City and I – re-learning what freedom is

Gauri Parasher Joshi

much as one would like to think of what form tomorrow’s city could morph into, the present is such a tangle of information and vibes, numbers and goals that the city of today must carry the rather heavy burden of deciding to mould itself dynamically. Thankfully, the incessant onslaught of procedures and objectives that the residents of the city happily and compulsorily occupy themselves with, do not influence the city so thoroughly that it descends, like them, into a frenzy of flux. The city is stable in its present and tolerant of the swirls of information that form and break-up within it. And this is a blessing, really. For it means that the city can take a moment off during the summer’s noon-time heat and during the promise of showers that the rush of evening breeze brings and look at itself, as one would in a mirror. It means that the city can attempt to respond to the latent bio-psyche-social needs of its residents for it has decided happily to stay out of the intricate mesh that its residents hold over themselves, thus blocking out clean white light from the free blue sky.

Among the numerous things that the city holds out for the convenience and recreation of its residents and visitors, there appears to be a gap. A couple of years ago, a programme on an international news channel covered the springing up of pottery studios in a south-east Asian country where people of every description could come and for a fee, mould a thought out of clay. An analysis of the footfall showed that it was men and women that came in after work and allowed the taut stresses of the day to dissolve lazily, sometimes beautifully, always organically into forms that were born free and could stand up to the restricting mesh of stress that has begun to define the lives of city folk.

So, today’s city has that moment to look at its present and determine its future. And in this precious space, we the residents, who, try as we might, cannot ever be entirely divorced from the life of the city, have our opportunity. A chance to enliven the moribund process of our work lives, to write a story, mould a toy, dabble in colour, meditate, to spark the imagination so that it douses the algae-like spread of ennui. To an extent, a gym and a café serve individual and social purposes not unlike the pottery studio. However, both are oriented towards results. The gym, to a healthier body through an expiration of energy, and the café, to a balanced social life through fulfilling the need for company. It would not be far-fetched to say that the pottery studio aims to satisfy a mental need. But that would contradict its purpose. The idea is to let go without being entirely Bohemian about it, to not judge what form the clay in your hands has taken. To leave behind what you’ve created and be comfortable with the thought that form may dissolve to amorphousness and may re-form through another mind, another pair of hands. Perhaps just as we do - particles coalescing into form and scattering to the winds to re-group and pen another script.

But who is to make use of this moment and create a space that enables, that permits a de-stressing, that allows one to discover that one may actually have a hobby? Just the other day, while talking about the lives of exceptional people, my father said the famous scientist, Edison, believed that the answer to a question lay within the question itself. The city awaits its venture entrepreneurs who will come to the rescue of harried city folks and effect solutions from within the city’s life. It isn’t a novel idea anymore but then, we are not looking for points this time – just to live in ways that help us know freedom.