Soul of a city

In the short course of my professional existence, I have had a chance to visit and perhaps experience ( latter is still debatable) a few till now unexplored cities. Huge masses of man and land, of machine and sweat, of the poor and the filthy rich. Some of extravagance and some of extraneously limited means. Places with innumerable stories and experiences, all held together by the common acknowledgment of the stage but not of the co-actors. That is to say the city is the common thread running across these stories, which although individual and independent in their own, but attached to each other like a pack of domino sticks. Each stand alone, but failure or success of one is not complete without a similar or an opposite effect on the other.

This is what inspires the characteristic mannerisms to the popula of a city. A common/ shared impression that is not just present in their appearances or tongue but in the very outlook and thought, with which they measure life. That which tells of this, is the soul or at times the ghost of a city.

The uninspiring, dull, but unique air of Kolkata;the restless run that befalls the city of Mumbai, a place of profession and not of personal, a city with immense humane potential and tender care but a non-existent need for the same, a city of smells ( a new and different combination of the materials on every step), of the glamourous faces lacking any sense of beauty ( at least the way I define it) for plastic it is, without a genuine personal care for the other, of missing emotions that got lost someway in the sprint for perception, of a bindass city with a grievous under belly of immense hard work and sacrifices, of locals and that of "thamba" with a couple of "kasakai"s thrown in, a city which seems indifferent but presents itself for a rescue act everytime one's required.

The un disturbed city of Ahmedabad, of " Sadi sajjad ki Jaali" and the Thakkurdas haveli, of the Green House and the amazingly scrumptuous traditional delicacies, of the Sabarmati and the fresh breeze blowing on the Nehru bridge at night, the large-than-life experience of IIM, of the reminiscence of the places visited with friends, of the beautiful girl, witty intelligent and personal yet distant as she is now. Of mostly uninspiring and partly interesting city with tumultuos record of past experiences which at first seem totally unlikely to have happened in a city with no scope of a soul.

The amazing personal life of Delhi, the city where I was born and came to be, of a city with myriad display of life and all that surrounds it, of a precious place where I can no longer bear to be at, of my family and friends, of all the firsts of my life. The brilliant and eventful city that Delhi is, it still is too personal to write a true account of.

The three cities expose their souls, waiting to be found and understood. while the account waits for more cities and many more further accounts to be added to it.

And that is what I look forward to, to be able to experience and witness the cities, to relate to the souls of life, that they are.