A Song of Silence
It was the monsoon of 2002, when I visited Mandu, located in Madhya Pradesh State of India, covered in the lush green landscape of nature, was the perfect time to experience one of the oldest cities in India. A ruined city, which was once one of the largest walled cities in the world, was telling the story of its magnificent times through its remaining stones and bricks. Walking around in those ruins, one could only imagine the life that once existed. The city now stands lifeless and silent. But the ruins seem to be singing a song of their past glory today. Looking at those ruins, made me think how a city lives through generations, centuries, and millennia, and still stands there to tell the story of people who build, once lived there, and are long gone!
The city is now largely deserted with occasional tourists at popular monuments like palaces, mosques, and open park spaces that are conserved and maintained. When I was walking around taking pictures of the architectural style and elements of the monuments, I saw a few local people, probably from the surrounding village. When I looked at them, it made me stop there for a while as I felt the place was saying something to me. Everything seemed to be in harmony with each other – the monument, people, trees, grass, and the sky. Everyone in this picture seemed at peace with themselves. The lady climbing the grandiose steps of the monument, looked as if she was climbing the steps to the sky. The lady hidden in her green sari, just perfectly in harmony with the green nature around, seemed busy in her own world. The old man in a red turban, though looking poor in health, seemed to be thinking something without bothering to look at me when I was standing in front of him with the camera. The young man with a parked cycle seemed to be taking a break on his journey. It felt as if the place was silent and standstill, yet saying something.
The poverty of local people living in the surrounding area was seen quite evident without much economic activity in the place. It was an experience to see the gloriously built physical city with fine architecture still standing there without its own residents, singing a song of its success, prosperity, and power. But the city is no more living. It is dead, which was once called a ‘City of Happiness’ – Anand Nagari (Source, Wikipedia).
This made me question many aspects of building a city – the physical city vs. building the life of people who actually make the city a living organism. How much of the physical city was built? Cities and civilizations are built at the pinnacle of their economic success, representing their power to the world. But should there be a physical size of a city that limits the growth boundaries or should there be an endless building and extension of the urban world? How much of the total resources be invested in building the physical infrastructure vs. building the quality of life of people living in the city. According to the happiness index that ranks the happiest cities, the biggest cities in the world with skyscrapers and large infrastructure are not topping the chart. So, what should be our goal – build bigger magnificent cities competing in the global world and/or happier cities providing a better quality of life to the people? Is there a correlation between the two? And if there is one, is it directly proportional or inversely proportional? I feel a true challenge lies in determining this equation of building shiny global physical cities and/or building the quality of life of the people in the cities.
Looking at this picture, I felt the simplicity of people and nature. Though I am not sure about the reference to Mandu as a City of Happiness was just a representation to its economic prosperity in the past or the happiness of its people, I felt the people I saw there looked to be at much peace and closer to nature. Happiness is relative and qualitative which is very difficult to be determined through quantitative parameters like economic numbers. I am also not sure how far the people in Mandu are happy today, but I certainly felt a sense of calmness in the people I saw there. Life seemed much rooted in nature without the complexities of the urban world. The silence that filled the place was singing a song of the beauty of the past and the present.
Thinking back of my trip to Mandu makes me feel sometimes all we need is to break away from our giant urban world to look for the answers to our questions. Here, it was the ruins of the city that were telling some kind of a story to me. A trip to Mandu with a few of my close friends still remains one of my personal favorites, and this picture still takes me back to it all over again after so many years!