Tinted glass,height,traffic jams,cheap foods,boxes of light etc etc and a sleepy neighbourhood

Naked aristocracy: I discovered the most wonderful characteristics of city poor...the aristocratic spirit that had vanished from the houses of the rich and had moved to the homes of the impoverished.The wonderful morality within the family where rules are respected and sacrifices made.Since then, I have always found it easy to recognize that aristocratic spirit,knowing that in the west, poverty was an embarrassment,but here and in Balcans it's an expression of suffering.

-Emir Kusturica



Now when i return home from the bus stop,the street is covered with lights from the South City shopping mall.The mall is separated from the street only by a wall.The wall was there ever since i can remember,but now it is reinforced and for that the old trees kneeling on the wall were no more and there (probably) promised substitute trees are growing somewhere in that side of the wall.The nights have become small and more illuminated in this once upon a time colony.It starts late with people at last retiring to there houses but all night long people can be heard walking by the streets or riding their automobiles.Once my friends used to get amazed to find a place like this with pond,trees and silence so near to the main road.


The work in the residence portion of South City is yet to be completed and people are yet to fill in.More people!To accommodate more people they are crammed inside vertical spaces,but it is not thought that they operate in horizontal spaces,which is more or less constant.The building is approximately 36 stories high.At night small rectangular illuminated windows are visible arbitrarily over a dark background.Some windows covered with tinted glass or plastics and radiate lights of different colors.Paying attention one can make out that interior work is in progress inside the flats.Occasionally sparks from welding work flow from them or small human shapes can be made out.The huge dark background can be made out only because of the natural nocturnal lights marking its boundary.The dark shape eats upon the stars,moonlight,sunshine or anything within its range.The storm gets too tired to cross it and even if it does,it becomes too tired or weak.Sometimes when i look there,it looks like our horizon was no more a curved one anymore,but has become a vertical one.


Its common that with something big in size other things will follow.Hundreds of make shift stalls mushroomed within no time.Probably their compound sale is more than that of South City in quantity.Any drainage system was the first desired position for making these stalls.These stalls improved peoples' digestive power.They unwillingly learned to digest anything.The road choked to make place for the pedestrians,taxi stands,auto-rickshaw stands,rickshaw stands,private cars,buses etc..It was not long that people started to explore shortcuts to avoid traffic jams and found them thorough the skinny banished inside routes.


Recently i have noticed two "pagols"(lunatics).They were not here before.Now they roam the streets on their own accord and curse whoever they dislike.You may miss a brightly attired person among the crowd,but you are sure to take notice of them.


Power cuts were there in our neighborhood.Probably the sudden huge consumption of electricity by South City,made power cut more regular.But who is complaining?South City relied on back ups.When ever there was a power cut may it be in the middle of a hot summer afternoon or in the middle of a sport,you can go to the South City.South City was ready with Air-Conditioning and a huge TV.When i was younger i remember those excitements of going to a movie hall or shopping mall etc..Just a walk on the strip of road between Park Street and Esplanade was so exciting with all its masses.Maybe the distance also increased the enjoyment.Now South City have diluted them for me,taken away the rush.People at first start going their just to explore the huge thing which has come to stay in their neighbourhood and slowly get lost there.


Once i saw in an article from a print media talking about the introduction of South City and other malls into a "sleepy neighbourhood".All these years i was unaware of the fact that our neighbourhood was a sleepy one.But it was spacious and silent,with pond,trees,small buildings.Something that large both horizontally and vertically was like something from the sci-fi stories or films.It is sure to change many things.One thing which has already changed is the bus stop,both by its name and position.It got a sophisticated,modern name in place of its previous embarrassing one and it moved a bit closer to South City shopping mall from its previous place.



[picture taken from the gate of my house]