Fast Travel through Fleeting Memory of Losing Place…

 

Chennai, 12^th May 2024: My 85 years old Dad was visiting the new house we have moved into. On a Sunday morning, he agreed to accompany me to my weekly meditation session as it will give him an opportunity to visit the nearby temple as well.  This meant getting to the ‘’metro’’ -  underground and elevated train in parts – changing from blue to green line in between and then taking a short autorickshaw ride.

Like most people of his generation, he was unsettled by the escalator ride as it was unsteady for him, he also was not clear why they had a security check getting into a train station. When scanned the QR code from my phone for the gate entry he was curious as to where I need to buy tickets. I told him that I bought the ticket as we were coming from home to the station using my phone and it was already in my phone.

The elevated platform after two levels of escalator ride dis-oriented him and he no longer knew which side of the road we were in. My trying to point to him the station names displayed inside the train was of no help. As someone who has spent all his life in the city, he knew not just every part of the old city, but, also the history and how it evolved. He found it interesting how some areas seem to have two stations though they are not too far while others had no stations at all. But, for most parts of the journey, he did what everyone else was doing in the train – watch his phone and keep swiping news out of it.

Then we had to switch from blue to green line.  I decided to use the elevator rather than the escalator, but, we had to go down two levels and walk across the concourse and climb one level. Though he knew the area where we were pretty well, the entire journey with no recognisable part of the place being visible was too much for him. When we eventually reached the destination station, he was like, ‘’where are we exactly?’’, as he could not recognize any known landmark and even the stepping out of the station only showed the other exit on the other side of the road.

All this changed when we boarded an autorickshaw on the way back. He could not stop talking about each one of the areas as we passed, ‘’this is close to the CMs house, does he live here now? this is the college isn’t it? I came here when they started, it used to be a large grove then! there used to be this theatre earlier in this place, now it has become a high rise! Wasn’t it this place where you learnt Japanese? …”, not once did he look at his smart phone.

I kept wondering at the two travels.

For an entire generation that grew up observing ‘’places’’ around them, every part of the city we live in is recognizable as history, evolution, activities, commerce, experiences and memories. They feel claustrophobic in sanitised environments of the metro where all that you watch is the faces of unsmiling people, bent over their mobile phones as the day light and tunnel light keep alternating outside with no impact on the lighting or sights inside the train, passing through memories at a speed that numbs your senses and inflicts an indifference towards all places.

Being the in-between generation that has watched this transition, I observed my own experience during these two travels – I was not averse to using the technology, I recognized each one of the locations through which we traversed though I could not see them visible as well as I have travelled out in the road below / above the metro rail system and had a fair idea which part of the land we were on at any point in time. I did not have historical knowledge of all the lands, though had some memories of places. I kept thinking of the youth who were travelling with us in the compartment staring at the videos in their phones, they may not share even what I do as relationship with the land. They were going from one place to another in the metro, everything else was a stop in between for others, nothing to know about, experience or care for.

We lose our connection to land and places every day with successive generations in the choice of life and living, we institutionalize some of these through where we live, how we travel and how we shop and consume as well. Lived life, its memories, histories, evolutions, and experiences all put together is but a fleeting image that buzzes fast through the window that we don’t even care to look.  Being conscious of these changes is to regain the sense of place that is required for a sustainable life. Travelling slowly is perhaps one of the first steps.