Streets are the soul of any city. Walking on the streets of Calcutta for eg. Is like losing yourself in your old family album discovered quite accidentally from the attic. Your walk is not just slow and leisurely, you actually stop at points, savouring the sepia tones of the city, its crowds only part of the group photo, its dust only the dust flying off the album. That is the soul of the city. It is in a time wrap – in its most romantic sense. Its not stopped or decaying. It is just continuing to move within the same dimension – like listening to an old song that you don’t mind listening again and again. And then suddenly a gem from the past, a sight of an old book long forgotten, and the warm glow in your heart – when the ripe bossoms of nostalgia crush themselves over your chest. Walking in Paris is a lot like walking in Calcutta. There is the essential past that really is playing in front of you with the patina of the present almost there to ridicule itself. Walking in paris or watching the city pass in front of you as you sip your café au lait you see how Calcutta and Paris share the same soul. I think its really the sensuality of the energy of both cities. The sensuality that expresses itself in Paris in its art, cinema and the soft flicks of the cusine on your tongue. In Calcutta, its in the languid strain of its Rabindra sangeet, the passion of the bargaining in the fish market and the sudden rush of your lover’s sweet saliva as you bit into a rasgulla. HongKong is slow and languid.l You could call it Calutta. But Hongkong has no passion. The Streets are full of people. No one’s in a hurry. But there is a blandness to the walking. The neons flashing and the plasmas screaming don’t help. All the props seem helpless against the quiet mass of sleepy people that throng the streets. Its frustrating. Why is this city so expressionless? Is this a curse by some dragon princess? Or has the coldness of the skyscrapers in glass and steel seeped deep into bones turning their blood into mineral water and emotions into diet passion? Washington DC and New Delhi, as slow but with a difference. You cant miss the cold power in the under currents. Here’s a slowness of secure power. Like a quiet purr of a Jaguar. People as warm as cadavers greeting you with the temperature of a morgue and social behavior as efficient as a philharmonic. Even sex would be as per position # 23 of the Manual. In Hong Kong, it would be position #23 too, but there would be people assisting. New York and Bombay are pure sex. The energy hits you as you embrace into the city. There is an unexpectedness in New York and Bombay. No rules. And the promise of some adventure that gets your heart thudding. Its just the way you walk on the street. Fast. Very fast. And its not laboured. Its just the sheer excitement – a mix of taboo, a large dash of power, and the sheer freedom of anonymity that New York and Bombay gives you. You can just be your self. These cities don’t judge. They don’t even care you exist. Yet you know that your heartbeat has added to the city’s heartbeat. Your are part of it yet its not imposed on you. The city wraps itself around you, so you and the city have both an independent and a combined persona. Unlike the langorous sensuality of Cal and Paris where there is a suspended desire at the hem of each skirt or the sari pallu, in New York its very vocal. No stolen kisses or a careless caress of the breast tip here – its like mouth jabbing kisses and crotch grinding, frantic and instant gratification – like a pit stop in an F1.
