferent, detached and westernised. They wrongly allow their women, it’s alleged, to dress in western way and are to an extent devoid of caste affiliations.

So in more ways than one both the groups suffer from the cultural gap that exists between them due to their diverse backgrounds. The one is fed up with what it thinks is rural idiocy and the other can’t stand what it tends to take as urban snootiness. The situation creates social distance like a gaping hole between the two which is otherwise not an essential fallout of coming together of different groups. It creates conditions which inescapably lead to what may be described as social loneliness. The groups concerned live in a close proximity in the same locality but fail to generate social interaction and cultural dialogue essential for a sense of potent togetherness in human society. They see each other and yet fail to see, they feel each other’s presence and yet fail to feel. They live in a state of dormant connectivity which means trying to survive in an unending season of suspended animation. Specific normative behaviour of each group makes it estranged from the other forcing them into a zone of inarticulate communication.

But primeval human urge is self-expression through the activities of individuals and groups. How disparate social groups in our new urban localities struggle to retain their human strain when faced with the dual threat of bondless connectedness and bond without connectedness? They feel compelled to fall back on what they: their recent past that is treated as coveted treasure as well as useless jetsam and flotsam.

People moving from proper city limits either go back to their old localities or invite relatives and friends to their new residences for social and cultural activities. The people of other group with roots in towns and countryside do similar activities: they either go back to their old localities or invite people from there to their new residences. The end result is the stifling insularity that turns community life into self-imposed exile surrounded by self-induced barren silence. That’s perhaps why life in new urban localities is dry and infertile in creative terms. The situation impregnated with social meaninglessness is exacerbated by the present absence of what makes community life meaningfully productive: playgrounds, parks, libraries, theatres, cinema halls and above all public squares. All such spaces create neutral avenues accessible to all. Our modern residential areas have no such facilities which are essential for collective activities.

In the West, social and cultural landscapes don’t show any traces of loneliness as they are replete with creative activities and excitement. They are in, modern parlance, happening places. There loneliness is one of the outcomes of sensibility and behaviour of developed and conscious individuals. No doubt other socio-economic factors also play an important role. But here we simply have persons with egos devoid of individuality. A 50-year-old guy would love to be dictated by elders of his family and clan while taking any significant step. People with diverse backgrounds in new urban spaces must remember that they cannot go back and if they do, they will pay the cost in not having the social organism compatible with contemporary human needs. Our urban planners need also be warned. If they persist in building cities like these, they should remember: of these cities “will remain what passed through them, the wind.” 

— soofi01@hotmail.com