TOS - mapping exercise

Place: Ashok Nagar, West Delhi, New delhi, 110018

1,2,3…..it is very hard to count the number of streets, you can surely forget about knowing exactly the number of houses and, the number of people is just totally OUT OF QUESTION! I have never really been able to define the boundaries of this place; I know there is a certain distance to which I feel safe and then suddenly its another zone. However, this feeling of safety is also not constant through all the 'edges', some directions it reduces gradually, and the other sudden and stark.

It is easy to find more than 500 'Ahuja' families living here. Every time I take a walk am sure to greet at least 20 'namastes'  and 'sat sri akals' (the sikh greeting). There is a continuous opportunity to work here, although the quality of life is not guaranteed. There are hospitals and clinics here, although good infrastructure is not guaranteed.  It really is a poor settlement, where most of the people somehow became rich with time. I know, I have always looked down at the development level of this place, probably because of the infrastructural detail that I have been subjected to in my early years. However, there is still something that makes me never want to leave this place. I wonder if it is 'just' the sense of belonging or is there more to it. There are more gurudwaras and temples here than there were in the entire of Moscow. I have heard a lot of people say that growing up in different countries gives you a larger perspective; they might probably be right, but what it also does is confuses you to where exactly you belong. Yet, there is something about this specific place that I can just so easily and quickly relate to.

My relatives have lived here for over two generations and by now we have everything 'personalized', from a family doctor to a family gurudwara. These are the places where I might not know the people, but they would all not only know my name, but all about me and my family. Its funny how the local landmark is a SWEET SHOP, it definitely says something about the people. Also, with the developing Delhi, Ashok Nagar has developed too. Now there is a metro access in a five minute walking distance from my house. Such transport and connectivity shakes the whole concept of boundaries for areas like these. Within breaths you reach an area which is named different, but still looks exactly the same. Although, there is some deep mystery or psychological understanding that makes this other place FEEL different. It might be strange, but I can never figure out this imaginary border line. Despite the many homes I have had in many different countries, I know for fact, that no place else have I felt the way I feel down here at Ashok Nagar. 

EVOLUTION OF CITY (Sandeep Ahuja, Sumati Mattoo)

 

http://rapidshare.com/files/427093614/LUCKNOW.pptx

True Urbanization by Sandeep Ahuja

The travails of URBANISATION by Sumati Mattoo

Invisible Cities by Sumati Mattoo

REVIEW - INVISIBLE CITIES by Italo Calvino

Done by : Sumati Mattoo



The meaning of the Invisible cities is to be found not merely in Polo's words, but between words; not in things, but between things.


In 'Invisible Cities', Italo Calvino deals with the major crises of contemporary cities. Creating an imaginary world, the author seeks to delineate man's creative genius and to emphasise the complex challenges posed by our concept of modern cities. 


The author devises an allegorical world set in the reign of the Tartar emperor Kublai Khan, who establishes a relationship with Marco Polo, the great Venetian merchant. In this book, Khan expresses his tiredness of the stories brought to him by his messengers across the empire. Only the stories told by Polo, of the cities that he traversed during his travels, keep him interested.


The book consists of fifty-five extremely short city descriptions, embedded within an intellectual duel between Polo and Khan.
Marco Polo talks of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities.
Each city described by polo, bears a beautiful and arcane feminine name : Eudoxia, Zaira, Chole, etc. However, the imaginary cities do not appear on any of Khan's maps, nor it is clear if they exist in the past, present, or future.


These cities are rarely built of bland bricks and mortar. They are full of aluminium springs, silver domes, crystal, bronze, seashells, high bastions, curved arcades, nets, banisters, awnings, dirigibles, globes, pagodas, gratings, garrets, pilings, verandahs, parapets and porphyry steps. The cities are seldom peopled with characters, other than transitory ones, no plots, no events, but only timeless patterns in this metafictional narrative.
Although each of the nine thematic captions has five variations, every individual city has its own characteristic. At first, the cities are described in a positive vein, but gradually they become places of vice, decay and self destruction.


Even though Khan insists, Polo never talks about his own city, Venice. He only talks about strange, magical, invisible cities that nobody else ever saw.
And yet, Khan cannot avoid the feeling that by telling him about those nonexistent places, Polo does describe, bit by bit, the city they both really think of.
The cities symbolically represent themes such as love, death and our relationship with technology. At times, they also reflect our unattainable anxieties or desires.
But in the end, it could be concluded that whenever Polo spoke about all the other cities, he merely presents shadows, images, or replicas of his city, Venice.


While the entire novel until the final pages avoids preachy judgments and instead only hints slyly at the positive and negative aspects of our cities, the final snippet of dialogue between Polo and Khan is more direct. 
The book is set as an adventure of the mind, as a mathematical construction, that at the end leads to hours of pondering.
Despite its brevity, the book takes days to read -- at least, when read properly. After each story you have to stop; to think; to contemplate on the piece of poetry-in-prose that you have just encountered.
If you like plot-driven, rattling yarns then you’ll probably be disappointed. If you enjoy being amazed by extraordinary scenery and ideas fabricated with words then I think you’re more likely to be enchanted by Invisible Cities. 

Invisible cities, review by Sandeep Ahuja

The Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, explores various themes of life, death, love and desire within the descriptions of cities that young Marco Polo gives to Kublai Khan, king of Tartar. Kublai Khan realizes that his empire has now grown too vast to be governed properly as he calls it the ‘endless formless ruin’; he believes that the inferences he takes from the different existing lands as narrated by Polo would help to save the kingdom. Thus begins the account of fifty five short descriptions put together in eleven categories.

It is evident that the cities that Marco Polo describes are surreal when reflected upon literally. However, at a metaphorical level, these cities, these people, these places exist. Calvino uses these imaginary cities to explore a rather realistic generalization about urban life. The cities that Marco Polo describes are then discussed in the dialogue between him and Kublai Khan to give the reader a more firm ground for understanding. It is for the reader to not get lost in the depiction of each city, but rather understand the functioning of all cities; how they emerge, the ideology with which they run, how they collapse. 

Calvino uses Marco Polo’s travels in the various cities to explore themes like desire and how desire leads to destruction in some cases. Despite the sly and subtle references in various city descriptions, this idea is explored literally in the account of Zobeidi. This is the city that formed as a consequence of various men chasing the same dream of an imaginary woman. However Calvino reveals how this rampant desire leads to nothing but an ‘ugly city’, a ‘trap’.

Another interesting theme that Calvino explores is that of communication. Towards the beginning, Kublai Khan and Marco Polo are incapable of speaking the same language; yet they manage conversation based on expressions, gestures and actions. It can be seen that Calvino tries to reveal that we are all the same. Despite the differences in country, language or religion, we all have similar needs and requirements. We are all capable of understanding each other without the presence of any level of advancement like language. 

The final city that is described contains layers within layers of alternating micro cities; these alternate between just and unjust. Here Calvino explores the idea that despite a society being unfair and evil, it can be converted in a better, more positive society when nurtured from within. When relating this to our world, we realize that we are already living in an unjust world, and this brief description of Polo gives a hope of a better society to emerge.