Zada : The Falling City
Zada, a city that you don't know how to enter, but once you do, you can never leave. It holds you there, and never lets you escape. It is a city on a wire, supported at two ends. What lies at those points, we do not know, because no one has ever been there, and the ones who have, never talk of it. The city balances on one fine wire, always teetering, threatening to fall off the edge. We see the people who walk of the solid roads with their seemingly solid foundations - a woman bargaining a business proposition on her cellular phone, a bunch of ruffians cackling about their latest achievements, a newly wed couple walking hand in hand and wondering what they have gotten themselves into, a street vendor striving to sell his wares so he may feed his starved family - these people have never seen the ends of the thin line they tread. Never known for sure whether it had ever begun failing. They live in ignorance of what happens at those ends. Yet, all of them - the businesswoman, the ruffians, the couple, and the hawker alike - they know the line won't hold forever. Rather than spending every waking moment in the fear of the end, they smile and laugh and cry and worry about the moment they are in, and all the while, keep praying that they won't be the ones who see the line fall. However, you will always meet one man, who with a cynical half-smile will look you in the eye and tell you, " It is frayed on both ends. It might fall at any moment, but that is what makes this moment worthwhile."
The City – A thread that connects them all
A walk through a kaleidoscope of visions, a plunge into the depths of a bottomless cliff, a experience of a multitude of sensations – How do you define the concept of a city? How do you describe the chaotic idea of the superfluous spaces that make up the essence of a city? A city, according to Oxford Dictionary has been defined as 'a large town created by means of a charter'. Even though the idea of a city evolved due to the need for convenient administration of human settlements, over time it has grown in its own fashion – a result of the mercurial nature of the human mind.
Today, the city holds a lot more significance than simply a physical division of boundaries. The city has a life of its own – a life that pours into it through the collective energy of its citizens. One could call it a confluence of the forces of its people, their thoughts, opinions, beliefs and ideas. Each person brings his own brand of zest into the integrated whole. A Synergy is created – one that holds the threads of the city together – lacking which the city would collapse onto itself.
Mumbai is one such city – a city born out of need, and transformed by its makers. What do a penniless beggar, a potbellied constable and a gout ridden millionaire have in common? They sleep mere feet from one another, breathe the same air and traverse the same pot holed streets. The enigma that they coexist within, continues to thrive as it has done so for centuries. What this phenomenon entails is something as banal and seemingly inconsequential as the city we live in. The 'essence' of our city constitutes many views, perceptions and opinions of an ever changing landscape. These form the basis for the imagery associated with the city. The city becomes a continuum.
