Symbiotic City

This is a view from my apartment of NYC at night with the half moon in all its glory.

Currently I am reading a book called Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino :

There is a chapter Cities and Memories. Paraphrasing from that - It describes what a city really is :

"I could tell you how many steps make up the streets rising like stairways, and the degree of the arcades' curves, and what kind of zinc scales cover the roofs: but I already know this would be the same as telling you nothing. The city does not consist of this but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past : the height of a lamppost and the distance from the ground of a hanged usurpers swaying feet: the line strung from the lamppost to the railing opposite and the festoons that decorate the course of the queen's nuptial procession; the height of the railing and the leap of the adulterer who climbed over it at dawn...."

Like in any great city or town, its identity is not only its physical structure but the very people residing there, their dreams, aspirations and fears which ultimately dictate the outcome of how they perceive their home to be.

I write this because in the past few weeks, there have been lots of blogs that mentioned about why many people did not like Slumdog Millionaire - as it is based on marketing of the poverty of Bombay or India per se. But that is the most visually tangible aspect of our country where inspite of these great economic divide - each of us is allowed to dream to make it big in our own little way - it is the celebration of this co-existence and freedom that shapes the very spirit of the city of Bombay that is brilliantly captured in the movie.

I understand that many people feel that the West markets the poor -

there are two reasons -

one they have plenty here in terms of material wealth but there is a dearth of communal feeling here - its each for his own

and secondly they are unbiased and this allows them to be bold and show it as IS rather than put a glossy make up or shy away from reality.

Another book the dwells into this subject brilliantly is -

Shantaram - by Gregory David Roberts - it elucidates the experience of coexistence and how the city makes a person and in turn these collective groups of persons define the very nature of its existence. I

It is a symbiotic realm of mutual give and take.

Another picture Midtown Manhattan taken from a park on the cliff in West New York, New Jersey. Sitting in this park its fascinating to see the accomplisment of this urban jungle.