What has happened to my city?

Oh! Its morning already, I hear somebody knocking on the door. It should be my hot tenant, returning from his nightly work. I lazily wiggle out of my bed and despite my eyes resistance, (he so hot that he throws off light) I have to open the door. As soon as I open the door, my Ravi walks in, bringing in with him innumerable beams of white, speculating rays that hurt my eyes, as if they will evaporate. The thought revulsions me but as my tenant walks in, I gaze out to let the morning breeze in my stressed lungs. I start smelling something, hearing something, thinking something. I want my senses to stop; all I want to do is to let the breeze in and everything else out. But I can’t help it. I smell the vehicles, I smell fire, I smell waste, I smell something bad, bad enough to spoil morning view. I gaze out at my city, expecting to see the plush greenery, people exercising, old hags going out walking in a big cluster, the newspaperwala cycling with a speed of light, the milkman arguing with my neighbor on the ratio of milk and water in his product, the temple aarti taking place, the children going to school and everything happy that there can be in a morning. But what it is that I see here. I see the mobile tower on my neighbor’s terrace, emitting the money-giving and life-taking radiations. I see concrete structures, grey hard life-less structures. Well that’s all I can see except the stray animals yawning their life out. But where are the people, I guess hiding out in their respective grey fortresses, with a thought of completeness. What has happened to my city? It’s felt so strange but now it feels so normal, like breathing.

My city is bifurcated by a river, or you could say a pre-existent river which now a nullah. The nullah doesn’t flow, it is stagnant and you could say dead just like our conscious. I always thought of a river as crystal-clear water, running with all its heart as if she’s got a date. But now I realize that my city has a blackish-green, nefarious river, same as our souls. But I think that my holy mother is sick. I will surely take her to the doctor. I take her to the doctors and instead of treating her with all sorts of medicine and all, they tell me to stay away and watch. I am horrified by what I see. They enclose her in a coffin and build upon her pride, more humungous grey, lifeless structures. My mother is now trapped in the dark and forgotten. She still flows with all her might to get out but now like a widow going to the pyre and finally she jumps into the earthly fire and now is nowhere to be seen. The thought is disturbing. What has happened to my city? I feel dry without my mother.  Now nobody is there to quench my city’s thirst for love. My city lost a mother today.

My city has tarred-scars on his whole body. As I touch them, it makes me cry, I cannot help it. I pour my heart out on its bosom. I rest my head on his chest, tears trickle down my face, finally settling on one of his scabs. I believe that my empathy might help him get better. But it doesn’t. The scars have been widened too many times and now they cover almost all of his body that my miniscule sorrowful concern cannot help. The marks were re-done many a times and slowly as the time moved they became scars. They are too deep to fade. Now they burn my city’s Nawabi heart. What has happened to my city?

My city slept in comfort all these years. All these years he had enough space and nothing to worry about. Everything was the way it should be. But just then on a dark stormy night, we exploded. And the next morning it was just too many of us. My city had to stretch. My city had to break his boundaries. My city had to acquire something that was not his. My city over grew. Just for our sake. So that we would not fall short of anything. People stoned him for his actions, hurled abuses at him. But it was the fatherly affection that made him do so; his love blinded him and spoiled us. My city overgrew its clothes. After sometime the clothes were torn as they could not bear the ever-increasing pressure. My city became naked. But its love never made him feel ashamed. He found a prize in his nudity. Our happiness. What happened to my city?   

My city not only accommodated lakshaman but also inherited the mythological heroes’ traits. My city gave up his everything, even his existence and followed his fellow mates into the jungle of change and development, which was full of doubts and mysterious jeopardies. But when he came out after the long revolutionary period of time, he did look changed. He looked shabby with a long beard and the marks on his body. But to hide this people made him wear a garb as they were ashamed of him. All they did was to accuse him for his incompetence and cursing him for lagging behind while the others made it. but they never realized that he did all this for us. He did this to meet our expectations and to rise to our standard. But my city never made his standards fall down. We did. And slowly and slowly we sank below the titanic and finally settled in hell. This made a vast difference between us and my city. So as we say “Bade ko jhukna padta he” and my city did so. He knelt down, straining his knees, again for us. A city is not its monuments, its history, its culture as each of them can be interpreted and changed. It is its’ people that make up a city. What has happened to us?